Ethan thrust a cold bottle into her hand and she took a gulp of unexpectedly heavy, stout beer—then had to swallow the awful stuff. She handed the bottle back to him and finished her explanation, “So I got in the car and—” She stopped, realizing what she had been about to say.
Ethan wasn’t slow. He knew exactly why she clamped her mouth shut. The woman had done it again—thought the worst of him—and nearly accused him to his face of breaking into her house. Attempting to hide his growing pissed-offness, he brought the bottle to his own lips, and, as he sipped, realized that her full, sexy mouth had just covered the very same opening. Damn.
It wasn’t just the beer that made a warm trail snake down to his belly. He drank again, checking her out from beneath lowered lids while Joe Cap slid into police officer mode and began to question the damsel in distress.
Man, she’d come roaring up the drive like a maniac. Lucky she hadn’t hit anything on the way or spun into a tree. She wouldn’t have surprised them like that if Cady hadn’t gotten herself sprayed by a skunk—a regular happening in the summer that they were both used to—and was locked away in the laundry room while the tomato juice bath did its work.
Then, with a snort of disgust that caused Cap to glance at him in confusion, Ethan placed the bottle on the ground with a dull thump. What the hell was wrong with him? The poor woman had come home to find an intruder in her house, had been pushed around by him, and all Ethan could think about was his own pride … and those full, sexy lips and flustered, tousled hair.
“Are you hurt?”
His question caused the others to look at him as though surprised he even existed. She turned to him, her dark blue eyes large and showing more vulnerability than he’d yet to see, and something twisted deep inside him. Not good.
“Nothing more than a bang on the temple and a bruise on the hip,” she replied. Then, turning back to Cap, she resumed the conversation between them. “So I’ll need to file a report tomorrow?”
“Yep. Got any idear why someone might have wanted in the house? Was anything disturbed?”
Diana shook her head. “I didn’t stick around long enough to see. I had … the crazy idea that I might be able to catch … the guy.”
Ethan snorted. This time the derision was aimed at her, even though he knew she’d assumed he was the intruder, and he folded his arms over his bare chest. “That was a smart thing to do.”
Temper flared in her expression, bringing a sparkle back to her eyes and a slight flush to her cheeks. “I had this.” She shoved a can into his face, just under his nose. “Want me to try it out?”
He blinked, looking down awkwardly at the spray nozzle that was aimed right at his mouth. At least her finger wasn’t on the trigger. “No thanks. I guess you were prepared.”
And then, just because he couldn’t resist and because she really did need to be taken down a notch, he made a quick movement—fluid and sharp—and suddenly the can was in his hands and she was slamming into his chest, one arm folded back behind her.
Heat flooded Ethan the instant she connected with his body, shocking him so that he nearly released her as quickly as he’d grabbed her. Thanks to his post-divorce moratorium, he hadn’t had female curves plastered against him for two years.
Diana’s face tilted up in surprise of her own, eyes flaring wide and lips parting in a startled gasp. Her breasts rose with quick, shallow breaths, pressing against his chest, and one knee was cocked into his thigh. He could smell that floral, feminine scent from her hair, and felt the fragility of the narrow wrist he’d captured behind her back. For a moment, it was just the two of them caught in an awkward, titillating pose. Then suddenly, with a short laugh to cover his chagrin, he released her.
“It was a foolish thing to do,” he said mildly, handing her back the can of pepper spray—his point having been made quite clearly. Still, his heart did leaps and dives even as she retrieved the can with those pruny lips and turned away.
Cap spoke up then and offered to see her home and to check out the house to be certain nothing else was amiss. Ethan considered going along, but one frigid look from the lady lawyer gave him cause to rethink that option.
He didn’t want to go anyway.
~*~
Belinda’s house loomed dark and forbidding in the center of the clearing. Diana had left in such haste that she hadn’t turned on any lights. But somehow returning in the company of a police officer did wonders for her courage.
Captain Tettmueller led the way inside, and she followed, dogging his footsteps silently as he went from room to room, thoroughly checking them. Nothing seemed out of place at first glance and when they finally returned to the kitchen, Diana felt more comfortable, knowing that there was no one in the house.
“You’ve got sturdy locks and there’s no easy entry,” he commented in his snail’s pace drawl. “Looks like he forced his way in through the back door. He won’t come back tonight. You caught him in the act, he knows you’re home … and since he didn’t—er—attack you, violence is not his intent. I’ll send the patrol car down here a coupla times the rest of the night, though, and notify the Lincoln County sheriff about the break-in as well. But are you sure you want to stay here by yourself?”
She didn’t hesitate. Somehow she knew there was nothing more to fear tonight. “I’ll be fine. Tomorrow I’ll come down and file a report, and get the locks changed again, but—”
“Again?”
She felt the slight flush of embarrassment creep over her face. “I just had them changed a few days ago.”
“Has the house been broken into before?” Intensity replaced the golly-gee look on his face as he waited for her answer.
She might as well tell him, for the record. Just because she had been wrong about Ethan tonight didn’t mean he was innocent of everything else. “Ethan Tannock was in here the other day when I was in town.”
The dawn crept over his face. “Ahhhh. So that’s why—” He changed the route of his words and asked, “How do you know that?”
“He … left a note.” As she said it, she felt even more foolish. Who would leave a note advertising a break-in?
The expression on his face echoed these thoughts, but manners obviously won out and he didn’t say anything about that. Joe Cap just looked at her very seriously and said, “Now, Miss Iverson, I know you’re new to these parts, but Ethan Tannock is the last person you’d ever have to worry about in that way.”
She shot him a disbelieving look. “You’re right, I am new to these parts. But I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. You may all be part of the good-old-boys’ club, and if I hadn’t seen him hanging out so casually tonight with my own two eyes, I would still suspect he was the one who was here this evening. He was taking advantage of my aunt, and her eccentric beliefs, and when I find the proof, I’m going to nail him.”
Captain Tettmueller made a strange noise that sounded like a choking laugh, but when she turned to look at him, his face was deadpan serious. “Right, miss. Well, I sure hope for the professor’s sake you don’t take too long to … uh … nail him.”
Having the suspicion he was laughing at her, Diana drew her lips together. But something else he’d said had caught her attention. “The professor?”
“Yeah, that’s Tannock. He’s some bigwig down to Princeton in the labs where they study ESP and psychics—though when he’s up here, he’s just a reg’lar guy who likes to fish and drink beer. Nasty divorce a coupla years ago, and—”
“Princeton?” she repeated, frowning, and a tiny snake of uncertainty zapped her. Then, she regrouped. If that’s what he was telling people, including Belinda, that was easy enough to check on. She’d do that first thing in the morning, before going down to the police station. “Well, thank you very much, Captain Tettmueller. I’m sorry if I interrupted your dinner, but I do appreciate your checking things out down here.”
“No prob, miss.” He touched his fingers to the brim of his cap. “Gotta get home to the wife, anyway. Sh
e’s probably chewed a hole through her lip, wondering where I am.”
After he left, when the house became silent again, Diana retreated to the kitchen. It was late—nearly midnight—but she was wide-awake and her veins were zipping with energy. By all rights, she should be a bundle of nerves, here, alone, in this house where she’d come to believe her aunt was murdered and she had just tonight surprised an intruder.
But she wasn’t. It was odd … it was as though she knew. Knew things were safe now.
Just as she’d felt nervous arriving home tonight, for no apparent reason. She’d known something was wrong then.
She remembered a pitcher of tea that was chilling in the refrigerator. Aunt Bee’s herbal tea is starting to grow on me, she thought with a sudden nostalgic smile. Little had she known that one day she’d sit at her aunt’s table and willingly sip peppermint tea … without her.
“Aunt Bee, if you can hear me, I just want you to know how badly I feel about not seeing you for so long. I’ll find out what happened to you—the truth—and make whoever it was pay.” She said the words aloud, fervently … and then felt horribly foolish for doing so.
But just as she turned to pull a glass from the cupboard above, Diana felt the air stir, and she smelled something soft and floral. A sense of comfort swept over her as if someone put an arm around her shoulders. The sensation was warm and familiar—as if Aunt Belinda was right there in the room. Of course she wasn’t, Diana knew, but she did feel the essence of her aunt, the sense of her, here in the kitchen that held many memories of those three summers she’d spent here.
Oh, how many times she’d sat at that table during those summer visits while her aunt baked peach cobbler or patiently taught her how to cross-stitch, or showed her how to roll out a pie crust. She remembered the long walks they’d take through the cemetery—and the stories Aunt Belinda would make up about the people whose graves littered the fenced-in plot. There were exciting moments in the little dinghy she used for fishing, and the one time a walleye almost won the battle for its life by pulling Diana into Damariscotta Lake.
She felt better now, warm from the memories and maybe a bit less guilty about not seeing Aunt Belinda before she died. Taking her iced tea, she wandered from the kitchen down the hall to the den—the room in the house that seemed the most comforting to her. She sank onto the settee and sighed, thinking about all the work she would need to do to clear out this room before she could sell the house.
Then, she noticed the mahogany box of cards on the floor next to her foot.
She didn’t remember moving them there.
A strange prickle crawled up her spine, slowly, as she looked down at the small chest. She’d pushed them away, but now some of Ethan’s words from the other day came floating back to her. Cards don’t have psychic abilities… people do. Your Aunt Belinda had the ability, and she believed you did too.
Tightness banded her chest and she reached for the box before she realized what she was doing. Here, too, were memories—long suppressed ones, she now realized, but memories. Vague images, just out of reach of her consciousness, hinted of Aunt Belinda taking the cards, showing them to her one by one, talking about them, encouraging her to look at them and think about them.
Then, the wisp of memories evolved into angry words from her mother and a horrible argument with Aunt Belinda … and then there were no more memories of Aunt Belinda. The summer visits stopped abruptly the year she turned fourteen.
With a shake of her head, Diana tried to clear her thoughts. Wow, she thought, that was odd. It was almost as if I were reliving those times… times that I don’t ever remember having.
Perhaps there was some validity to those faint images—for after that last summer, Diana’s mother steered her toward more scientific pursuits: chemistry, mathematics, logic, even piano lessons, and Aunt Belinda’s name was never mentioned again until Diana was older, in her late teens, and asked about her. She was told that her aunt had moved away and didn’t want to see any family anymore. And then just after college, when Diana pressed Victoria for her aunt’s contact information, her mother told her that Aunt Bee had died.
How could she ever forgive her mother for that lie? She’d long forgiven her for the years of criticism and sly remarks, even though she still had to fight the insecurities. But this—such a blatant lie. Why would her mother do such a thing?
Pressing her lips tightly together to keep tears from coming, Diana forced her attention away from the Tarot cards. She gazed around the room, taking in the haphazard stacks of magazines and newspapers, the messy shelves of books, and dust-covered trinkets and statuettes that littered tables and cubbyholes. But her gaze was irrevocably drawn back to the mahogany box that shined russet in the soft light.
It beckoned to her, and this time she didn’t resist.
A tingling started in her fingertips when Diana lifted the lid and opened the smooth, cool silk wrappings to expose the cards. She stared down at the red, blue, and black pattern on the reverse of the deck. Now, how do I begin?
Concentrate. Breathe slowly, open your mind.
Think of the problem you wish to resolve.
The advice came from the depths of her memory, long buried.
She reached for the deck, ready to make the cut. Drawing a deep breath, she closed her eyes and concentrated.
Brrrring!
The jarring ring of the old telephone startled her and her hand jerked, sending the cards slipping onto the floor.
Diana scrambled to her feet, heart pounding wildly in her chest, feeling disoriented, as if she’d just awakened from a deep sleep. She rushed for the phone, desperate to stop the shrill, discordant sound.
Brrrring!
“Hello.”
Silence.
“Hello?” she said again, more firmly. “Hello?”
Again, there was nothing.
Diana slammed the receiver back down onto its cradle, her heart lodged in her throat. She darted a glance around the room, then rushed to the windows, staying out of sight of anyone who might be lurking in the darkness, but peering out into the moonlit night.
Her nose brushed up against the heavy velvet curtain, and her breath rasped loudly in the silence.
There was nothing to see out there, of course, but that didn’t make her feel any better. She slid back from the window, wondering if Aunt Bee had kept any of Uncle Tracer’s hunting rifles. Even if they weren’t loaded, she’d feel better with one in her hands.
Slipping away from the wall, she bolted out of the room, taking care to stay out of view of the windows, and went upstairs to the cabinet where the guns used to be stored. The cabinet wasn’t locked, and she found three rifles within, selecting the one that looked the most manageable.
After loading it with some old Winchester bullets she located in a faded cardboard box in the bottom of the cabinet, she hurried back downstairs. It was unlikely she would get any sleep tonight, but she could at least curl up on the settee with the gun.
But then, at the bottom of the stairs, she remembered the cards, remembered what she’d been about to do … and she stopped cold.
What was I thinking? What was I doing?
Her jitters from the phone call lessened to be replaced by clammy palms and a sharp twinge in her stomach. The phone call could have been anything—a wrong number, a bad connection … but the cards … she swallowed, nervousness creating pain in her temples. They had spilled all over the floor when she leapt to answer the phone.
What if the High Priestess shows up again?
Diana shuddered. Then, the nausea came, starting like a lull in the base of her belly, easy, soft, subtle. It was followed by a distant throb in her temples and one sharp pain behind her left eye.
I’ve got to stop this. I’m making myself sick. They’re just cards.
She forced herself to return to the den. Shouldering the rifle like a militiaman, she took a step then another, and another, reluctantly moving toward the room.
If she wasn’t a
fraid of an intruder, she told herself, why was she so frightened of a deck of cards? If it didn’t bother her to stay in the house where her aunt had likely—possibly—been murdered, why couldn’t she walk in to look at a pile of cards?
Pausing in the doorway, Diana peered warily at the ottoman and the shine of the cards scattered all over the floor. Her stomach twisted and the tom-tom in her temples became stronger.
She walked closer, staring at the pile, certain that if she saw The High Priestess from far enough away, she could change her mind and walk out of the room. As she drew nearer, Diana saw that only two cards had landed face-up. And neither of them were The High Priestess.
The clutch of dread that had hold of her middle eased as she picked her way gingerly among the cards. She checked the safety on the gun, leaned it against the settee, then stooped to gather up the pile.
The Cards of Life and Death (Modern Gothic Romance 2) Page 9
