Murder in the Cards

By Nell DuVall

Leah Chernowski discovers more in the Tarot cards than she wants to know when she reads them for Ted Muccino, a sexy skeptic who doubts both her and the cards. Even her best friend Tula Mohr predicts love for the two. However, dreams show a hidden enemy determined to kill Ted. Leah must first convince the stubborn Italian an enemy exists and then unravel clues to the man s identity before she and Ted can find love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melange Books, LLC
• Release date: Oct 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781680460063

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MURDER IN THE CARDS

by Nell DuVall

Leah Chernowski discovers more in the Tarot cards than she wants to know when she reads them for Ted Muccino, a sexy skeptic who doubts both her and the cards. Even her best friend Tula Mohr predicts love for the two. However, dreams show a hidden enemy determined to kill Ted. Leah must first convince the stubborn Italian an enemy exists and then unravel clues to the man’s identity before she and Ted can find love.

Prologue

Cob hunched down and traced Danny’s name on the headstone ready to be placed on the grave. Danny, Danny, you didn’t deserve this. You had your whole life ahead of you. You wanted to be a doctor and you would’ve been a good one, too.

Dried brown leaves scuttled past. The chilly wind blew his suit jacket against his back. He hadn’t worn an overcoat. Then the rain came, and icy raindrops mingled with tears on his face. Soon his jacket grew sodden, and he began to shiver. At last, he rose and walked to the bus stop.

At home, he hung up his wet suit, showered, made coffee, and filled a mug. Danny had left an unfinished life and incomplete dreams. All Cob could do for him was to live that life and make those dreams a reality. That, and one more thing—the driver who killed Danny must pay for taking his life. Mom always quoted that bible of hers. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. No matter how long it took, Cob would see that happen.

His hands tightened on the coffee mug. Forcing his muscles to relax, he pulled the newspaper clipping toward him and smoothed out the folds. He read the account of the accident again, ignoring the bit about the woman who was killed.

The driver of the car, Ted Muccino, suffered minor cuts, a mild concussion, and a broken leg. Unable to save the passenger, Carolyn Giovanni, the Emergency Squad transported Mr. Muccino to Riverside Hospital for treatment.

Ted Muccino. The name meant nothing to Cob, but he would find this Muccino and make him pay. Nothing could bring Danny back, but he deserved justice. Cob folded the clipping.

Chapter One

Seated like a Buddha on Tula’s Turkish carpet, Leah Chernowski stared at the faded tarot cards on the red silk square before her. On a whim, she had laid out the cards to pass the time until some of Tula’s friends made the trek to the second-floor study for a reading.

Every few weeks or so, her best friend Tula Mohr held an open house for her many friends and acquaintances, an eclectic mix of people—university professors, students, artists, and even Tula’s business acquaintances. Leah read fortunes for them. The cards seldom showed real tragedy. On those few occasions when they had, she tempered her reading and provided comfort and reassurance where she could. She always reminded the anxious ones the cards only indicated a possible future course, advising them they still had personal choices and actions they took made their future. Relieving their anxiety gave her satisfaction.

This particular pattern in the cards confused her. It signified change, danger, and new beginnings. She seldom read the cards for herself, only too aware of the dangers of misreading them. However, boredom had led her to turn to the cards. Happy with her current life, she had no idea how the reading related to her.

Annoyed, she scattered the alarming pattern and shuffled the cards. She gazed around the familiar room, relishing its solid comfort. Tula had a talent for combining the exotic and the mundane to create a harmonious whole. Tonight, she and Tula had moved the rolltop desk and the stuffed chairs to the sides of the room to clear the center of the navy and red Turkish carpet so people could sit and Leah had space to spread the cards. Sandalwood incense added an air of mystery. People always expected some sort of mumbo-jumbo associated with the cards and, despite Leah’s objections, Tula insisted on the incense.

Restless, Leah rose and paced to the doorway and back. To please Tula, she had worn her red peasant skirt with her favorite gold silk blouse. She resumed her cross-legged position on the carpet and tucked the full skirt around her ankles. Her colorful clothes and black hair caused more than one person to ask about her gypsy background. She always laughed but made no mention of her grandmother.

To prepare for a reading, she smoothed the red silk square on which she always placed the cards. Someone would come. Women especially wanted to know the future. Most of their questions centered on love, a man, or sometimes a job promotion. If no one appeared soon, she’d go downstairs, have some tea, and catch up on her friend Cassie Blake’s wedding preparations. Startled by a noise at the doorway, she looked up to see a man surveying her with a sardonic look.

His dark hair, brushed to one side, framed a square face. Black eyes studied her with a skeptical intensity that both annoyed and amused her. Suddenly, the book-lined walls and the Turkish carpet disappeared. Nothing existed beyond the magnetic depth of his compelling gaze. Leah hovered somewhere out of time and out of place. Only the dark eyes full of secrets and passion existed. They challenged her to discover those secrets and taste that passion. Drawn to the man as if she had known him well, she knew they had never met—not in this life.

Tales her mother told her of a gypsy grandmother entered her thoughts, one who read past lives and the future. Lovers linked through life after life. They sought one another to love, then lost, and loved again in the next life. Soul mates. The words made Leah want to laugh. No soul mate for her. She had come to think of herself as fated to watch others love, but never to feel emotions that reached the core of her being. Somehow, the very presence of this man taunted her. His eyes bored into her heart and unsettled her with unaccustomed thoughts. Heat rose unbidden and threatened to consume her.

Barbara said her reading was amazing.

At the sound of a woman’s voice, Leah blinked and the room returned to normal.

Come on, Ted, it’ll be fun.

A well-dressed young woman dragged the dark-eyed man forward. His expressive face challenged Leah, but now interest had withered to suspicion and a show-me attitude. Hostility rolled off him like the stink from a road-kill skunk.

She sighed, her emotions once more under control. She saw far too many like him with hidebound attitudes who admitted nothing beyond what they could see, taste, feel, or smell. If it had no physical reality, it didn’t exist.

His sensual, dark Mediterranean looks contrasted sharply with the cool Anglo-Saxon glow of his blonde girlfriend. He spelled trouble. Leah sniffed. Opposites attract. So what? He meant nothing to her.

The dark-eyed man scowled first at his companion and then at Leah. Look, Janice, I really don’t like this. You can’t expect to get anything from it except a few laughs.

The blonde woman settled her full silk skirt on the carpet like a graceful blue butterfly as she sat across from Leah. I’d like a reading, please.

The man, casually dressed in khaki slacks and a blue oxford shirt, sank down Indian style, his back a ramrod. He studied the books lining the walls with interest and then turned his suspicious gaze to Leah.

Amused, Leah faced the young woman. I’m Leah Chernowski.

Janice Winters. This is my fiancé, Ted Muccino.

Ted gave Leah a wary look. She smiled sweetly and then focused her attention on his fiancée. His gaze never wavered and made Leah’s skin prickle. Straightening her shoulders, she picked up the tarot deck.

I presume you want the cards read.

Yes, please.

Leah usually restricted tarot readings to the major arcana, the twenty-two theme cards, because the full deck of seventy-eight made a handful. She handed the girl the well-worn arcana set from the Rider-Waite deck given to her years ago by her mother.

Think of your question while you shuffle the cards. Mix them well and shuffle them three times.

The large size of the cards made even the smaller set awkward to manipulate. Janice shuffled the cards with difficulty. The pretty girl wore no ring on her left hand, but a lighter patch of skin implied she had worn one. Because the woman had introduced the skeptic as her fiancé, Leah pondered what the missing ring signified.

Finished at last, Janice returned the cards. Smiling at Janice in reassurance, Leah accepted them and began to lay out the traditional ten-card spread. She began in the middle, careful to turn the cards over from left to right and from the bottom to the top. While more beautiful decks existed, Leah still used the deck from her mother. No other deck felt as comfortable for her, and long use made her readings instinctive.

First came the stately reversed Emperor representing the environment, followed by the Moon card signifying obstacles. Above this crossed pair of cards, she placed the World card, identifying hopes. Alongside these, she laid the reversed Sun for the present. Turning over the next card, the Death card, indicative of change and the past, Leah heard a sharp gasp from Janice. The Death card always scared people. Leah placed it below the crossed pair.

With a broad smile, she hastened to reassure Janice. Don’t worry. It’s the overall pattern of the card that counts, not any one card alone. Besides, the symbols mean many things.

Next, appeared the Hanged Man. The inner square complete, Leah laid out the remaining four cards to the right. First, the reversed High Priestess representing Janice, followed by the Wheel of Fortune signifying those influencing Janice, then the Fool identifying hopes and fears, and last appeared the Lovers for the future.

Sitting back on her heels, Leah surveyed the cards and then studied the couple before her. Janice clutched Ted’s hand with nervous fingers and stared down at the cards. He sat back, straight and stiff as a telephone pole, and watched Leah with icy eyes.

Ignoring him, she looked to the girl. What is your question?

Glancing at her escort, she then gazed at Leah. Will we be happy?

Smiling, Leah shrugged. That’s up to you, not the cards.

That’s what I told her. Ted dropped the girl’s hand and started to rise. This is all a lot of nonsense.

Used to such attitudes, Leah grinned up at him. I wouldn’t say that. The cards help clarify choices. Only the questioner can know the truth of the reading and then act. The cards and the reader merely identify the choices.

The girl nodded with eagerness. Yes, yes, but what do they say? Tell me, I must know.

After a further scan of the couple and a lingering glance at the skeptical Ted, Leah turned back to the cards. The pattern shows positive and negative aspects.

She tapped the reversed Emperor. You’re an emotional person and need to learn to control those emotions. Be careful of false friends in your current relationships. Ted raised an eyebrow at that while Janice looked thoughtful.

Leah tapped the World card. You seek admiration and success, but—her fingers lightly brushed the reversed Sun—you have had an unsuccessful relationship, Janice gasped, her blue eyes open wide.

Remembering the light patch of skin, Leah marshaled her words. Perhaps a broken engagement. Yes, that’s what the Death card signifies. It means the end of something, either someone close to you died, or a relationship ended suddenly.

Winston. I broke our engagement.

Leah nodded. I see change in your future. She stared down at the reversed High Priestess on the bottom right, which could indicate a vain, shallow person. You must guard against shortsightedness; however, the Wheel of Fortune signifies progress and good fortune. Janice smiled and squeezed Ted’s hand.

The Fool warns you to overcome foolishness and make the right choice. Leah tapped the last card. You will find true love at last.

See, Ted, what did I tell you? Janice clasped his arm. The cards are right. I’ve found you.

He snorted. She didn’t need the cards to tell you that. Come, you’ve had your fortune told. Let’s go. He rose and pulled Janice to her feet.

Thank you for the reading, Janice called from the doorway.

Any time, come back again. Leah smiled as she reached out and began to pick up the cards.

Early on, she had learned to tell people the positives and to minimize the negatives. No matter what the cards told her about the character of the questioner, she stressed the good aspects and kept her warnings for only the most serious things. She wondered how long this couple’s relationship would last, not long according to the cards, and her instincts agreed. Janice and Ted were not well suited. Change probably meant an end to this relationship as well.

Too bad a man as attractive as Ted Muccino had such a closed, suspicious mind. If not for that, he would be worth knowing better. Something she couldn’t identify about him tugged at her. His good looks, she told herself, unwilling for it to be more. Men like him only meant trouble. She had better things to do than to waste her time on skeptics, no matter how attractive. Soul mates? How stupid could she be? She had a full life and didn’t need a man like him to mess it up.

With a sigh, she tucked her hair behind her ears, and the double gold hoop earrings she wore tinkled. The bell-like sound made her smile, and her thoughts turned to Cassie Blake’s upcoming wedding. Cassie had found a man who loved her and accepted her prophetic dreams. After those dreams spurred her to save his life, not once but three times, how could he reject them or her?

Leah had no such luck with men. Some, like Ted, disliked and distrusted the cards and her. The others who believed in her talent asked her to help them win the Ohio Lottery or to pick the fastest growing stocks. They ignored her explanation that the tarot cards didn’t work that way. Anyway, she refused to use her special talent for financial gain. Too often people who tried that found the Fates played strange tricks on them.

Wrapping the cards in the red silk, Leah placed them in the velvet pouch at her waist and rose. Ready for a cup of Tula’s Special Blend Tea, Leah straightened her skirt and walked toward the stairs. Descending the broad staircase of the old Victorian mansion, she nodded to several people she knew clustered in various groups in the hall and spilling over into the large parlor.

Inside the spacious high-ceilinged room, more guests milled, but Leah saw no sign of Tula Mohr or any of her other close friends. A man waved from near the fireplace. Failing to recognize him, she realized he motioned to the person behind her.

A sudden glare of bright light blinded her momentarily. A man in thick glasses looked at her from the corner. She raised her hand to block the reflection of a lamp from his eyeglasses. The glare and the thick lenses made his eyes impossible to see. Leah didn’t know him, but her skin crawled. She moved a little faster until others hid him from sight. She shivered, disturbed by her overreaction, but puzzled too.

Arnie, a voice boomed out and shattered her thoughts.

Leah looked back, but the man must have moved. She could always ask Tula if she knew him. Shrugging off her unease, she hurried on through the throng in the wood-paneled dining room and made her way to the kitchen.

The welcome spicy smell of Tula’s Special Blend Tea greeted her as she entered the large, bright room. Her friends, Tula Mohr and Cassie Blake, stood by the table in the center of the room. Raven-haired Tula, regal as the Queen of Sheba in a red caftan embroidered with gold, turned from the more sedate Cassie to greet Leah. She always marveled at the contrast between Tula and Cassie. Unlike the flamboyant style of the Irish-Somali Tula, Cassie preferred flowered Liberty prints.

Well, how are the readings going this evening? Tula flashed a broad smile at Leah.

Slow. I thought I’d take a break and get some of that fresh tea I smell.

Cassie, her blue eyes sympathetic, picked up a mug, filled it from the pot next to the sink, and held it out to Leah.

Thanks. Wrapping her hands around the mug, Leah savored the warmth against her cold fingers before sipping the spicy brew. Just what I needed. So how are the wedding plans going? She grinned at Cassie.

Flushing bright red, Cassie made nervous pleats in her pink flowered skirt. All right, I have the church reserved, the restaurant lined up, and the guest list ready.

Who’s the best man? Tula winked at Leah. As maid of honor, I have a vested interest.

Ian’s brother, David. Ian asked Jim Mears and Bert Hansen to be ushers. I have you, Leah, and Cynthia Danvers from the library as bridesmaids.

Just make sure he’s tall enough. I hate to look down on the top of my escort’s head. At five eight, almost five ten in heels, Tula towered over many men

Leah thanked her parents for giving her short genes. She never had to worry about being too tall.

Cassie laughed. I wouldn’t worry. Ian’s taller than you, so his brother probably will be too.

Have you ordered your gown yet? Leah sipped the hot, strong tea. Tula’s Special Blend always refreshed her.

I thought about Filene’s Basement or one of those discount places, but I’m going to try JC Penney’s Outlet first. I can always do the others later. I hope you both can come this weekend. With navy and ivory as my colors, I want you bridesmaids to have dresses you can wear later. I couldn’t ask you to buy something you only wear once.

Cassie’s practical approach pleased Leah, although she couldn’t imagine an occasion where she would wear a long formal gown. Her lifestyle didn’t require designers or long gowns. Do you have anything specific in mind for us?

I saw an ivory dress trimmed in navy that would do for Tula, if she likes it. With her café au lait skin, she’ll look so gorgeous in it. I thought maybe navy dresses trimmed with ivory for you and Cynthia. Can you both come shopping Saturday?

Sure. The image of Ted Muccino’s smoldering eyes, broad shoulders, and sensuous smile rose in Leah’s mind. Cassie, you’re so lucky to have found Ian. You’re so right for each other.

I know. Cassie grinned at her. But you told me I would.

The cards did. I merely revealed what they said. The reading I did tonight ended with the Lovers, but I don’t think that couple will stay together. They’re too different. Leah stared down in her mug, seeing again those mysterious dark eyes.

How do you mean? Tula studied her with interest.

For starters, she’s Anglo-Saxon, most likely English, and a typical WASP. From his name, he’s Italian. She’s flighty, self-centered, and spoiled. I’ll bet he’s worked hard for everything he has.

You say Anglo-Saxon and WASP like it’s a curse. Surely you don’t mean that? Cassie stared at Leah with a troubled look on her face.

Don’t let it bother you. Tula patted Cassie’s arm. You know Leah believes we’d all be better off with a little gypsy blood in us. She has no patience with the Germans or the English. The Scots and Irish are all right, the French a little mixed. Obviously, the Italians are okay. She turned to Leah, a sparkle in her brown eyes. So, you liked him but not her.

That’s not it. Tula’s words, while true, made Leah uncomfortable. Besides, all her instincts reinforced what the cards had said. Whether she liked the girl or not had nothing to do with it. He doesn’t believe in the cards. To him, I’m a scam artist.

But you still liked his looks.

Tula, stop that. You’re trying to make something out of nothing.

Laughing, Tula fingered the rays of the golden sun pendant she always wore. Maybe, but I have a feeling about this. I’ll bet you see him again, and soon.

Half of Leah wanted to believe Tula, while the other half chided her for being silly. Just because she found a man physically attractive didn’t mean they would ever find any common ground, especially considering his attitudes. Leah shivered as she remembered his dismissive look. No, they had nothing at all in common. Anyway, she wouldn’t see him or his fiancée again.

Chapter Two

Tired of the crowded party and determined to avoid any more card readings, Ted Muccino hurried Janice out the front door of the red brick Victorian house. He marched her across the large wooden porch and down the steps. A dark-suited man in glasses stood on the front walk blocking their way.

Janice, how nice to see you. Winston Moore feasted on Janice with sad, longing eyes.

Winston. She stepped forward, raised herself on tiptoe, and kissed his cheek. Ted and I were talking about the wonderful psychic we just saw. She read the tarot cards for me and knew all about our broken engagement. She told me I would have good fortune and find true love.

Flinching, Winston glanced at Ted. Unable to think of anything to say to ease the pain Janice’s words must cause her ex-fiancé, Ted flashed him a wry grin. He didn’t dislike Winston, but Ted had no experience in how to treat a former fiancé.

Sorry, we have to go. He took Janice by the arm and stepped around the sad-eyed man.

Bye, Winston, Janice called, looking back as Ted propelled her along the sidewalk.

He had parked his gray Lexus only a few doors away. He unlocked and opened