Before She Dies (Alexandria Novels 3)

Chapter 22

Saturday, October 30, 5:20 p.m.

Sooner flipped the Closed sign on her shop to Open and stood back smiling. She hugged her arms over her chest feeling a thrill of excitement. She was officially a business owner. She backed away from the door and slowly took a seat behind the table she’d set up for her readings. With a critical eye she surveyed her shop. Mark had gone home sick for the day so she was officially in charge. And it felt good.

The deep purple walls gave the room a soft moody vibe that would enhance her readings. Setting, G

rady had always said, was important to the right mood. She’d draped swatches of purple fabrics on the walls, which she’d hoped would hide her bad paint job and the uneven spots in the wallboard. She was too early in the process to have retail items for sale but that would come. She had big dreams for this place.

The bronze Indian bells Mark had allowed her to hang over the front door clanged, and she tried not to smile too much. She didn’t want to look excited or desperate, but mysterious—almost as if she was doing the client the favor. She started to shuffle her tarot cards.

A man stepped in and glanced around the shop. He was dressed in khakis and a dark blue collared shirt cuffed with gold links at his wrist. He wore his hair short and neatly combed and a wedding band that had a soft patina that suggested he’d been married several years. Conservative. Uptight. Those words clanged in her head and she couldn’t imagine a guy like him here, searching the cards for answers.

Immediately her heart dropped. “Can I help you?”

He glanced around the shop, assessing and cataloging. “I was looking for the card shop.”

He wanted directions. Of course. She almost laughed. “Down the street on the corner and next to the pizza shop. You can’t miss it.”

Smiling, he looked at her for the first time. “Thanks.”

Ask for the sale. It had been one of Grady’s mantras. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know. “Interested in a reading?”

He held up his hands. “I don’t think so. I’m just looking for an anniversary card for my wife.”

Anxiety churned and she reminded herself that he was no different than any dude that wandered into her tent. “Let me read you and then I’ll tell you the perfect note to write in the card.” Most guys couldn’t write much beyond I love ya on a card. Nice but not totally inspiring.

The guy laughed but hesitated. “The perfect note.”

“Perfect. The goodwill that comes your way will be well worth the twenty bucks.”

“Twenty bucks. I can write ‘I Love You’ for free.”

“If you want a hot steamy night on your anniversary, you’re gonna have to do better than those three words.”

He let the door close behind him, and he took a step into the shop. She imagined herself fishing, line in the water, and the fish had just grabbed a hold of her bait. What guy, even an uptight dude like this, wouldn’t explore the possibility of hot steamy sex with his wife?

“So what do I have to do?” he asked.

“Sit in the chair and let me read your cards. I’ll give you a few insights and then tell you what to write.”

“This is a con?”

“No con.” She sounded calm, maybe even a little ethereal, a word she’d looked up online just yesterday. “Spiritual insights.” Shuffling the cards, she nodded to the chair by the desk. “It will be the best twenty dollars you ever spent.”

He shrugged, glanced around as if checking to make sure no one was peeking in the shop. “Yeah, sure. Why not?” He pulled out the twenty and handed it to her.

Tucking the twenty in her empty cash drawer, her smile warmed. “Do you have a name?”

“Honestly,” he said, leaning toward her. “I’d rather not give it. This is just a little weird for me, and I half expect someone to jump out with a camera and tell me I’ve been punked.”

“No cameras. No worries. Just you and me and the cards.”

He relaxed back in his chair. “Great.”

She set the shuffled deck in front of him. “Now I need for you to shuffle the cards.”

“Why?”

“So you can put your energy into them. And once you’ve shuffled them three times, divide the stack into three even piles.”

“Will do.” Long neat fingers shuffled and divided the cards.

She set a timer at her side for fifteen minutes and then arranged the cards carefully and deliberately in the Celtic cross pattern. She’d give her first customer a reading that gave him some answers but raised others as well. The other questions often prompted people to buy more time or return later.

Carefully she studied the ten cards. The Judge. The Destroyer. Nothingness. It was an unusual spread for a man that seemed so mild. “I think there is more to you than I first realized.”

“That’s what I keep telling my boss.” His eyes danced with laughter.

She lowered her gaze back to the cards. Death sat in the center, and this, of course, could simply mean change. But ... this grouping did not feel like change. It felt like emptiness, and when she closed her eyes, she had the sense that she was falling into a great abyss. A cold chill passed through her body. She’d never experienced a reading like this.

That man leaned forward and studied her with an intensity that made her stomach churn. “You look so much like her,” he whispered.

Her eyes snapped open. “What?”

“You look like her.”

“Who?”

He smiled. “A woman who once read my cards. You look so much like her.”

“Are you certain I’ve not read your cards before?” she said. “Perhaps at the carnival last week?”

“This is my first time in this shop.”

“Our paths have crossed before.”

She stared at him, feeling energy buzz from the cards into her fingertips. On reflex, she moved her foot to the panic button Grady had always maintained under her desk. But it was not there. Grady was not at the ready to save her. Mark had gone home sick. She was on her own.

He cocked his head. “Are you going to give me my reading? I need to know what to say to my wife so that she’ll forgive me and take me back.”

“You said you were buying her an anniversary card.”

“It is our anniversary. She hasn’t gotten her divorce yet.”

She opened the cash drawer and laid his twenty between them. “I don’t think that I can help you. Sorry.”

“Why not? Now you’ve got me curious. What do you see in the cards?”

Tell him what he wants to hear. “She loves you. And she will take you back. She will remember her love for you.”

His gaze sharpened. “Really?”

“Yes. Really. Now I must go, sir. I’ve a party to work this evening.”

He didn’t touch the money. “I don’t want a refund. I want you to tell me what you see.”

“That your future is bright and wonderful.”

He rose, but this time when he stood, tension gripped him, sharpening every muscle in his body. He’d first seemed affable and a bit of a fool. But no more. “I think that you are right. I feel good about the future.”

“Good.”

“Do you feel good about the future?”

She rose. “Me? Of course I do.”

“That’s good. You should feel good about it.”

A tentative smile teased the edge of her lips. “Because of my new business.”

“Because God is going to cleanse you of your sins and set you free.” He smiled and rose.

“Who are you?”

“Doesn’t really matter.”

He turned and very calmly left the shop. For several seconds the bells jangled and swayed. She got up and ran to the door and locked it.

“Shit. A nut on the first day.”

She glanced at the clock, and seeing she was going to be late even if she hurried, she grabbed her satchel and moved to the back of the shop. She’d parked in the back alley.

Sooner shut off the lights, except for the three glowing lava lamps that Mark kept burning, and exited the back door. She shoved her key in the lock, twisted the bolt in place, and then jingled the handle to make sure the door was locked.

Under the glow of the moonlight and a blinking street lamp, she moved to her beat-up Ford pickup truck. She shoved her key into the lock.

She was looking forward to tonight. She liked Charlotte and thought the two of them might be good for each other. She could use a little polishing and Aunt Charlotte could use a little mussing up.

As she opene

d the door and tossed her purse on the seat, a strong hand banded around her waist and another clamped over her mouth. She immediately kicked and clawed at the hands. She jabbed an elbow and heard her attacker grunt. Hope I broke a bone, motherfucker.

“You are an abomination. But I won’t send your worthless soul to hell before it is cleansed.”

She dug under the folds of her gown and found her phone. He snatched it from her, dropped it to the ground, and smashed it with his boot.

He jabbed a needle in her neck and shoved in a plunger. Spots quickly formed in front of her eyes as her body lost control. God, was she going to die at the very start of her new life?

Maybe Grady had been right. Maybe she should have stayed with him where she was safe.

Her vision went dark and her legs slumped. Her world went black.

Charlotte’s nerves were in shreds after her confession to Daniel today. And tattered emotions aside, the movers had also arrived—a half hour late. She’d spent the morning supervising the move, cringing when movers dinged a wall and yelping when they’d dropped her sofa. A panicked call to the handyman and a little pleading had him at her condo by three to patch and paint the wall. By the time she’d written him a check, the paint on the newly smoothed wall corner was drying.

By five, everything had either gone into storage, to charity, or to her new apartment, a cramped, unorganized mess. Thankfully, she’d kept her evening dress she’d planned to wear to Angie’s fund-raiser in her car along with her hair and makeup gear. Tomorrow would be all about sorting, organizing, and making sense of her new place.

It would have been so easy to sequester herself behind the boxes in her new apartment, pour a glass of wine, and hide in a hot tub. There were enough legitimate reasons to bail on Angie’s charity event. But Angie had worked hard on her Halloween fund-raiser, and it did mean a lot to her. Charlotte could be a bitch and a ball buster, and there were many who didn’t like her. But no one truthfully could say she’d ever broken a promise.

She’d told Angie she’d be at the party, and so she shoved her raw emotions down deep inside her and put on a grand smile. Faking-it was a specialty she’d honed over the last eighteen years.

She wouldn’t talk to Sooner about the truth tonight, but the day fast approached. To avoid it now, no matter what her personal cost, would be far too cruel to Sooner.