In the Cards: A Novel (Tricia Seaver Mystery Book 1)

by Amy Isaman

  “Tricia,” Darius yelled. “Keep your eyes open for a tail.”

  “Did you see something?” I yelled back. I’d been so wrapped up in trying to fit this whole puzzle together, I hadn’t even thought about that.

  “Not yet.”

  I tried to pay attention to the cars around us, but it was hopeless. The most spy training I ever had was watching Jason Bourne movies on Netflix with a glass of wine in my hand. If someone wanted to follow me, I would be an easy mark. Well, obviously I was. Somebody had followed us all day and managed to kidnap my daughter from under my nose, and it took me two hours to figure out what even happened.

  We had zero business trying to figure this out, but what options did we have? I blinked back tears and tried to pull myself together.

  Twenty minutes later Darius pulled down a quiet tree-lined lane in some suburb. Rowhouse after a similar-looking rowhouse lined the street. Darius pulled his bike over and killed the engine. Loud rock music poured from the open window of a home across the street.

  “Which one is it?” I asked.

  “It’s back behind us. It looked dark, but let’s give it a go.”

  We approached the door, but Darius was right. The curtains were pulled and not one light peeked from behind any of the windows. I knocked, willing footsteps to come and answer the door.

  Nothing.

  Darius looked up and down the empty street. “Try the handle.”

  I pressed down on the heavy brass handle, but it was locked. “Let’s go to the back. Maybe he’s old and can’t hear the knock.”

  His eyebrows raised again. “You sure? Never mind,” he said, answering his own question before I could.

  “Follow me.” The house was four houses in from the end of the block. Darius headed down the street and toward the alley that ran behind the houses. While the street’s lights were already on, the alley was dusky in the evening light. The sun was almost all the way down. Only the occasional back porch light lit the narrow road.

  A young couple came toward us, a large German Shepherd pulling the woman on a leash. “Good evening,” the woman said, slowing.

  Darius grabbed my hand and smiled at the couple. “Good evening.”

  “Can we help you?” the woman asked.

  “Uh, no. We’re just out enjoying the evening,” Darius answered.

  She nodded curtly. “We’re on the neighborhood watch. We’ve never seen you before.”

  “We moved a few streets over a week ago and are checking out the neighborhood. It’s lovely,” he said, as he began quickly walking up the alley, not inviting any response from her.

  “Is she still there?” I asked.

  “I’m not going to look.”

  We hurried up the alley. “This is the house,” Darius whispered, before glancing behind us. “We’re clear.” We turned into the yard and through the gate.

  “Nobody’s home.” I crept over to one of the darkened windows and pressed my face against the glass, trying to see in, but heavy curtains blocked my view.

  Darius knocked on the back door but not surprisingly, no one answered. “Look for a hide-a-key.”

  “You think it’ll be that easy?”

  “Can’t hurt to look.”

  “You’re right.” I began lifting the potted plants that sat on the back stoop anyway, hoping to find a golden key beneath one of them. No luck.

  “We’re going to have to break the window.” Darius lifted a rock from the garden.

  “Oh, God. If we get caught, Laurel—” I couldn’t even finish the sentence.

  “We won’t. We don’t have another choice.”

  “Wait,” I grabbed his arm as he cocked it to break the pane. Next to the rock that he picked up sat a familiar looking rock. It had a similar shape and coloring as the hide-a-key rock at my parent’s house. I knelt and lifted the plastic granite stone, turned it over, and pulled the key from the slot in the bottom. “Got it.”

  I handed it to Darius and felt fully assured that I could trust him. If he was behind this, would he be so willing to break the law?

  I didn’t think so. Darius pushed open the door which creaked in protest. We stepped inside and shut it softly behind us. Musty stale air assaulted us. From the smell, this house had been closed up for weeks. I turned, pulling back an edge of the curtain, and peeked out the window. I was sure the nosy neighbor was moments away from careening around the corner with the entire neighborhood watch in tow, but the yard sat empty and quiet.

  We entered into a mudroom which led to the kitchen.

  “Where do we even start?” I whispered, peering through the gloom. We hurried through the downstairs rooms and surveyed the bookshelves, but they held nothing other than a fairly extensive collection of paperback mystery novels. “Are you sure this is the right house?”

  “Yes. The name and address are the same as the one that Jamison gave us.” Darius held up an envelope from a pile of mail that lay on a table by the door. “I’ll look upstairs. You go down. It looks like that door off the kitchen might go to a basement.”

  I watched Darius creep up the stairs when the lamp clicked on, lighting the entire front room with a fluorescent glow. I gasped and barely stifled a scream. Darius froze. I waited for footsteps, voices, anything. But nothing happened. “It’s okay, Tricia,” Darius whispered pointing at the wall. I followed his finger and saw a boxy auto control timer, set to turn the lamp on.

  “Oh, thank God.” That meant Mr. Coates was out of town and wouldn’t be coming home anytime soon. Well, at least I hoped he wouldn’t be popping in for at least the next few hours. My heart still racing, I pulled open a door as Darius crept up the stairs. The staircase into the basement was narrow and pitch black. Taking a deep fortifying breath after the light terror, I turned on the flashlight on my phone and headed down into the darkness.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I found. I felt like I stumbled into the reference shelves at the library we just left, but these stacks didn’t seem to have any sort of organization. No neat little cards at the end directing the visitor. No handy little Dewey decimal numbers on any shelves or books. Each shelf held boxes and piles of books and papers. My phone read 9:03 p.m. It was going to be a long night. I just prayed it would be worth it, that somewhere in this mess, there might be an old book of poetry that could hopefully lead us to the Three of Swords.

  First, I circled the basement and found the lone window covered with black paper, probably to protect this collection from any sunlight, so I flipped on the switch. The room was a decent size, maybe thirty feet by twenty. A small desk sat in one corner, piled with more papers and stacks of index cards.

  I stared at the mess. How should I tackle the overwhelming stacks of books, papers, files, and boxes? I decided to approach this methodically, start on one corner and search each shelf and box from there. Five minutes later Darius joined me. He found nothing upstairs, but downstairs Mr. George Coates had quite the collection of the historical occult: papers, magic books, drawings filled with symbols and cryptic notes, and even creepy implements. I didn’t know what any of it was for, but I prayed that it wasn’t cursed in any way. I was also surprised that with this collection, he didn’t have any kind of security system, but then again, he was cataloging his collection with index cards. He was clearly old-school and preferred to do things by hand without security. For that, I supposed I should be thankful, although pulling up his collection on his computer and discovering the method behind his seemingly haphazard filing system would have been helpful.

  Two hours later, my eyes burned with exhaustion. Who knew when I’d be able to sleep again? Another hour and my heart jolted me awake when I found a large envelope labeled A.H./G.D. Annie Horniman? Golden Dawn? I wasn’t sure but it was worth a look.

  “Darius, I think I might have found something.”

  He hurried over as I sat on the floor and opened it up to find a stack of papers, no book. The papers looked like letters from some Golden Dawn members
to Annie. The writer was clearly unhappy with Ms. Horniman, but the tone actually made me like her. She obviously stood up for herself and whoever wrote this letter wasn’t much of a fan of a woman doing such a thing. Okay, Annie, I thought. You were a strong woman. Help me out here. I emptied out the rest of the envelope but found nothing.

  “It has to be here.” Even I could hear the desperation in my voice.

  Darius pulled a large box from the same shelf and sat sorting through it. It was a mess of papers, files, and lord knew what else. Darius pulled a stack out and handed it to me, before grabbing one for himself.

  Nothing. Not a single book. I leaned back, stretching. My shoulders ached from sitting on the floor, hunched over. I grabbed a shelf and pulled myself up. “It’s not here. What now?”

  “Wait.” Darius flipped through a final stack of papers and came across another large manila envelope. “This might be it.” He unwound the string binding and dumped the contents on the ground. A small volume lay there. The title? W.B. Yeats, Poems, 1899-1905.

  I gasped and reached for it. The first page had an inscription, “For my friend, Edmund. Thank you, W.B. Yeats.” I read it out loud to Darius.

  “I wonder what was he thanking your great-grandfather for?”

  “I’ve no idea. But a signed Yeats first edition has got to be worth a pretty penny.”

  “Do you think Mr. Coates even knows he has it?”

  “Do you mean would he miss it?” Darius asked. “I don’t think he would.”

  “Me either.” I riffled through the pages, but no Three of Swords flew from the book. There was, however, one dog-eared page. I wasn’t surprised to find it was the poem “Never Give all the Heart.” This was it. I knew it. This book was at the Inn, found its way to Annie Horniman, and finally here, to Mr. George Coates, a collector of historical occult paraphernalia. I pulled the paper dust jacket off the book, but there was nothing underneath it. Then, I opened the back cover. A piece of paper was glued on the inside, and underneath, I could feel it. A tarot card.

  “It’s here,” I whispered as I picked at the upper corner of the book’s extra end sheet. It came away easily but the Three of Swords below it did not. The card was firmly adhered to the back cover.

  “We’re going to have to take the entire thing,” Darius said.

  “But there’s got to be more here. She left clues with every card. Would you run up to the kitchen and grab a knife? We can peel it out to see if she wrote anything.” I continued to be as gentle as I could as I tried to remove the card. I finally got one corner up. Without bending it, I managed to peek underneath it and saw a few black lines of Anna Teresa’s now-familiar script. Oh, thank God. Maybe, just maybe we could find the Devil card and finish this. I willed Darius to hurry. If we could get the card off and copy down Anna’s words, maybe we wouldn’t need to steal Mr. Coates’ book. He obviously didn’t know he owned the card, so he wouldn’t know it was gone. And if Darius did end up selling the cards, perhaps he could give Mr. Coates an anonymous gift or something.

  My list of crimes was getting longer though I hadn’t committed one since I’d stolen a piece of candy out of the bulk bin from the grocery when I was about five, and my mother made me return it. But I knew I’d do anything for my daughter. Without question. And now, we were one card closer. I continued working at loosening the paper while I listened to Darius opening and closing drawers in the kitchen.

  Ding-Dong. The doorbell’s chime rang through the house.

  I froze and stared at the stairwell. Darius fell silent too. I shoved as much as I could back onto the shelf, jammed Yeats’ book into my bag, leaped to my feet, and ran toward the stairwell. I swiped at the light switch, plunging the basement into darkness, and felt my way up the stairs. I didn’t remember seeing a doorbell on the back of the house, which meant our visitor was at the front door. They might not even know we were in here. But if Mr. Coates had been out of town for a while, who rang the doorbell?

  Chapter 22

  IN HIS SEARCH for a small knife to peel the card off the cover, Darius opened another drawer in the kitchen only to discover yet another junk drawer. He wondered, yet again, why she couldn’t have just hidden the cards in a safety deposit box, not to be opened for a hundred years or so? Why the treasure hunt?

  He wanted to shout hallelujah when he finally located the silverware drawer but the moment he opened the drawer, the doorbell’s chimes rang throughout the house, making every last cell in his body jerk, then freeze. He looked toward the stairwell. Had Tricia heard the chimes?

  He heard some scrambling from downstairs, and Tricia’s footsteps heading toward the basement stairwell when the basement lights went off, plunging the basement stairwell and kitchen into darkness. She’d heard. Darius crept toward the front door, keeping down low. He froze when the visitor rattled the handle. Bloody hell. They needed to get out of here. If somebody wanted in, they’d do the same thing Darius and Tricia did and go around back. If they did that, then he and Tricia could leave out the front. He took several more soft steps toward the door and lifted his head to peer out the peephole.

  “Can you see anyone?” Tricia whispered behind him, making him jump.

  He put his finger to his lips. Her deep brown eyes were wide with panic as she shook her head in desperation and pointed at the back door, waving at him to follow her. He didn’t see anything, so Darius stepped softly to the window and peeped out behind the curtain.

  “I can’t see anyone,” he said, his voice low.

  Did they risk going out the front or should they head to the back? He waved Tricia toward the back door. “Let’s go,” he whispered.

  “What if they go around back? Should we stay here and go out the front?”

  “We can beat them out the back if we hurry.”

  “Do you think they’re following us? Or is this a visitor for Mr. Coates?” Desperation made her normally lilting voice come out in a strangled croak.

  “I don’t know.” Darius grabbed her hand and her fingers clenched his. “You’ve got the book, right?”

  She nodded, and they hurried toward the kitchen and their escape. Darius opened the door, surveyed the back garden, and pulled Tricia out behind him before sprinting across the small space. He pushed open the gate, and they jogged down the alley.

  “Wait,” a voice yelled behind them. “What are you two doing?” Darius could hear someone’s footsteps pounding behind them along with the barks of their dog. It had to be the nosy neighborhood watch and their giant dog. “Stop, right there.”

  “Keep going,” Darius panted. He had no intention of stopping until he ran smack into a garbage can that upended him. He stretched out his hands, landing on the alley’s gravel road, and skidding painfully as the rocks shredded the skin from his palms.

  Tricia yelped and stopped, reaching down to help him up.

  “Go,” he yelled as the footsteps got closer. He wouldn’t be running anywhere. His knee throbbed from his fall.

  “But—” Tricia looked behind them and started to run again. She got about fifteen feet away when he heard the low growl of a dog.

  Darius ducked his head, covering it with his arm as the dog crouched before him, snarling.

  “You stop too,” the man yelled at Tricia, but thankfully, Darius could hear her footsteps receding in the distance. At least he didn’t have to worry about her getting mauled.

  “What the bloody hell have you done? Did you break into Mr. Coates’ place?”

  Darius groaned, his entire body aching. “Please. Just let me go. George is an old friend, and I couldn’t get a hold of him. We were worried. Call your damn dog off me.” He lay on the ground, the gravel digging uncomfortably into his cheek.

  “Not on your life. Not till the cops get here. Elizabeth has already called them. You two were a bit too suspicious for us. And if you just told us that you were friends of his, we would have told you that he’s been visiting his sister for the last month.”

  “Please. We’ve got a bi
t of a desperate situation. My friend’s daughter is missing, and I thought George might have something that would help. But he didn’t. We haven’t done anything.”

  “Tell that to the police when they arrive.”

  Darius tried to stand, only to freeze when the dog growled deep in its throat, its hot breath washing over Darius’ face.

  “I’d stay down if I was you.”

  Darius ducked his head back and waited, unsure where Tricia went. He knew she wouldn’t get on his bike by herself. He hoped she called a cab and went back to the inn. Or maybe, she’d walk around the block until he could free himself, and they’d go back together. As he lay there, the gravel digging into his forearms, he wondered again who rang at the front door. It obviously wasn’t these obnoxious neighbors. Who, then, was it?

  Chapter 23

  I ROUNDED THE CORNER from the alley and sprinted toward Darius’ motorcycle. A woman with long red hair stood next to it. Darius’ cousin, Susan.

  I stopped running and tried to catch my breath as I walked the last few steps to her. “Susan, how did you know we were here?” I paused to breathe and wipe the sweat from my face. “Actually, I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m just glad to see you. We need to rescue Darius from the crazy neighborhood watch people and their dog.”

  She held up her phone. The screen showed a map with a little green dot and Darius’ name next to it. “Chelsea lo-jacked D a few years ago.”

  “Lo-jacked? I don’t know what that is.”

  “She added him to her friend app. They can track each other. Don’t think Darius has any idea. Creepy if you ask me, but came in damn handy tonight.” She raised one eyebrow. “You said he’s with the neighborhood watch?”

  I glanced at the sidewalk behind me.

  “Nope, he’s not there,” she said.

  “No, he’s not. He fell, and they caught him.”

  “And you left him? Why would you do that?”

  “Because he told me to. And he was stuck there. But we don’t really have time—“