Duba BOOKS
Tarot’s Kiss
Nichole Blackfinch
For my family
Chapter 1. Prologue.
IF YOU HAVE TO SPEAK TO THE DEVIL, you choose your words carefully. And since a short plane ride was all that stood between me and the evil old man who had ruined my life, I’d already begun mentally rehearsing my conversation as I took my seat at the front of the cabin.
The only spot left had been expensive and in first class, but I’d booked it without hesitation. Not having to think about money was the one of the only consolations of my new life. I clicked my seatbelt together and scanned the row. The woman next to me was tapping away on her phone, sending those last few emails as the plane began to taxi. Her smile was like her shoes: pointy, glossy and intimidating. She shot a dismissive glance at my concert tee, frayed shorts and paint-spattered canvas sneakers, likely wondering what a scruffy teen girl was doing in this section of the plane. I turned away from her.
What I needed now was a strategy, a way out of the mess I’d made. If I had ever asked, would I have seen this in the cards? What should I have done differently?
There was only one answer I could see to that question, and that answer was impossible: I should have never turned eighteen.
I should have stayed seventeen forever.
Chapter 2. A Birthday and A Body.
THE LOCKED DOOR SHOULD HAVE BEEN my first clue that something was very wrong that morning. But it was the first of April—my eighteenth birthday—and my thoughts were focused only on pleasure of skipping a day of school, and the happy possibility of a generous birthday check from my grandmother.
My grandmother lived less than a mile from us, so the air in my car was still cold when I pulled into the gravel driveway that ran alongside my her house, a cozy-spooky Victorian trimmed out in scrolls and scallops, the sort of vintage home that called to mind gingerbread and dollhouses, but also, less pleasantly, spiders and widows.
I bounded the steps to the front door, thumping the lion-shaped door knocker twice in my customary greeting. I reached for the handle, ready to burst in and announce my arrival, but surprisingly, the handle wouldn’t turn. Was she away? But where would my grandma be so early on a Wednesday morning? The tones of the doorbell echoed inside as I held my thumb against the bell.
The cold from the cement seeped up through the thin soles on my sneakers as I stood on the porch. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up around my ears and squirmed from one foot to another, blowing warm puffs on my fingers in a futile attempt to warm up. The door remained unanswered so I jogged across the snow-dotted lawn back to my car. Yes, there was my grandma’s ancient Volkswagen, camped at the back of the driveway by the detached garage, so presumably she was home. Was she still asleep? I’d never known her to sleep past seven and it was nearly nine. I plopped my bag on the hood of my car and rifled through the pockets, looking for my copy of her house key.
The key duly located at the bottom of my bag, I retraced my steps to the front door. I unlocked the door and poked my head in, the warm cinnamon smell of the house wafting over me.
“Grandma? You here?” I entered the tiny front foyer and stopped short. None of the typical morning noises welcomed me. No companionable chattering of talk radio, no vacuum, nothing.
“Grandma?” I felt my heart beating faster. The house was eerily quiet. I walked into the kitchen. On the range sat a large bowl covered by a red-checked dishtowel. She must have been letting dough rise for cinnamon rolls, my favorite birthday treat. A cup of tea was on the kitchen table, a paperback at its side. Everything looked fine, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The air felt heavy, unmoved, sulky. I climbed the stairs and only the slight creak of my footfall on each stair broke the soundlessness of the upstairs hall.
The master bedroom door stood ajar. I gently pushed it open and held my breath as I walked inside and exhaled in relief. She was sleeping. My grandma was right there on top of her paisley bedspread, wearing her robe and house slippers, her long hair loose across the pillow, eyes closed, handkerchief in hand. She was just resting, I told myself, an early morning nap.
“Grandma, are you ok?” She didn’t reply. I sat on the edge of her bed and reached for her hand. Her hand was familiar in mine, but too still, even when I wrapped my fingers through hers and rested it on the smooth duvet. The feel of the hand was wrong; some essential quality was lacking in the skin, the bones.
“No,” I said to the empty room. “No, no.” This wasn’t right. Her tea was still on the table. The dough was still rising. I leaned over my grandma and felt for a pulse, uncertain of where I should even be checking. No pulse was beating against her skin, and no breath escaped her mouth, but my first thought was that I couldn’t let her be cold. I stood and unfolded the pink blanket at the foot of the bed and placed it over her, tucking her in as she had done to me so many times over the years. Now she could be warm and wake up and we’d roll out the dough and everything would be ok.
Light-headedness overtook me. I leaned against the wall for support, but someone was making the room move, how else to explain my motion sickness? Nausea swelled from deep within my body. I staggered to the bathroom and leaned over the toilet, dizzy and ill. There wasn’t enough air to breathe. I lurched upright and shoved at the small window over the toilet, forcing it open. The cold morning air blew in and I sucked at it greedily, clutching the white-tiled windowsill to steady myself.
Outside, a flash of movement broke the stillness of the morning. Startled, I lifted my eyes to look more closely, but nothing stirred as I scanned the view. The driver’s side door on my grandma’s car was flung open. I froze. I was sure that the door hadn’t been open when I’d checked her driveway just a few minutes earlier. Or had it been?
I paused, puzzled, and then spotted another small movement in my peripheral vision. I swiveled my head to the left. A dark-haired man was half-crouched at the angle where the driveway met the sidewalk, partially hidden by a shrub. Our eyes locked for the briefest of moments and he ran away. I recoiled, biting my lip to stay silent as I backed out of view.
I held very still, but I heard nothing else. My heart stuttered frantically; I could feel the quick beats pumping in my ears. Had that man been in the house? Had he hurt my grandma? What if someone else was in the house with me? The bathroom window was too small and too high to offer any hope of escape. I broke out in a clammy sweat. Stay calm, Lucy, I ordered myself. Think fast. I wiped my palms on my jeans and quietly shut and locked the bathroom door behind me. Slowly, soundlessly, I slid to the floor, gripped my cell phone and called 911.
THE LAST OF THE VISITORS HAD FINALLY left our house. Casserole dishes left by well-wishers languished on the kitchen counter. Dirtied plates and cups had been left here and there, muddy traces of footprints on the tile. “Where should we start on cleaning, Mom?” I asked, surveying the mess.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “Let’s deal with it tomorrow. I can’t face anything else tonight. I’m beat and I just want to sit here and have a quiet cup of coffee.”
“All I have is a loud cup of coffee, will that work?”
“Oh, ha ha, funny girl. Why don’t you sit down and join me?”
I found two clean mugs and carried them to the table with the coffee carafe. My mom sighed and kicked off her shoes. Slight creases marked her elegant black skirt and jacket. Her makeup had worn off during the day and there was nothing to disguise the dark circles above her cheeks or the fine lines, usually unnoticeable, that etched outward from each of her blue eyes. The funeral had exhausted us both.
“How are you feeling, Lucy,” she asked as she stirred her coffee.
“I don’t
know. I’d say sad, but that doesn’t really cover it.”
“A stroke. It’s impossible to think of Eleanor having a stroke,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. Which is one other reason I still don’t think that’s what happened,” I said, pulling my legs up against me.
“Oh, Lucy, not now,” my mom said.
“Yes now,” I persisted. “How do we really know that guy didn’t break in there and hurt her? Why else would he be lurking like a pervert at the end of her driveway? I doubt he was just moseying along and was overcome with the urge to take in a scenic view of Grandma’s garage.”
“Lucy,” my mom said. “We’ve been over this. Again, he was probably just a jogger.”
“A jogger who randomly opens car doors?”
“You don’t know that he was the one who did that. Your grandmother may have left it open. Let’s not get all worked up,” she said. She removed her watch and rings and began massaging her temples.
“I’m not a hysterical little girl, Mom, and I’m not a moron. I think that guy must have hurt her and everyone is just ignoring it. Aren’t they supposed to do autopsies on this stuff?”
My mom set down her coffee cup and looked at me intently. “Lucy, I know you’re sad and I know you’re looking for some explanation, any explanation, for how terrible this is,” she said. “But there is no reason to believe anyone was in the house. We went through this already. Her purse was in the kitchen and nothing was taken, not even cash. Her jewelry was untouched, her computer, anything that someone would have wanted to take.”
I leaned back and folded my arms. “So I’m the only one who thinks it’s weird with her car door being open liked that, like maybe someone was looking for something.”
“You’re reading too much into this, Lucy,” my mom said softly. “If anyone was looking for anything it was your grandma herself. And we’ll never know what or why. If the police really thought something was up, they would have looked into it. Let yourself grieve but don’t add this whole suspicion to the mix. No one would have wanted to hurt your grandma. Think about it.”
“No, no one would, I guess,” I said. A hollow ache twisted in my chest, I wanted this to be somebody’s fault. “Do you think my, um, dad knows about it? Wouldn’t he want to know his mom died?
My mom was silent for a long while before replying. “Yes,” she said. “I do think he’d want to know. They were close. But it’s been sixteen years since. . .”
She didn’t need to finish the sentence. I knew as well as she did how long he’d been gone; I didn’t even remember him, and now I’d lost the only biological link to him.
“I’m going to miss her so much.”
“Of course you will, sweetheart. Everyone will miss her,” my mom said, reaching out to smooth my hair. It was true, but not comforting and it still made no sense.
Death belonged to other people’s grandparents, those humorless, judgmental relics of some other dusty age. Death made no sense at all for a woman who baked pies while listening to Jimi Hendrix. Death was for old people, not for my grandma, but it had made a mistake and taken her anyway and now I’d lost the one person who understood me the most. There was nothing to do about it, and that was the worst thing of all.
Chapter 3. Sort-Of Boyfriend.
First-period English droned at me through a hazy filter of exhaustion. My boss had given me the week off work, but I hadn’t slept much since the funeral. I stared at the blank notebook on my desk until I felt a sharp nudge from the guy seated behind me and realized that Mrs. Crowthers was staring at me pointedly.
I glanced at my blank paper, hoping to look like I was engrossed in notes. Mrs. Crowthers resumed her speech on Heart of Darkness, a book I hadn’t much liked. Stories should have at least one person to root for, a clear-cut good guy. There’s enough ambiguity in real life.
After class, I was shoving my books and notepad into my locker when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Matt leaned against the locker next to mine, a shaggy lock of sand-colored hair flopping in front of his wide blue eyes as he looked down at me. He opened his mouth to speak, then bit his lip as if reconsidering, tasting his words before offering them up.
“Hey, Lucy. I just wanted to see if you were ok,” he said, brushing his hair aside.
“Sort of. As good as I can be. But thank you,” I said.
“So your day’s going ok so far?”
“Meh, reviewing Heart of Darkness isn’t my favorite pastime, but it’ll do.”
Matt relaxed his shoulders and the anxious look faded. “So do you have a heart of darkness?”
“No, mostly just a stomach of grief. And maybe a spleen of dismay.” I tried to muster a grin and couldn’t quite do it. He gave me a weak little courtesy chuckle.
Shyness didn’t grip Matt now the way it had when we’d first become friends in grade school, but still at times he’d slip back into his old frame of tight, narrowed shoulders and down-turned chin, the stance of self-consciousness you never saw with good-looking people unless they had, like Matt Marsden, evolved quite quickly and recently from something less perfect.
He’d been a lanky, beaky introvert of a kid, the two of us drawn together by our dorky enthusiasm for video games, but sometime during our sophomore year, his disparate parts clicked together, grew into each other, and now, well, now he was certainly on the radar of most girls in our class. Something subtle had shifted in our relationship over the past months; he was veering toward boyfriend territory. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Matt hesitantly stepped closer to me. “About you grandma, I’m sorry, Lucy. She was always good to me, too,” he said. “And, um, if you need anything you can call me.” Matt shifted his bag to his other shoulder and placed his arm around me in an awkward hug.
“I appreciate the offer. That’s really sweet.”
Matt paused, as if waiting for me to say something else. “So, we’re still on for Senior Formal, right?”
“Of course!” I said, with a too-bright fakeness that made me cringe. I had completely forgotten about the dance. “Yeah, definitely. Wouldn’t want to miss it.”
“Cool. And I’ll see you later tonight, still?” I nodded and said I’d call him when I got off work. Matt turned and walked away, tugging upward on his jeans. He was a drummer and I’d promised to come watch his band, Last Chance for Zombies, practice in his friend’s garage that night.
I still needed to find a dress for the dance. Ugh. I wondered what was wrong with me, why I had so little enthusiasm for the same things that my friends found so exciting. Maybe Angie would let me borrow one of her older dresses. I’d have to shorten it, but that would be better than shopping. Or, maybe I should just wear one I already had worn that year. Did it really matter?
I was digging for my chemistry book when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out and touched the screen. Surprisingly, there was a text message from my mom. She rarely contacted me during school hours. “Meet me at office after school. Have news!” the message read. I wondered what news could have possibly arisen since I’d last seen my mom as she was leaving for work earlier that morning. Maybe she’d discovered a new cleaning product. Or a new, inspiring yoga pose. I decided to put it out of my mind until after school.
LIKE MANY OF THE BUSINESSES IN THIS SECTION of Boulder, Crescent Realty was located in what had formerly been a cozy brick bungalow on Center Street. I pulled into an angled parking space in front of the building and killed the engine. I tilted my rear view mirror downward to check my reflection, grimacing at the dark circles under my eyes and the limp strands of hair that had worked loose from my pony tail. Sometimes I wished I’d inherited my mom’s meticulous attention to her appearance.
I grabbed a brush and some lip gloss from my bag and tried to tidy myself before going inside, hoping it would be enough to deflect any commentary from my mom. Lip gloss can only accomplish so much, I decided, so I flipped the mirror back into place, grabbing my car keys and phone to head inside.
Crescent Realty was homey and warm. After the cold April day, the fire that crackled in the fireplace across from the reception desk was inviting. Belinda, who’d been working at the office for as long as I could remember, smiled at me as I entered, her poufy orange hairstyle unfazed by the passing decades.
“Well, well. Lucy Auburn. How are you doing honey? Looking forward to graduating, I bet.”
“Yep, I am. Only a few weeks left.” I craned my neck to look down the small hallway. “My mom’s still here, right?”
“Oh yeah, honey, go on back.” Belinda smiled again and returned her attention to the neat stacks of paperwork on her desk.
My mom’s tiny office was tucked away at the end of the hall. She was on the phone but motioned for me to come in. A thin, balding man was perched in one of her guest chairs, a sheaf of paper in front of him. He smiled politely and I nodded back. Leaning against the wall, I let my eyes wander across the office as I waited for my mom to end her call. A tall narrow bookshelf stood in the corner behind her desk. It had several pictures of me, alone and with my mom, and one picture, I noticed with a pang, that showed my with my mom and grandma, the three of us dressed as witches from a Halloween five or six years earlier. I took a deep breath and looked away.
“Mm hmm. Mmm hmm. Absolutely. Well, then,” my mom was making her end-this-phone-call noises, rolling her eyes upward. “Ok, yes, for sure. Buh-Bye.” She sat the phone down, making an exasperated noise. She hated to have her time wasted and lengthy phone calls were among her top pet peeves.
“Hey, mom.”
“Hi, sweetie. I’m glad to see you got my text.”
“So, what’s the important news?” I asked. “Is everything ok?”
“Oh, yes. Very ok, I think.” My mom smiled and leaned back. “We—well, you actually—have some decisions to make, though. This is Bill Garcia. He’s your grandma’s lawyer.”
I eyed the man warily and then looked back at my mom. She motioned at the other chair. “Sit down, Lucy, this is going to take a while.”
Tarot's Kiss (Tarot Chronicles) Page 1