“If it’s not, I know where you live,” Rita teased with shrill giggle. Her smile turned foxlike as she looked at Angie. “We’re going to be such good friends. You’ve no doubt discovered that Harmony Falls attracts a very…special assortment of inhabitants, and we’re so glad to have you.”
For dinner, Angie’s mind added.
After the bell tinkled behind Lenore, Tea and Tarot got excruciatingly quiet. When had the workmen finished the window? Or had Rita told them to disappear? And was it her imagination, or did the redhead seem to be in constant motion, her hands moving and her weight shifting and her face muscles engaged in a subtle tug-of-war?
That pill must’ve been a humdinger, Angie mused, trying to keep her smile on straight. This wasn’t the smooth operator who’d marked Ross as her territory last night, or the vamp who’d stormed into her room that night. Those Ritas she could understand. Now she felt as though she’d entered the psych ward, only to hear the lock snick behind her. And there was no escape, at least until she’d endured whatever Rita dealt out with her cards.
“Uh…thanks, Rita,” she said. “Happy to be here.” Rita smiled slyly. “Shall we get cozy in my parlor?”
Nineteen
COME into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.
The back room of Rita’s shop had all the trappings of a movie set. A curtain of multicolored beads led into an alcove with a small round table draped in an ivory cloth. Shadows shifted on the walls with the flickering of three red pillar candles, and there was even a large crystal ball in the center of the table.
Angie took the chair across from Rita, clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. “So…fortune-tellers really do use crystal balls?” she asked, for want of anything sane to say. The background music did nothing to alleviate her sense of doom; the piercing violins sounded like fingernails scratching a blackboard.
Light and love, light and love, Angie reminded herself. She inhaled as deeply as the incense allowed, calling up every other mantra she knew. If God sees you to it, he’ll see you through it…to a life without limits. What would Lenore do?
She let out an unladylike snort. Lenore had wisely chosen a little retail therapy and a walk in the sunshine over hanging around in this dim, windowless room where the incense had been burning too long.
“What’s so funny?” Rita demanded in a sibilant whisper. “Surely Lenore has taught you that if you mock the cards, they’ll mock you in turn.”
“I wasn’t mocking. Just overcome by the, uh, aromatherapy.” Angie fanned herself with her hand, desperately seeking a way out of the room and the reading.
Your fresh energy is your best weapon, Lenore had said. Angie wasn’t sure how to access any of that, but it was a straw to grasp as Madam Rita handed her some loosely stacked cards. Why wasn’t she surprised to see the Deviant Moon deck with those repulsive mutant creatures? Did these images reflect Ms. McQueen’s mindscape, or had Madam Rita chosen this deck after watching her reaction? The deck was soft and pliable, a sign that it was often used.
“I like to read what I call a progressive spread. It’s a question-and-answer system I’ve devised to quickly get to the heart of the matter at hand.”
She made this up. Will make it all up as she goes along.
And that was the key, wasn’t it? This reading would only be as valid as she believed it to be. Angie swirled the cards around on the small tabletop. She tapped both sides of the deck to square it up.
“As you ask a question—or I ask you one—you shall choose a card for me to interpret. So…fan them out along the edge of the table. Let’s begin, shall we?” Let’s start with my fangs, and my claws will catch you later, her tone suggested.
While Angie did as Rita instructed, she saw Ross, Lenore, and Kyle in her mind’s eye. Good companions all, but they weren’t here, were they?
“What would you like to know, Angie? Ask a question and choose a card. I’ll interpret accordingly.”
Angie looked toward the beaded curtain, thinking. It seemed a heresy to ask a sincere question about the tarot itself, and she knew better than to mention Ross’s name. Best to choose a situation this devious woman knew nothing about. “What should I know about my parents?” she murmured.
“Would you care to clarify that question?” Rita asked as Angie laid a card faceup on the table.
Angie studied the card. It depicted a king and a queen being manipulated like marionettes, attached by strings to a full moon that had no eyes in its sockets. “Nope. I want the cards—and the reader—to speak intuitively.”
Rita’s mouth quirked. “The Moon. This suggests your parents were driven by external forces beyond their control—or at least used that as their excuse—and…well, the Latin root luna is where we get our word lunacy. Does that fit the situation you have in mind?”
It did describe two hormone-driven teenagers on a summer night, but Angie chose not to explain a situation that still felt highly private. Instead she asked quietly, “And what will result from our most recent revelations?”
Rita nodded toward the arc of fanned cards. “Something tells me you won’t like the answer.”
Indeed, the Three of Swords showed a three-legged, hu-manesque creature wearing a dark dress. Three swords were stuck through its back, protruding all the way through its red heart in the front.
“Disappointment and heartache,” the redhead predicted. “This situation will leave you feeling stabbed in the back by the three people you trusted most.”
Ross, Lenore, and Kyle? Mom, Daddy, and Gregg? Or did Elena figure in somewhere? The unbidden thoughts made Angie shift in her chair. How long would this edgy game of Twenty Questions continue, anyway? Who determined when it was over—and who’d won?
“My turn to investigate, using the cards you arranged with your personal energy. I want to know who is involved here.” Rita selected the Magician, a pale man with four arms, dressed as a court jester. “Oh, and we know who this represents, don’t we? The fellow whose hands are always busy and who works his very potent, enchanting magic on every woman he meets.”
How had Rita drawn that—and just in time to introduce the real subject that sizzled between them? When Angie snatched at the card, Rita mashed her hand against the table until she gave it up with a whimper.
The woman became still and focused. She leaned close, leveling her deadly green eyes at Angie. “Lenore’s probably fed you that line about the Law of Attraction, about sending out goodness and receiving it,” she said in a coiled voice. “But I live by the law of the jungle: eat or be eaten. Ross will always be mine.”
“No way! You don’t control him! Not anymore!” It wasn’t the spiritually correct thing to say, but this hardly felt like an enlightened moment. “My chart says I’ve come to Harmony Falls to live out my destiny with Ross, just like his chart—”
“Oh, that’s right. He’s been doing his numbers on you, just like he made you a star on his radio show.” Rita’s off-key cackle filled the little room. “That’s rich, Angie—and really stupid. You think he doesn’t reel ’em in with that line everywhere he goes?”
“This is different! So don’t think for a minute that I’ll tuck my tail and run.” Angie rose from her chair, sensing she had nothing to gain from staying, not when she was alone on Rita’s turf. Not when Rita was hepped up on some sort of drug. “You might as well get used to me, Rita, because I’ve come to stay. I’m going to live in that bungalow Kyle and Ross are rehabbing—”
“Live on what? Didn’t you lose your job before you came here? Didn’t you accept a room at Lenore’s so you could leech off her generosity?” Rita sprang up, pointing a red-taloned finger at her. “You’re insane if you think Ross’ll support you in a premium beach property. Hell, he’s already up to his eyeballs in debt.”
How many conversations had Rita eavesdropped on while skulking around at the lodge the other night? Or was she just lucky in that way off-balance people seemed to be? “I guess that’s his business, isn’t it? His priorities
have changed, so—”
“You want priorities? I’ll show you one of Ross Costello’s priorities.” Rita lifted the crystal ball, revealing a snapshot obviously planted before this trumped-up tarot reading. “His name’s Tyler, and he’s my son—and Ross’s. He earned advanced placement at a conservatory in Portland, and he graduates this summer. He’s a carbon copy of his daddy in all the right ways, isn’t he?”
Angie grabbed the picture. The young man leaning against the black Navigator wore slim-cut black slacks and a white shirt that set off his tan. His smile and ebony waves of hair could’ve defined Ross Costello in his early twenties—and who could say this wasn’t Ross, twenty-some years ago? Rita was exactly the type to stage such a drama.
Lincoln didn’t make Navigators then.
Reeling in disbelief, Angie stared at the snapshot, still searching for proof it was a farce just like the reading. Her stomach clenched. Her pulse pounded painfully as Rita’s triumphant gaze intensified.
“Gotcha. Trump that one, chickie.” Rita snapped up a tarot card from around the table’s edge and tossed it gleefully to the table. “The Hermit. That’ll be you, Angie, once you get past this idiotic notion that my man loves you. He’s the father of my child. Like it or not, Ross and I will always be connected.”
Angie’s head swam with this new revelation, with the possibility that she’d fallen for Ross these past few days yet he’d never mentioned his son. The way he’d sworn he was finished with Rita McQueen without hinting at such a major, permanent family tie.
Her stomach churned from the tension and the incense until she thought she might vomit all over that repulsive tarot deck. The Hermit card mocked her: the pale, hairless humanoid sat naked with an arm slung over its head as though it had lost its mind. Its bright red lips and toenails made a stark contrast to its white body; its expression reflected a mental state she herself might approach if she didn’t get out of here and get some real answers.
There was simply no response to Rita’s smug smile. Angie burst through the curtain of beads and rushed out of the shop as its owner’s laughter mocked her. Tourists strolled the sidewalks now, and several sat at Hot Karma’s outdoor tables, enjoying a leisurely lunch as they gazed at the surf. None of these joys touched Angie, though; waves of anger, disappointment, and betrayal crashed over her as she walked so rapidly her calves hurt.
She stalked down the hill and turned left on Oceanview, even though Rita was probably watching her, probably still hee-hawing. Up to his eyeballs in debt, was he? Or was Rita making that up? But there was no denying the existence of Tyler Costello.
As Angie hurried up the driveway toward Ross’s house, her head felt ready to explode with too many questions, too many insinuations, too many…were they lies? Had she made a total ass of herself by declaring she intended to live in that house on Windswept? Had she fallen for yet another man who didn’t truly love her, who had no clue how to love anyone? Or was she so upset by Tyler’s photograph that she’d missed a trick Rita played, a trap she’d set?
Ross’s voice came from around back, so Angie trotted across his landscaped lawn and up his deck stairs. He sat at a patio table covered with charts, his laptop open, facing the beach as he spoke in an animated voice. “Yes, sir, your numbers indicate a dicey time for getting involved in such covert activities. Afghanistan and Iraq will remain hotbeds of—”
Elvis and Celine jumped up from their shady corner, but Angie ignored their eager, cold-nosed greetings. She planted herself in front of Ross and smacked her palms loudly on his paperwork. “We have to talk, and we have to talk now.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me, Senator, I’ve been interrupted.” He hit the hold button on his cell phone, scowling. “Angie, I’m advising a client—a United States senator—about a top-level, time-sensitive issue right now. You’ll have to wait.”
“Fine,” she spouted. “Maybe if you’d told Rita to wait, maybe if you’d focused on business back then, you wouldn’t have to explain your son Tyler to me. Secondhand! As though neither he nor I deserve your attention or honesty.”
Ross’s heart stopped. His gut clenched and his vision began to swim as Angie’s anger—the sense that he’d betrayed her—bombarded him. He didn’t have to ask who’d given her this information. A blind and deaf man could’ve felt her fear, and he could see her aura throbbing red like a gaping wound as she awaited his answer. Her heart raced even faster than her fearful thoughts, and his pulse surged to catch up to hers before she bolted. He’d have to explain very well and very fast, or Angie would leave him. And she’d never look back.
He composed his face. Attempted a radio voice that didn’t announce his panic. “I will answer all your questions, sweetheart, and I…Jesus, I’m so sorry you found out this way. But I promise you, Angie, I love you. Only you. I’ll tell you everything.” He gulped air, watching her reaction. Praying she believed him enough to stick around. “How about if you wait for me on the beach? I’ll be right there, soon as I finish advising the senator. All right?”
Her gaze didn’t waver. Angie stood with her hands on his papers, poised to vault over the table and strangle him if he said one wrong word. Rita had played the only ace she still had, and she’d done a fine job of it. He’d be the luckiest man alive if Angie Cavanaugh ever trusted him again. Why hadn’t he told her about Tyler at the start?
“All right?” he repeated. Desperation was seeping into her soul beneath the anger and pain she’d spewed at him, the same sensations she’d nearly drowned in after she ran from Gregg. The handprint had faded from her neck but her ex’s abuse would sully her heart forever, unless he alleviated it. “Three minutes. I promise. Please don’t give Rita the upper hand, honey. If you let her win, we both lose.”
Angie straightened to her full height. The breeze blew her hair into her face but she didn’t brush it away. She turned, silent as a stone, and stepped off his deck to follow the short pathway leading to the sand and surf.
Ross stood up. Switched mental gears. “Yes, Senator, I’m terribly sorry about the interruption, but I’ve been informed of an emergency that demands my immediate attention,” he said, watching Angie’s every step, gauging the flow of her emotions. He started to follow her down the deck steps, but then realized his papers would blow away. “We’ve discussed your major points, sir. I’ll e-mail you my calculations and the notes I went over with you…Yes, Senator, this will remain completely confidential. Again, I advise you not to act in haste, or this situation will come back to bite you at the worst possible time.”
Sort of like my own. He quickly attached the charts and notes he’d made to a new e-mail and then typed Abbott and Costello in the subject line with a wry smile. His world did indeed feel like the circuitous, often senseless circus those old comedians had created, and as he hit the send button he prayed for time and clarity. Angie had nailed him: she—and Tyler—deserved far better than he’d given them lately. He had fences to mend. He could only hope Rita hadn’t wrapped her emotional barbed wire so tightly around Angie that she’d suffer permanent scars.
Because Angie was his woman. She’d come to Harmony Falls for his benefit, as a gift from God, and in return he had to liberate her from her doubts. Her demons.
He dropped his Bluetooth earpiece into his shirt pocket and loped toward the beach. Angie had gotten beyond his neighbor’s privacy fence, and although he still sensed her energy, he could take no chances. Last time she’d approached this emotional state, she’d tried to end her life.
Up ahead, she kicked at the sand with each stiff step, oblivious to the beauty of the spring day. Rita, if you’ve brainwashed or lied to her, I’ll never forgive you. But such thoughts got him nowhere, so Ross sprinted across the packed sand, his dogs shooting ahead. Elvis circled back, a neon green Frisbee jutting from his mouth, while Celine yapped happily at this unexpected outing.
On impulse, Ross snatched the dog’s toy and sent it sailing past Angie. “Go get her, guys!” he pleaded. “If you can make her
laugh—soften her up for me—I’ll stand a better chance. Go. Go!”
The border collie bounded across the beach with his curly-coated companion hotfooting to keep up. They passed Angie to tussle with the Frisbee between them, before Elvis yanked it free and offered it up to her. Angie ignored them.
Ross sighed. Her rigid walk had turned to a stumble step, a sure sign she was crying. And why wouldn’t she be? When Elvis gently nudged her leg with the toy, she swatted at him, her protest drifting on the wind. A few yards behind, Ross winced when Angie fiercely kicked a plastic beach bucket. A little blue shovel flew out and hit Celine, which sent the dog off with a high-pitched yelp.
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry! I—” Angie stopped to gaze dolefully at the little dog. With a loud sigh, she dropped to the sand. “Shit. Everything I touch turns to shit.”
Ross approached cautiously. She had to know he was behind her; Angie was every bit as sensitive as he was, when she paid attention.
“Come here, baby. I’m sorry, Celine,” Angie cooed in a wavering voice. She sniffled, holding out her hand to coax the dog. “Please, will you be my friend? I could really use a friend about now…”
“I’m sorry, too, Angie. I didn’t mean to withhold important information. And I certainly don’t want you to think of Tyler as a sordid little secret I’ve been keeping from you.” His fingers itched to smooth the windblown hair from her face so he could meet her eyes. “He’s a great kid. I hope you’ll listen to my side of whatever story Rita told you—or better yet, I hope you’ll just hear me out. And I hope you’ll forgive me for mucking this up. Royally.”
Angie kept looking at the dog, her arm extended. Elvis plopped down alongside, panting exuberantly, with the Fris-bee hanging from his mouth. Celine couldn’t stand to be left out, so she trotted close enough for Angie to scratch between her shaggy ears.
Law of Attraction Page 17
