“I got some pretty big news today,” she said, needing to tell someone, and told him about the inheritance.
“No one deserves it more than you do, Sophie. You’ve had a hard enough time, and I’m so happy that Patrice loved you enough to make sure you would be secure in life,” he said, looking at her closely.
Their thighs were pressed up against each other, the space suddenly close and intimate. She didn’t need to say anything as Gabe leaned in, framing her face with his hands as he kissed her.
Surprised--but not--she didn’t know what to do at first, and felt foolish as he kissed her. She froze. He pulled back, apologies in his eyes as his hands dropped.
“I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through a lot, and I shouldn’t have done that, but I’ve been thinking about kissing you since-”
She didn’t give him time to take his completely unnecessary apology any further, wrapping her fingers into his shirt and pulling him back, kissing him back, until it got hot and wet, their arms tight around each other as they explored each other in this new way. They parted after a few minutes, both breathing heavily.
Sophie smiled. “I’ve been thinking about it, too,” she admitted, and enjoyed seeing the masculine interest flare in his eyes.
She should feel guilty—shouldn’t she?—having just broken up with Roger. Then again, everything in her life was new now. She’d never even dated anyone else. Maybe it was time.
“I’m glad. I’d like to do it again,” he said, his thumb rubbing along hers.
“Me, too.”
“But not right now,” he said, somewhat to her relief. If nothing else, she wanted to slow this down a little and enjoy it, whatever it was. He looked around the shop, spotting her piles of saved items. “What can I do to help?”
“Don’t you have other things to do?”
“Nope. I’m all yours,” he said, punctuating what could be a loaded statement with a squeeze of her hand, and standing up, pulling her after him. “I want to help. And I do need to talk to you about something.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, I had a meeting this afternoon. It seems the university is not happy with me doing any of my ghost-hunting business on campus—they put up with it, but only so far, I guess. After Josh was hurt that one night with Eliza, things got a little sticky. The department asked me to move all of my equipment and files somewhere else.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” and truthfully, she felt slightly guilty, as it was her fault Josh had been burned. “That doesn’t seem fair at all. They are always happy for the visibility your books bring,” she said.
“Well, they only like certain kinds of exposure, and this is not the kind they want. I understand. So I need to find an office or place to work out of off campus, but close by. I was hoping, since we’ll be working together, somewhat, that you’d rent me some work space in your store, even in the back, just some small office space, once you get things put back together? And I want to find an apartment close by, too.”
Sophie didn’t expect the request, and had to process it for a moment, but the more she thought about it, the more she liked it. Feeling mischievous, she shook her head, looking stern. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t rent you space.”
He tried so hard not to look crestfallen that she had to laugh and quickly gave up her ruse.
“I mean I won’t rent you space—but you are welcome to use one of the new rooms I’ll be building off the back. It would be great for business! You could do book-signings here, maybe? Draw in new clients?”
He brightened, and looked like he might kiss her again. She hoped, and enjoyed the delicious tension of the moment, even though he simply stooped to pick up a heavy box she had loaded up earlier.
“Thank you. Now, I can start earning my keep, then. Where does this stuff go?”
“Here, I’ll show you,” she said, and had to stop from adding a little hop to her walk as she showed him where she was storing all of the salvageable items.
She’d been excited about her business before, but now she was doubly so. Earlier that week, she had felt a hundred years old, and as if nothing would ever be right again. Now she felt youthful, full of energy and anticipation for what the future held.
She liked it.
Gabe left a little before midnight, and Sophie had promised him, with one more, bone-melting kiss, that she’d leave soon, too. She was meeting Claire for the walk back to their apartment.
Poor Claire had felt terrible when she realized Stewart had stolen the poison from her collection, but Sophie tried to assure her it wasn’t her fault. No one could be blamed for someone else’s evil, she figured.
Claire was an easy roommate, and it was generous of her to allow Sophie a room for as long as she needed one, but Sophie still couldn’t wait to have her own place back. She was a person who liked to be on her own, she supposed.
Really, she felt like that was happening for the first time, now. And now there was this thing developing with Gabe. She didn’t want to rush things, but they were adults, and she had a feeling she’d want her own place back sooner than later.
As she carefully made her way down to the stairs by what was now the remnants of the old reading room, she gasped as she slid, the rail coming off in her hand and with it, a good section of wall, as well, even as Sophie managed to keep herself upright. There had been bookshelves there, once, though those were burned away. Amazing they hadn’t fallen off the wall, with the plaster this thin.
Looking more closely, she saw that the wall was empty behind. The space was quite large, unlike other areas that had broken through to rafters and brick. Another tunnel opening? Grabbing a hammer she had handy, she started punching carefully at the hole to make it bigger.
It wasn’t hard. The wall practically fell away, revealing a large, dark space. She’d always assumed her store wall bumped right up against the one on the other side, but apparently not. Grabbing her flashlight, she stepped in, carefully, and discovered steps that looked like they did lead down to another tunnel, much like the one under Claire’s shop.
“Awesome,” she whispered into the echoing space, laughing to herself. She felt like a kid on an adventure. “I wonder if they ever knew it was here?” she whispered into the dark space.
She had no memory of anything but the bookshelves that had always lined the wall, though the shelves had been flimsy and books were always falling from them.
Moving forward, her sneaker-clad foot hit something. She froze, hoping it wasn’t a rat or some other undesirable object. As she kicked forward with her toe, she found it was solid. Shining her light down, she saw a metal box and picked it up, carrying it back into the main area of the store.
The cover stuck, but gave way with some elbow grease, and she saw a stack of journals. They had the same design her aunt always used, like the ones that Sophie had kept upstairs. Sophie’s heart beat harder as she reached for one, opening it, finding lines of writing and numbers that she knew, having studied cryptography in her computer classes, were some kind of code. She had no idea, just looking at it, how to break the code, of if there was even a key. There were ten journals here, filled from front to back, which would mean a lot of decoding. Why would her aunt have been writing anything in code?
She also saw, on the first page of each journal, the sketch of a snake coiled around an eye. Partially covering it with her hand, she realized it could have been the tattoo she saw on the dark-haired man. The same tattoo reported in her aunt’s autopsy report.
Flipping through all of the journals with her flashlight, she turned one page, so surprised at what she saw that she dropped the book and had to pick it back up.
It was a sketch of a man who looked very much like her mysterious, dark-haired stranger.
Underneath, her aunt had written, L can never know about Sophie.
“L?” she asked in a hushed whisper.
The journal was dated almost fifteen years ago. Surely the man who was following her couldn’t be the same
man in the sketch? He would have not aged a day.
However, if he wasn’t supposed to know about her, Sophie was afraid that secret was out of the bag.
The dark-haired man was still out there, and he had to know she’d recovered her memory. It had been all over the news. Was he connected in some way to her family’s murders?
If he was the one who’d wrecked the store, he might have been looking for the box? Wondering if she had it? If she recognized him? Testing her in some way? Who was he? Would he come back? Did he know about the coded books?
She didn’t know, but she damned well would find out.
“Sophie, are you in there?” she heard Claire call, and closed the box quickly.
“I’ll be right there,” she called back.
Sophie packed up the box and putting it in a larger, cardboard one with her other belongings, just in case anyone was watching as she left.
Author Endnote:
This story taught me a lot about the demands of writing mystery, not the least of which is the research. If you are interested in learning more, the Harvard Secret Court was real – you can read about it in William Wright’s book (available on Amazon, but not yet in Kindle format, unfortunately), aptly titled, Harvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals. Such a tragic episode was both illuminating and educational to read about, but also laid the foundation for me to create characters who struggle with who they are.
If you are interested in more tarot stories, I will be posting a sexy romance on Kindle and PubIt with a strong tarot element, the follow up to my first Harlequin Blaze, Virtually Perfect. If you just liked my writing and would like to try more books, check out my website for publications, reviews and excerpts. If you would like to learn more about the tarot in general, Joan Bunning has a wonderful website for beginners, and one of the best online resources is a longtime tarot list called Tarot-L.
By now, you can see this was intended to be a series of books. If you would like to read another Sophie Turner book, please let me know at [email protected].
If you are really interested, get your friends to buy a copy and tell them to let me know if they’re interested.
Thanks for reading,
Sam
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