The Cards of Life and Death (Modern Gothic Romance 2)

by Colleen Gleason

  She hadn’t looked at the Tarot cards in weeks, and she’d forgotten about the journal. All at once, she remembered the image from her dream of the old, tattered book. That looked just like the one in her hands. A little prickle skimmed over her, raising the hair on her arms.

  I guess it’s time to read a bit more of Aunt Belinda’s journal. Diana flipped toward the back of the book, hoping that the last entries would give her some clues as to what was bothering her aunt when she died … and if perhaps it had anything to do with someone trying to burn her house down.

  The last entry, written Sunday night—the night of her death—gave little information but a discourse on the status of her flower garden and a discussion of the quilting ladies’ evening out at the Green Oaks Grille the night before. Only the last paragraph caught Diana’s interest: “I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and expect to have the results of those tests back before I go. I’m sure it will be good news, and then I can find out what is going on. I hope that Diana gets back with me soon. Perhaps I’ll call her about that little Diana-gram I sent her.”

  Diana-gram. Diana gave a melancholy smile at the terminology, and sobered at the realization that Aunt Bee had expected to be given a clean bill of health at the doctor’s office. How frightening that she should die by someone’s hand the very night before.

  Diana flipped a few pages back in the journal, skimming the entries and finding nothing of interest other than one page of rants and raves about Helen Galliday and her meddlesome ways. Apparently, Helen had tried to set Aunt Belinda up with the postman and it backfired when she found out that he hated cats.

  As she glanced up from the journal, her gaze fell on the bright screen of her laptop. Diana gently put the book aside and turned her attention to finding something out about Marjorie Gaunt—a woman who wanted to die.

  The keys clicked and the computer hummed as she browsed through the reams of information on the Internet, trying to find something of interest. It took awhile, but she finally found another article about Marjorie Gaunt.

  API, Salem—SERIAL KILLER! ANGEL OF MERCY! Those were the opposing sentiments raised today by picketers outside the capital building in Salem. The case of Marjorie Gaunt is receiving widespread attention from parties including the American Civil Liberties Union, who supports the right to assisted suicide, and the AARP, who expresses severe concern that the elderly will be taken advantage of if this statute continues to remain in force.

  The case of Marjorie Gaunt involves Dr. Cameron Darr, an oncologist who recently came under fire for a more recent assisted suicide. Gaunt’s family alleges she wasn’t ill enough to be diagnosed as terminal and that Dr. Darr urged her to kill herself prematurely.

  Dr. Darr, who has assisted in more than five suicides in the last six months, including that of Mrs. Enid Oregon, former wife of the World Toy Emporium magnate, was unavailable for comment.

  Marcus Sperka, attorney for the Gaunt family, anticipates that they will obtain enough evidence to take this case to trial by the end of the summer.

  Diana took note of the name Enid Oregon—another woman who sought her own demise. She noticed that date on this article was only four months after the previous one. The picture of Marjorie Gaunt was the same, but there was another photo captioned “Cameron Darr.” Diana peered at the controversial physician, who had a grainy, black-and-white countenance due to the quality of newspaper print and the limitations of her PC. He had dark hair and a full moustache, but there was something about his eyes that caught her attention. The way he looked at the camera—it was a candid shot, taken, perhaps, outside of a courtroom or at a press conference—gave her a shiver.

  “I don’t think I’d take his word for the fact that I was dying,” Diana murmured aloud, reaching for another bite of the limp sandwich.

  She searched a bit longer online, but found nothing new about Marjorie Gaunt. Perhaps the case had never gone to trial, or maybe the Gaunt family couldn’t find the evidence it was looking for to convict Darr.

  Diana closed the lid of the laptop. Weariness pulled at her, and she knew her mind was too tired to function further tonight, but then her attention fell upon the mahogany box.

  She hadn’t even opened it since the awful experience at Jonathan’s condo, when she’d been destroyed by pain and illness. But tonight, she was drawn to the cards and she moved toward their little wooden chest as if in a dream.

  She had to do it. Though exhausted beyond belief, Diana took a deep breath, steadying herself. Aunt Belinda, if you’re here … help me.

  Now was the time, she thought to herself. If she was ever going to believe that she had some kind of ability, this would have to be it. Diana closed her eyes and gingerly shuffled the oversized deck of cards, remembering what Ethan had once told her. “Open your mind, and let the images of the cards lead you on a trip through your subconscious. The pictures are only there to open doors in your mind. They mean whatever you want them to mean.”

  As she shuffled, a card flipped from beneath her fingers and fell to the floor. It landed face-down, and Diana stared at it for a moment, her body going hot and cold and weak all at once. She drew in a deep breath, closed her eyes … and decided to leave it there for a while. She’d continue with her plan to deliberately choose from the deck and turn that card over only when she was finished.

  Moving the errant card out of the way, she set the neatened deck on the floor. Although she wasn’t sure what she was doing, Diana went with her instinct. Heart pounding, she cut the deck once to the left, and then stopped, staring at the stack of cards. A tingling in her fingers crawled up her arms and sparked in her stomach, and she knew this was the right thing to do. She didn’t feel ill. She felt energized.

  With a deep breath and a quick prayer, Diana reached for the deck and turned up three cards in rapid succession, laying them out in front of her.

  The first card she had seen before: Two of Swords. It depicted a blindfolded woman holding two long swords crossed in front of her, as if to block someone or something. Diana remembered that it implied avoidance or the obstruction of emotion.

  The tingling became stronger and her heart galloped in her chest as she realized that was how she’d been, how she’d previously responded to the possibility of another level to her knowledge for a very long time. This card, she thought in a burst of self-revelation, shows how I was before I came to Damariscotta.

  Her heart slowed its breakneck pace to a calmer one as she looked at the second card. It was an image of a chalice overflowing with water, held by a large hand belonging to an unseen entity. A dove swept down into the cup. The caption on the card read Ace of Cups.

  Diana knew from the times she had looked through the book on the Tarot that the suit of cups implied emotion or intuition, perhaps even love or affection. The ace of any suit was the epitome of that suit, embodying the essence of that symbol and exhibiting it in its truest, fullest form.

  If the first card is the way I was, Diana thought to herself, then perhaps this suggests how I am now. Past, present, and future.

  She looked at the card again and felt fullness. Her cup was overflowing, she was attuned, sharp, and vulnerable to her feelings at this time. Emotions had bubbled within her—warred within her—at a heightened level for the past few weeks. Her feelings for Ethan, the fear of why she’d been a target for vandalism and the break-ins, the confusion and fear over her aunt’s murder, the depression from the implosion of her career … and now, the opening of her mind to accept the abilities that Belinda had understood so well.

  All of these emotions swarmed over her, swamping her so that she felt exhausted and exuberant at the same time. Confused and mixed up, frightened and exhilarated by love. These forces were foreign to Diana in their strength—to she who had always prided herself on her stability and unemotional detachment to people, places, and events.

  She took a deep breath, suddenly at such peace with herself that calm settled over her. Now, the third card. The future, perhaps.
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  This, too, was a card she did not recognize but could glean some meaning from its caption. King of Wands, it read. Diana didn’t know much about the suit of wands, except that it implied creativity, energy, and action. The wands were equated with the element of fire, which was a forceful, bold entity. The king himself sat on an ornate throne, holding a wand as a staff.

  Diana stared at the card, trying to equate the persona of the king with something that could happen or be a part of her future. The king could symbolize a person—one who exhibited those energetic, forceful characteristics … or it could mean she would attain or experience an atmosphere of drama or daring … or, even, that she herself was symbolized by the energetic persona of the king.

  She shook her head, still looking at the King of Wands, wondering what it could mean.

  After a long moment, she came back to herself, back to the floor where she sat cross-legged. Her eyes lit on the fourth card, the one that had fallen from the deck while she was shuffling. With a deep breath, she reached for it. Flipped it over. And saw Death.

  Now, she shivered as a blast of cold air rushed over her, and that same black wave of terror she’d felt at Jonathan’s threatened to encompass her.

  No, not again. No …

  She fought, focused on the Ace of Cups, turning her mind sharply, firmly from the image of Death. I won’t succumb this time. She focused, meditated, prayed, hypnotized herself with the picture of the overflowing Cup, curling her fingers around solid objects: the edge of the piecrust table, the cushion of the settee.

  And all at once, Motto appeared, jumping up onto the sofa next to her. He butted against her leg and side with his warm, furry body. Then he looked at her with blue eyes and sat next to her, large and warm and alive, twitching his tail as she came back to herself.

  Smiling, victorious, she gathered the feline into her arms. And he let her.

  ~*~

  Diana woke in the middle of the night, sitting bolt upright in her bed.

  Cameron Darr.

  Marc Reardon.

  Cameron Darr was Marc Reardon.

  The names were merely rearrangements of the letters—anagrams. Dianagrams! Of course. How could she have missed such an obvious thing?

  Scrambling out of bed, Diana fumbled for the lamp and turned it on. She sat on the edge of the mattress, breathing as if she’d been running and running.

  Queasiness grew in the pit of her stomach. Aunt Belinda had known what she was doing when she sent her that article. But was it true—was Marc really Cameron Darr? And if he was, what was he doing in Damariscotta, using a different name?

  The possible explanations were obvious: he had changed his identity and disappeared to escape the lawsuit, or had just moved away to start anew after being accused of murdering Marjorie Gaunt. Diana knew how much damage even a minor malpractice lawsuit could do to a physician’s practice—she wouldn’t blame him if he’d decided to relocate and start over again. Many doctors had been forced to do so.

  Now, the question was whether the fact that Marc Reardon was probably Cameron Darr had anything to do with Aunt Belinda’s murder. To what lengths would he—or anyone—go to keep a changed identity a secret?

  Diana thought the answer wasn’t too difficult: if he’d changed identities illegally, he’d probably go to any length. If not, then the two facts were probably not related. So far as she knew from the cursory research she’d done, Cameron Darr had only been accused of assisting Marjorie Gaunt in a premature death—and she’d found nothing that indicated he’d been brought to trial. So, then, perhaps he’d just settled the case, then moved across the country to escape the bad publicity.

  But why was Belinda seeing two doctors?

  That thought came from nowhere. Diana turned it over in her mind for a moment. She needed to find out the name of the physician in Portland, and then perhaps she’d know the answer. Of course, she could ask Marc if he’d referred Belinda … but for some reason, she didn’t like that option.

  I’ll look in the phone book tomorrow and see if I can find the doctor’s name.

  She crawled back into bed, pulling the light goose down comforter over her in protection against the chill Maine night. Diana turned out the light and willed herself to sleep.

  ~*~

  Diana was up and dressed by seven o’clock—an unusual feat for her while in Damariscotta. Her dreams had been filled with warped images of snakes climbing trees, and newspaper clippings … along with a grinning, half-illuminated Marc and an angry Jonathan standing on her porch. Aunt Belinda had made an appearance, beckoning with her wrinkled hand toward some unfamiliar room, and, of course, the Tarot cards had fluttered onto the scene, lightly batting at her arms and face.

  As she flipped through the Portland area phone book looking for the phone number for Aunt Bee’s Portland doctor, Diana found the answer to another question.

  She drew in her breath sharply. The name of Aunt Bee’s physician was Clancy Harbaugh … and he had a small, block advertisement on the page with a symbol that could be mistaken for a snake climbing a tree if it were clumsily embroidered on a quilt block. It was a caduceus—the symbol for the medical profession—and she stared at it, kicking herself for not recognizing it from Aunt Belinda’s amateur stitches.

  She thought again about the quilt block that had bothered her. Now she knew that at least part of it had to do with a physician … and as she mulled over the rest of the images, she guessed that the Pisces symbol was an indication of someone’s birthday—perhaps Marc Reardon/Cameron Darr’s. The stars and moon meant nothing to her; but it was possible, Diana realized, that they indicated some astrological sign. At any rate, she felt she knew enough to make a phone call to Clancy Harbaugh, and then, perhaps to pay a visit to Marc to see what she could learn on the sly. Maybe there’d be something in his office—a diploma, for example, that would help her identify him. Or something that indicated he’d lived in Oregon. Then, if she thought things were making sense, she’d head directly to Joe Cap’s office and tell him her suspicions.

  And she’d call Ethan when she was in town and had service on her BlackBerry.

  When she called Dr. Harbaugh, she explained who she was and used her reputation as a malpractice attorney to gain access to the physician himself. Within five minutes of conversation with him, she learned that Aunt Belinda had not been referred by Marc Reardon, and that she’d come to the doctor in Portland for a second opinion on a diagnosis. And that her Aunt Belinda had been in perfect health.

  Diana’s heart bumped in her chest as she allowed the receiver to slip back into its cradle. Marc Reardon had misdiagnosed her aunt. And Aunt Belinda had known it.

  ~*~

  Diana walked briskly along Main Street. She clutched her handbag to her body, trying to contain her nerves. It’s just a doctor’s appointment, she told herself firmly. Marc had told her to stop by to see him about her migraines, and she’d decided to take him up on it in hopes that she’d have the chance to peek at Aunt Belinda’s medical records, and perhaps find something else that could confirm her suspicions. Then, she could go to the police.

  She passed the ladies’ quilt shop on her way to Marc’s little cottage office, and almost stopped in to let them know where she was going … just in case. But the sign on the door said ‘Closed’ and she was forced to walk on by.

  A block further down, she turned onto the short, neat sidewalk that led up to the office. When she opened the door to go in, she saw a pleasant-looking receptionist on the other side of a desk and Diana relaxed. She didn’t have anything to be nervous about.

  “Hi, I have a noon appointment with Dr. Reardon,” she told the woman.

  “Ah, yes, Diana Iverson, Belinda’s niece? Dr. Reardon told me to make sure I fit you in if you called, even during the lunch hour if necessary.” She smiled to reveal two chipmunk-sized teeth with a quarter-inch space between them. “Dr. Reardon asked that you fill out these new patient forms, and he’ll be with you as soon as possible.”

&n
bsp; Diana took the clipboard and perched on one of the wicker chairs in the waiting room to complete the paperwork. She was just finishing when the receptionist came out from behind the desk, carrying her purse. When Diana looked up at her inquiringly, the woman explained, “Got to run out for lunch today, dearie. But don’t you worry—Dr. Reardon is almost finished with his last patient. Patty’s in there with him and she’ll come out for you when he’s done.”

  “Patty’s the nurse?” Diana asked, feeling a bit nervous.

  “Oh, yes,” called the receptionist as she bustled out the door.

  Diana gave a small sigh of relief, then silently berated herself for her nerves. What was going to happen to her in a doctor’s office in the middle of town?

  With the receptionist gone, though, this was as good a time as any to try to take a look at her aunt’s medical records. Diana rose slowly from her chair, and, carrying the clipboard, slipped through the door to the back room. If anyone came in, she’d say she made a mistake on the forms and was looking for a new one. That, she thought, was as good an excuse as any—and if anyone caught her, it would likely be Patty.