A Cry in the Dark

by Jenna Mills

  It made no sense. It was a warm, muggy night, barely cooled by the breeze blowing off Lake Michigan. And yet a chill slithered through Danielle.

  “I can give you those answers,” the fortune teller promised in a wise, tired voice. “I can give them to you both.”

  And Danielle knew. Deep in her bones, she knew why she’d demanded that he stop the car. “This,” she said, turning to Liam. “This is why we’re here.”

  Chapter 10

  “Have a seat.” The older woman swept a bejeweled hand toward the chairs in front of a small table draped in purple and red. Magnificent Magdalena, the sign read. “Shuffle the cards.”

  Danielle felt herself move forward, felt Liam lag behind. Fascination battled with doubt. The deck of Tarot cards glimmered like an icon from the past.

  Her mother, she remembered in a heart-stopping flash. Her mother and her aunt. They’d loved the cards of fortune and destiny. Trusted them. Once, Danielle had found them tucked in a drawer and started to shuffle, only to have her mother running into the room and grabbing them from her. To this day, the stricken look in her vivid green eyes lingered.

  “These are not toys,” she’d said in that gentle voice of hers, and then her aunt was standing beside her, and they were both sharing glances that Danielle didn’t understand, but that sent chills up her spine.

  Only a few days later her mother had lain dead on the dirty hardwood floor of the living room.

  She should turn and leave. Run. She should not flirt with fortune or fate. She knew that. Had learned that.

  And yet the grave look in the fortune t’s gaze, the familiarity of the cards, drew her like a magnet.

  Slowly she sat. “What do you see in my eyes?”

  Magdalena frowned. “Pain,” she said. “Yearning.”

  Danielle’s mouth went dry.

  “Clear your mind.” The older woman nudged the deck closer. “Clear your heart.” She glanced behind her to where Danielle felt Liam’s solid presence. “Just shuffle.”

  Liam’s hand settled against her shoulder. “You don’t have to do this.”

  The contact electrified even as it soothed. She’d told him not to touch her again, but now, with his palm cupping her shoulder, she made no move to push him away.

  “My mother read cards,” she told him, dividing the deck into two piles. She picked up one with each hand, then tented them together. “They foretold her death.”

  She heard his sharp intake of breath, felt him stiffen. “Danielle—”

  “Please,” she said, continuing to shuffle. “What can it hurt?”

  He let out a rough breath. “A lot of things.” But then he took his hand away and spun around the chair next to hers and straddled the seat.

  As far as surrenders went, it wasn’t all that eloquent, but Danielle didn’t care.

  “When you’re done,” Magdalena said, “cut the deck into four facedown piles.”

  Danielle did as instructed. She could feel Liam beside her, his breath, his gaze, but she didn’t look, could not look away from the old fortune teller. The rhythms of her Gypsy heritage hummed too loudly, called too deeply.

  “Now draw the top card from the far-left pile and turn it faceup here.”

  It was ridiculous, but her heart’s pace picked up rhythm, thrumming in much the same way it had in the moments before Liam’s mouth had come down on hers. When she reached for the first pile, her hand shook. She hesitated, then lifted the card and placed it where Magdalena had instructed.

  Wheel of Fortune.

  A shiver ran through Danielle. “What does that mean?”

  “Not yet,” Magdalena said, then instructed her how to lay out the remaining cards. The Three of Swords came next. The Moon. The High Priestess.

  Then silence. It was odd how silent the night could fall when the carnival shimmied around them. But a vacuum seemed to envelop them, seal them off from the rest of the world.

  Danielle glanced at Liam, found him looking not at her but at the cards. He sat only a few inches from her, yet the distance stretched into miles. Years. Lifetimes.

  What do you see in my eyes?

  Yearning.

  The breath caught in Danielle’s throat. There was yearning, all right. Yearning for her son. Yearning for a return to the normalcy of a few days before. And, God forgive her, a yearning for this man, to cut away the dark shadows and secrets that cloaked him.

  “Ah, child,” Magdalena said, and her voice was low, unbearably weary. “Your destiny is at hand.”

  The simple statement went through Danielle with unerring precision. “No.” Protest screamed through her, but the word came out soft, horrified. She’d have to be blind not to see the pattern in her life. First her mother, then her father. Then Ty. Then her siblings. She’d lost them all, everyone she loved. “I can’t lose him, too.”

  Liam slid a hand to her thigh. Another touch she’d claimed not to want, but could not bring herself to sever. “Danielle—”

  “All is not lost,” Magdalena said, then stunned Danielle by sliding her arm across the table and clasping Danielle’s hand. The older woman’s flesh was thin and cool, but beneath it pulsed a strong life force. “Far from it.”

  Emotion clogged her throat. “I don’t understand.”

  The woman’s eyes gentled. “See this card?” She gestured toward the Three of Swords. “It tells me you’ve come through a period of separation. That your heart was pierced. That you cut yourself off from the world as you knew it, in order to heal.”

  Around them, the carnival danced on, the bright lights, the milling crowds, but Danielle’s world slowed, wobbled.

  “And this,” Magdalena said, pointing to the Moon card, “warns of hidden enemies and darkness and despair.”

  Danielle stared at the card, a big yellow ball suspended against a sea of black and supported by a flying owl, and tried to breathe.

  Hidden enemies.

  “Then how can you say all is not lost?” she asked.

  Magdalena smiled. “Because of the priestess.” Releasing Danielle’s hand, she skimmed her fingers over the card. “The priestess is your strength,” she said. “The priestess urges you to trust your intuition. To act on feelings rather than facts.” With a soft smile she lifted her eyes to Danielle. “The priestess wants you to reengage with the world.”

  Danielle tried to breathe but couldn’t. Nor could she think. She wanted to deny what the fortune teller said, to shove the cards back at her and laugh, to tell her she shouldn’t play games with peoples lives. And yet the very intuition that Magdalena urged her to trust, told her to hold quiet. To accept the prophecy. To trust.

  “What about me?”

  Lost in thought, Danielle needed a moment for it to register that the question had been uttered by Liam. She looked at him seated next to her, his big body straddling the chair in what should have been a casual pose but somehow wasn’t. Because of his eyes, she knew. The fierce glitter. The ominous glow.

  “You?” She’d wanted to know this man’s secrets, but she’d never in a million years imagined he’d be willing to share them.

  He reached for a second deck of cards Magdalena had secured from behind the table. “The FBI isn’t all cold, hard fa evidence,” he said, shuffling. “There are special units, units designed to investigate that which cannot be understood.”

  She knew that. At least she’d heard rumors. But she’d never pictured tall, brooding Liam giving anything other than procedure and protocol a second thought.

  That fact that he would, that he did, poked more nasty holes in the picture of him she wanted to draw, that of a driven, isolated man.

  Fascination whispered loud and deep as she watched his big hands shuffle the cards with surprising finesse and agility. But then, those were the same hands he’d lifted to her face and slid along her body, and even though they were rough, she’d felt only a heart-shattering tenderness. He shuffled the cards again before he cut the deck and repeated the process. Then she glanced up and fel
t the breath stall in her throat.

  His eyes were closed.

  She’d never seen him like this, with his face so fully relaxed. The lines that normally cut deep into his flesh were almost gone, leaving a softness that made her fingers itch to touch. His mouth, which was usually hard and unforgiving but which kissed with abandon and urgency, was relaxed. Even the whiskers along his jaw looked softer, less menacing.

  Who was this man? she wondered in some faraway corner of her mind. Who was this man who’d barged into her life and insisted she play by his rules, that he and he alone could bring her son home alive? Who was this man who carried a gun and a badge but kissed like a lost soul and held the Tarot cards in his hands as though they were something to be cherished and revered?

  Slowly, eyes still closed, he repeated the process Danielle had gone through, making four piles, drawing the top card from each and laying it faceup in the pattern Magdalena instructed. All the while he kept his eyes shut, leaving Danielle to wonder what it was he was so afraid of seeing.

  In the House of Mirrors he hadn’t looked at his reflections, not once. His eyes had been focused solely on her.

  The Seven of Wands, a dark card with a yellow cat, came first. Then the tower—a card that screamed violence, desecration and destruction. The Queen of Pentacles.

  And still, even after he sorted, he did not look, just let his hands hover over the cards.

  Magdalena looked, though. And the sorrow in her eyes deepened, turning the soft green into something primal and ancient. “Child,” she said again, but this time there was warmth in her voice. Compassion. Frowning, she laid her hand over Liam’s.

  It stunned Danielle that he didn’t yank away.

  “You have suffered much,” Magdalena said, and Danielle’s heart responded with a painful lurch. She’d known that about him. From the moment she’d seen him across the lobby of the hotel, she’d sensed a deep undercurrent of pain. She’d felt it in his touch. Tasted it in his kiss.

  Slowly Liam’s eyes opened. “Go on.”

  Danielle wanted to look away from him, from the stoicism of his posture, the way he was bracing himself, but couldn’t. Because even more she wanted to touch.

  But she didn’t do that

  This man had come into her life because of his quest to bring down the shadowy Titan. He was helping her find her son, in the hopes that doing so would bring him closer to achieving his own goal. That was all. She could not allow those lines to blur.

  “It pains you when you don’t have the answers to the questions you are asking,” Magdalena said, fingering the Ace of Wands, which Liam had placed upside down. “But you must remain strong.”

  Danielle couldn’t imagine Liam any other way. Even when he was breaking, the man exuded a strength of will that she’d rarely encountered.

  “The odds seem overwhelming,” the fortune-teller murmured, running her index finger along the Seven of Wands, “but you are a man of great strength and perseverance.” She lifted her eyes to Liam. “Believe in yourself. Walk your own path. That is the only way you will rise above your enemies.”

  Enemies.

  “Who will win?” Danielle leaned closer to Magdalena. “In the end, who will win?”

  The older woman’s expression grew distant. “That is not for me to say.”

  “The cards, then,” Danielle said. Urgency grew within her. “What do the cards foretell for this hidden enemy that stalks us both?”

  The wind pushed the streak of silver hair against Magdalena’s face. “He is not here. I cannot say.”

  “Try.” Danielle gathered the cards and pushed them toward Magdalena. “Please.”

  Liam was still staring at his cards, his index finger tracing the lines of the broken image on the Tower card. “It’s important,” he said, finally lifting his gaze to pierce the fortune teller. “A matter of life and death.”

  The little cry escaped Danielle before her heart could beat. “My son’s life,” she added, and then Liam was reaching for her hand and she was threading her fingers with his.

  “Titan,” he said. “The man’s name is Titan.”

  Magdalena’s eyes darkened. “Titan,” she murmured, retrieving the deck and turning it over in her hands. Like Liam, she closed her eyes. Her breathing grew heavier, as though she was entering some kind of trance. “Titan.”

  Danielle glanced at Liam, found him watching Magdalena. She shuffled, swaying with the breeze as she did so, then sorted the cards into four piles and retrieved the top from each.

  The Magician, a black card with a devious-looking rabbit on it, came first. The Nine of Swords was second, followed by the Six of Pentacles. The Eight of Wands.

  Anticipation quickened through Danielle, and once again she could see her mother, seated across from her aunt at the kitchen table, their eyes closed as they sorted cards between them. The women had trusted the old ways, trusted the cards.

  The Magician, she recalled her aunt hissing when she opened her eyes. He is near.

  Danielle swallowed hard, pushed the memory asid

  “The Magician,” Magdalena said, opening her eyes. “He grows increasingly dangerous.”

  The quietly spoken words stabbed deep. Danielle felt herself sway, and was grateful that Liam was by her side, holding her hand. She stared at the image, saw what she’d missed before. The rabbit looked harmless enough with its little half smile, but in its hands juggled the sun and the moon and the earth.

  The chill started low, spread fast. “Is he going to hurt my son?”

  Magdalena’s eyes, so sharp and flashing moments before, clouded over. “He has overcome many failures and delays, this one has. Many disappointments. Each has made him more desperate.”

  Liam swore softly. “And now?”

  “This is a man who knows how to get what he wants, how to work behind the scenes and manipulate the world around him. He knows how to hide and juggle. He is a master of control and illusion. Of sorcery and secrecy.”

  Horror flooded Danielle, not the kind she’d felt in the maze of mirrors after she’d kissed Liam, but darker, more primal, ominous, like an oil spill destroying everything in its path. “Alex…”

  “He must be stopped,” Magdalena added. “Before he grows stronger.”

  “But how—” Danielle started to say.

  “I cannot tell you that.” Magdalena reached for a black shawl draped over her chair. “It grows cold,” she said, wrapping the wool around her body, which suddenly seemed much more frail than it had moments before.

  “Take this with you.” She slid the Magician card toward Liam. “Let it be a reminder.”

  Instead of picking up the card, he traced the outline of the rabbit with his forefinger.

  Magdalena stood. “There is one thing you must remember,” she said. “There is one thing you must never forget.” The breeze off the lake whipped her silver-streaked hair against the sharp angles of her face. Her pale-green eyes glowed. “Those who walk alone are the first to fall.”

  Liam walked alone.

  Danielle’s heart caught on the realization, the sharp rush of truth. She watched him move quietly from room to room within her house, more shadow than man, but for the gun in his hand. He moved with caution, checking each room, each closet, each window, carefully. Deliberately. Much the way he did everything.

  Except kiss. When the man kissed—

  She broke the thought before it deepened, the memory before it heated, but she could do nothing about the way her fingers found her mouth and skimmed her lower lip.

  Outside the last room, she turned away. She didn’t need to see him inside, didn’t need to see him survey her unmade bed, the clothes she’d left on the floor, the faded lace bra hanging from her dresser. She didn’t need to feel the dull blade of longing that cut through her, the one that made her wonder what it would feel like to lean on this man.

  “ll’s clear,” he said a few minutes later, joining her in the small foyer.

  Light blazed from every room, brig
ht and glaring, but when she looked at him, the shadows had settled back into place. Except she saw so much more now, after their encounter in the House of Mirrors. She saw an intensity that seared through him, a longing she didn’t understand.

  “Good,” she said inanely, because there was really nothing else to say.

  He slid his Glock into the holster strapped around his shoulder. “I can stay if you want—”

  “No.” Yes. “I’m fine.” I haven’t been able to breathe since Magdalena turned over the Magician card. “You should get on back to the hotel.” Don’t leave. “Get some rest yourself.” Hold me. Let me hold you.

  His mouth thinned. “You’re right.”

  No, she wasn’t, a voice deep inside protested. She was wrong. Dead wrong. “See you in the morning,” she said, because she knew that just like all those never-ending images from the House of Mirrors, the draw she felt toward this man was not real. Could not be real. If she tried to grab it, she’d find nothing but illusion.

  The priestess urges you to trust your intuition. To act on feelings rather than facts.

  Her throat tightened on the memory, the truth. Fighting the fledgling intuition she’d forced herself to ignore for two years, she opened the front door and breathed of the cool night air. She’d trusted before. She’d acted on feelings rather than fact. And in the process Ty had died.

  “Call me if you need me,” Liam said, but made no move to leave.

  “I will.” Her heart rebelled at the words. The lie. She would call Liam if she heard from Alex’s kidnappers, but for the other needs that pulsed through her, the illusory ones he’d stirred inside the tent of mirrors, there could be no contact with this man. No reaching out. No leaning.

  She opened the door wider and looked up at him, deliberately angling her chin. Outside, the branches of the young maple she and Alex had planted last fall danced in time with the breeze, but inside the brightly lit foyer, stillness settled between them like a gauzy veil. She ignored the dark currents humming beneath the surface, just as she’d been doing since they’d left the carnival. They’d not spoken on the way home, had barely spoken since Magdalena had uttered her final warning.