Scarlet Nights (Edilean 3)

He put his arm around her waist, and when he stood up he lifted her with him. “You won’t win at the cable toss,” she said, but Mike just grunted as he stepped out of the tub.

He carried her, both of them wet and dripping, to the bedroom. “I am your pupil,” Mike said, and Sara smiled.

An hour later, Sara had been Mike’s student. As they were falling asleep in each other’s arms, Mike said softly, “Sara, I just remembered that I didn’t use birth control. It was all unexpected and I forgot. I’m sorry.”

Sara snuggled closer to him. “That’s all right. I forgot too, and besides, it’s the wrong time of the month.”

They were both lying.

20

WHEN SARA AWOKE the next day, it was nearly 11 A.M. and Mike was gone. It was her guess that he’d waited for her to doze off then left. Which meant that he was driving with no sleep.

“And I let him go,” Sara said aloud. Her first day of marriage and she’d already failed as a wife. If anything happened to Mike on the drive, especially if he fell asleep at the wheel, it would be her fault. “I should have let him sleep last night. It’s what he wanted to do. What he needed.”

She put her hands behind her head, stared at the ceiling, and thought about her wedding night. She wasn’t ready to make such a revelation to Mike, but he was far and away the best lover she’d ever had. Not that she was especially experienced—she and Brian had bought a book so they could learn things—but Greg had been. Now Sara saw that for all the sex she and Greg—Stefan—had had, it lacked the cuddling, the snuggling, the lying in the bathtub wrapped in each other’s arms and talking.

Sara looked about the room. As always, Mike had picked up his clothes, and now there was no sign that he’d been there. If she weren’t wearing her new wedding band she would have thought the whole thing was a dream.

But as she began to remember the reason behind the wedding, she grew agitated. Dear, lovable Brian, as unaggressive a human as ever existed, had been murdered because of something to do with Sara.

“What is it that Greg wants?” Sara half shouted as she got out of bed and began to dress. “What does Stefan Vandlo want from me?” She was sure that if she knew, and if Greg walked in the door right now, whatever it was, she’d gladly, freely give it to him.

But then what? Would Greg take what Sara gave him and leave town with his murderous mother? Would Mike then return to Fort Lauderdale to his job? Would she receive divorce papers a few weeks later? Maybe when he retired he’d come back to Edilean because of his sister and the farm he now owned. But he wouldn’t return for Sara.

She reminded herself that when he’d told her she had to marry him, it had been with the understanding that after the case was done, they’d separate.

“Married and divorced,” she whispered, and tears came to her eyes.

Her cell phone on the bedside table started buzzing. It was a text from Joce.

YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT SHAMUS DREW ON THE CARDS. LUKE MADE PANCAKES. WANT TO COME OVER?

Sara pulled on one of her oldest dresses—no need to bother with her appearance if Mike wasn’t there—stuck her feet into flip-flops and went next door.

“You look happy and miserable,” Joce said. “How can that be?”

“Easy. Marry one day, smile. Get left behind the next, frown. So where are the cards?”

Joce hesitated. “I think you need to sit down.”

“What did Shamus do now?” Last year he’d seen a high school girl crying, and when he asked her what was wrong, she’d told him about a teacher who’d demanded kisses for good grades. That night Shamus and his brothers broke into the school and Shamus painted a twelve-foot-tall picture of the teacher—naked—running after some frightened girls. There’d been a lot of turmoil, but in the end the teacher was fired, the Fraziers gave a six-figure donation to the school, and Shamus painted a respectable mural on the gym wall. Since then he’d been the hero of every girl in the school.

Sara sat on the end of the bed and Joce handed her a stack of tarot cards. The backs were beautiful, with one of Luke’s weedlike plants that he loved so much on a cream background.

She turned them over and gasped at the first card. It was the Gypsy King, and it was a portrait of Shamus’s father. His mother was the Queen.

Sara looked at Joce.

“Go on,” Joce said. “Look at the rest of them.”

Sara fanned through them, and everyone in Edilean whose family had been there for generations, plus some new people, was on the cards. When she came to the Lovers, there she and Mike were.

And everything that anyone had ever heard about gypsies was there too. Shamus had used photos Joce had downloaded off the Internet to put all the people in the garb of gypsies. There were round-roofed caravans, voluptuous women with gold coin earrings, and men with clay pipes holding on to beautiful horses.

The Hanged One was Greg, hanging upside down, his single gold earring dangling. “This is …” She looked at Joce. “I don’t know if this is good or bad. Mike will either love these or throw them on a fire.”

“I saved these for last.” Joce handed her a stack of fourteen cards.