Death by Tarot Card (A Ghost & Abby Mystery Book 4)

by Jo-Ann Carson

  As soon as I opened the front door, I knew I was wrong. “Scooby,” yelled Shaggy, “where are you?” An episode of Scooby Doo on the TV blared loud enough to crack my eardrums. The smell of burnt sugar hung in the air, along with colorful feathers and shiny scales. Feathers? Scales? Did a chicken have a fight with a fish?

  The hackles on Spark’s back rose.

  “Jinx?” I yelled.

  She didn’t answer. I checked the living room. No one was there. I continued to the foot of the grand staircase. “Anyone home?”

  “We’re in here,” said Elaria in her tinkly elf voice.

  I followed the tinkle. At the table in the kitchen sat Elaria, Jinx and Dante. Where were Jill and the rest of the kids?

  “What happened?” I stood in front of them with my hands on my hips.

  “It’s under control,” said Dante.

  “What’s under control?”

  “I can make things move,” said Jinx with glee.

  “Great, honey.” I still had trouble doing that. Go figure.

  “And I can make the TV get louder.”

  Just what I needed. “Wonderful. Turn it down now, please.” Who wouldn’t want a living remote control?

  Her smile beamed from ear to ear. “It’s me, Mommy. Just me.”

  “And magic,” I said.

  “That’s what Zio Dante said.”

  I glared at him.

  “Zio means uncle in Italian. I need to be more than just Dante,” he said in a serious tone. “She learns quickly. You should be proud.”

  If I wasn’t terrified, I might have been. I nodded. “And the feathers and scales?”

  “That was me,” said Elaria. “A bit of an oopsy.”

  “Oopsy?” Eye of newt! “Before you tell me anything else. Where are Jill and the kids?” I glared at the man-witch.

  I came to the house to check on Jinx. Jill and the kids were just arriving. I wanted some time with our little witch, so I asked Jill to go shopping for me.”

  “And she agreed?”

  “I used magic to persuade her.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Jinx and I came into the house and found the feathers.”

  I turned my glare to Elaria.

  She shrugged. “I tried to bring my dragon across, but it didn’t work.”

  “You killed him?”

  “I don’t think so. I hope not. He’s a hybrid, a phoenix on his mother’s side. A gentle soul. You would have liked him.”

  “I see.” But, of course, I didn’t.

  “Look on the bright side,” said Dante, taking my hand. “Your houseguest can’t control the portal.”

  I sat down. “I have a portal.” I had almost forgot that. I wanted noodles.

  “It’s an honor to be the mistress of a portal,” said Elaria.

  “And Jinx controls it.”

  “No, Jinx accidentally opened it,” Dante said. “I’m hoping she’s not its new mistress.”

  Hoping? Could an inter-dimensional portal choose a child to be its mistress? Or was there some force that hated me directing all of this? I glared at Elaria. “How did you get an innocent five-year-old to open the magical door?”

  She shrugged. “I came upon this portal in a forest many human years ago. I called out to it. At first no one answered. Every day I visited the portal, and every day no one answered.”

  “Until they did,” I said.

  “Jinx has such a sweet voice. I knew at once she was a kind essence. I didn’t realize she would be a human child.”

  “So, what did you do?” I swallowed. “Tell me exactly what you did.”

  “I bid her to open the portal, and I laced it with witch’s magic.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of Dante’s mouth. “Let me explain, Elaria.”

  That was a good idea on Dante’s part, because I was ready to throttle Miss Pointy Ears.

  “Jinx heard a voice coming from the forbidden zone in the house.”

  I nodded.

  Dante continued, “Curious, she followed the sound into the first bedroom and came upon the mirror, which glowed with energy. She realized the voice came from within it.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. I knew that once upon a time an old warlock cast many a dark spell in my domain, but that was then. I had found odd spells here and there lingering in the dust. At no time did I expect a portal. “I don’t understand, Dante. Do warlocks create portals?”

  “No. This predates his existence. For that matter it predates the manor.”

  I tried to wrap my head around that. Azalea once told me portals had been seeded around the multi-universe by forces unknown to man, millennia ago, before the time of man. Once activated they remained accessible to all forms of matter, until someone extinguished them. Each portal chose its own master. I didn’t even want to think about that part. “You’re telling me the portal existed on this land, and when Graystone was built, it moved inside, or the building itself was built on top of it.”

  Dante shrugged. “I think so.”

  “And it lay dormant until Elaria broke through,” I said.

  “Her voice called Jinx. When Jinx touched the surface of the portal, she touched the raw magic Elaria put there.”

  Oh hell.

  “The magic sped through her system in an instant. It felt warm and welcoming to Jinx, so she tapped it and the door opened.”

  “And the elf came through.”

  “Yes!” said Jinx, clapping her hands. “I brought an elf home.”

  I tried to smile. Other people’s kids brought stray cats home or maybe even owls. Why did mine bring supernatural creatures? Because she’s mine, of course. “Honey,” I said, “I’ve talked to you about strangers.”

  “But she’s an elf.”

  “But a stranger all the same.”

  Elaria’s head toggled from side to head, as if she were bobble-headed. “I will not hurt anyone.”

  “No, you just want to bring friendly dragons and phoenixes into our human realm.” I glared at her.

  “I mean you no harm, Abby Jenkins. I have a mission. When it is done, I will leave. I was trying to bring a friend through to play with Jinx. I meant no harm.”

  The sound of Jill’s clunky old van rumbling up to the front of the house caught my attention. “My cousin’s home.”

  Dante stood, waved his hand and mumbled something that sounded faintly Latin. The top of the garbage can magically opened, and feathers and scales flew inside, the TV clicked off and the scent of the burned sugar transformed to the smell of disinfectant. Not my favorite smell, but it would do.

  “You need to take more lessons from him,” said Spark.

  “Thank you,” I said to Dante.

  “Prego,” he said, leaning in to kiss me on both cheeks. “I have things to do. Ciao.” With that he slipped out the back way.

  As Jonathan and Janey ran into the kitchen with Shreddie bouncing at their heels, I considered my options. I could go upstairs and scream into a pillow. That wouldn’t do anybody any good. I could strangle the tinkle out of Elaria, or, better yet, levitate a butcher’s knife and slay her, but that would be messy and wouldn’t solve my problems. I now had an active portal in my home and a witch for a daughter. Dante couldn’t fix this mess. I took a very deep breath, and a second deeper one. I couldn’t get the air in deep enough to settle my nerves.

  Spark rubbed against my leg. Smart of her not to say anything. I could wear her for a coat, the mood I was in.

  Spark hissed at that thought.

  One step at a time. I needed to be practical. “Time to put on the hamburger,” I said with a frozen smile. Noodles always made life better. Right? As I stood, I heard the clunk of the old knocker on the front door. Shreddie ran to answer it, barking all the way.

  Who could that be? I looked at Jill. She shook her head. I looked at Elaria and she shook her head.

  Holding Sir Shredrick by the collar so he wouldn’t drown anyone with licks, I opened the door. There stoo
d the new cop, Augustus, holding two boxes of pizza.

  Chapter 11

  Anyone holding a take-out pizza was welcomed into my home, pretty much with no questions asked, so I opened my front door wide and waved in the good constable. “To what do I owe this honor,” I said as the smell of chorizo sausage wafted by my nose.

  “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot.”

  “Pizza!” yelled Jonathan.

  I waved Augustus to follow me and led the way to the kitchen. He followed, along with the children and Jill. Elaria disappeared. I wasn’t sure what she ate, or if she ate, but I wasn’t disappointed to lose her for a while. I was elfed-out.

  Augustus put the pizzas on the counter. Jill brought out the plates. The kids lined up, and I placed a slice on each plate. It was from Scorpios, my favorite pizza place in town.

  “Hey, guys,” I said, “this is Constable Augustus.” I motioned to him with the flipper I used to lift the pizza.

  He gave a crooked smile that I’m sure worked on many women. “Just call me Gus when I’m off duty.”

  “Gus, I like you,” said Jill from the back of the line. She winked.

  He laughed. “Spoken like a true pizza …” He hesitated.

  I wondered if he was going to say pizza slut, because that was what we called ourselves at Scorpios, but he wisely stopped himself.

  “Lover,” he said, and his smile quirked up on one side as if he had read our minds.

  I exhaled slowly. “So, does this mean every time you’re nasty to me I can expect food?”

  He moved closer to me. “Something like that.”

  “Am I going to get an apology?”

  He tilted his square jaw. “You ask for a lot.”

  Jonathan spoke up. “Thanks, Gus. I like you too.” With that he joined the others at the table. Jill filled the kids’ glasses with milk.

  “Want a beer?” I asked Gus.

  “I never say no to a good woman.” Mischief danced in his eyes.

  This was going to be awkward. After getting him a beer, I sat down with a slice and a can of diet Pepsi.

  “Do you have a gun?” asked Jonathan.

  “I do, but I didn’t bring it with me tonight. I wasn’t expecting to meet any bad guys.”

  “Can I see it sometime?”

  “Sure.” Gus bit into his slice and pizza goodness dribbled down his chin.

  I handed him a napkin and he graced me with another one of his aw-shucks-ma’am smiles. The guy was darn disarming.

  Jinx played with a small action figure of Wonder Woman while she ate. I hoped she would stay quiet, but she had never been the silent type. Now I really didn’t know what to expect. Could she enlarge the figure of the toy she played with to full-sized Wonder Woman? That would make my day. A pizza dinner to remember.

  Jill asked Gus, “What do you think of Sunset Cove?”

  “I like it. The women are pretty. The beer is cold. The pizza is decent …”

  “And there’s lots of action,” I said.

  “There is that.”

  “Can I see your gun tomorrow?” Jonathan asked.

  Gus looked at Jonathan and winked. “If it’s okay with your mom.” He took a swig of his beer.

  Jill popped the top off her soda. “With you here, that gives us four cops in the cove. Isn’t that a lot for a small place like ours?”

  “It’s customary,” he said in his cop voice, “to have the number of police officers fluctuate. I don’t ask questions. I just go where they tell me to go.”

  “And you like following the letter of the law,” I said.

  “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry I refused you access to the crime scene.” His eyes darkened. “But that’s my job, and I take my job seriously.”

  “Zane had no trouble letting me in,” I said.

  “He was in charge, so he could break the standard procedure. It seems he breaks all kinds of rules when it comes to you.”

  “Excuse me?” I choked on my sausage.

  “Just saying. The word is he lets you run all over crime scenes.”

  “Because I’m helpful.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  I glared at him.

  “If Zane wasn’t happily married, I’d think he had the hots for you, but that’s not the issue is it.”

  I bit into my pizza and counted to ten.

  “The way I figure it, he either owes you big time for something I can’t see on the books, or …”

  “Or?”

  “He really does need your help with his investigations.”

  “You’re not as dumb as you look.” I took a big gulp of my pop, mimicking his beer gulps, and bubbles fizzed up my nose.

  The kids clamored to the counter and helped themselves to seconds and, in Jonathan’s case, a third slice of pizza. The adults ate in silence.

  Jill looked from me to Gus and smiled. She got up and headed for the living room. “No wonder you don’t get dates,” she said as she passed me. Then louder she said, “I’m going to put on a movie. Who’s in?”

  The kids finished their pizza and followed her to the TV. That left me with my albatross.

  “Nice kids,” he said.

  “Why are you here?” I said.

  “I’m sorry that we got off on the wrong foot.”

  I waited.

  “And I want to get to know the community. Zane tells me you know everyone and, more importantly, most of their secrets.”

  “I think he’s talking about Azalea, the tea-leaf reader.” I laughed.

  “He did mention her.” He grinned. “But she’s a little old for me. I thought I’d start with you.” I noticed his rich-smelling aftershave. Not that I’m partial to aftershave, but none of the men in my life wore any and it was … nice.

  I wanted to ignore the tingling feeling in my tummy, but it was there. Damn it. This gorilla of a cop had a disarming way about him that was sweetly sexy. If a woman wasn’t careful around him she could fall hook, line and sinker for his crooked-smile charm. He would be quite a large man to straddle, though. My cheeks burned at the thought.

  “Go, Abby,” muttered Spark in my head.

  “What are you thinking?” he said.

  “That you’re trouble.”

  “That’s funny. I took one look at you and thought the same thing. Can we call a truce?”

  “If that means you won’t bar me from murder scenes, I’m all in.”

  “I can’t promise you that, and you know it.”

  “Tell me the terms of the truce, then?” I pushed the graphic image of the two of us doing the horizontal mambo out of my mind. It really had been too long since I had been with a man.

  His smile made me think he could read my mind, though my witch senses said he couldn’t.

  “He’s good,” cooed Spark in my head. “Please, let us see how good.” She purred.

  He looked at Spark. “It looks like I’ll be here a while and I feel out of my depth. It’s a friendly place and all, but my gut tells me there’s a lot of crap going on beneath the surface.”

  “Kind of like Norman Rockwell meets Stephen King?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t know, Gus.” I leaned back. “I’ll be honest. What I know about this town, you won’t believe.”

  “That’s exactly what Zane said.”

  “And you’re still digging.”

  “I’m still digging. Humor me. Tell me something you think will shock me.”

  Okay, he asked for it. “The teahouse sits on an inter-dimensional portal and a gang of ghosts hang out there.”

  A muscle in his cheek twitched, but he kept a straight face. I waited.

  “Seriously?”

  “I warned you.”

  “Okay, let’s put the haunted house aside for now. Tell me about Eric. He was first on the scene of the murder and yet Zane has barely questioned him. Is there something I should know about him?”

  “Eric Eklund?”

  “He’s your boyfriend.” The way he said boyfriend intri
gued me. It was as if the word caught in his throat.

  “Ex.”

  His eyes brightened. “Would he have any reason to kill Harris?”

  “None.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “Beats me. Next question.”

  “I’ve met lots of people, Abby. Lots of bad guys. I have a cop’s sense of who is dangerous and I have to tell you Eric is dangerous. I’m glad you’re done with him.”

  Oh boy.

  “He’s out of place.”

  “A Viking of a man,” I said and bit the inside of my mouth.

  “Uh, yeah. I guess if we turned back the clock he could have been one, a thousand years ago.”

  “Uh huh. You hang on to that thought. Who else do you want to know about?”

  He scratched the scruff on his chin, nice scruff, sexy scruff, and I wondered how it would feel to kiss him. “Azalea. Tell me about her.”

  “Oh, she’s an easy one,” I started. “She’s the keeper of the portal at the teahouse.”

  “The inter-dimensional thing.”

  “That would be the one.” I used a sing-song voice.

  “Do you take drugs?”

  “Aspirin on occasion.”

  Elaria blew in. I mean it. She blows and flows more than walks. Elves are weird, and I know I should get used to that and not be prejudiced against their species, but right now she was one-too-many weird thing in my life to swallow.

  She stood beside Gus. “Listen, Mr. Policeman, ask her to mate and leave. I need to talk to her.”

  He squinted at her, but didn’t say anything about the ears. I guessed that Dante’s cloaking spell was still working. He turned to me. I shrugged. I had already told him more than I wanted to.

  “Sooo, Miss Abby, would you like to go for a picnic tomorrow afternoon?”

  “A date?” I felt as flustered as a young girl being asked out for the first time.

  He shrugged. “Forget the labels. I want to get to know you better. There’s something about you that’s different. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”