In the Cards

By Zoey Summers

It's all in good fun. 

Kitty Tremaine has agreed to read Tarot cards at the anniversary celebration of the tiny town of Rivertown, where she makes her home.  The annual street fair, held in May, is a charitable event.  The Tarot readings aren't meant to be taken seriously – they're all just for fun.

Until they're not.

It's all fun and games, until someone gets murdered.

Now a young wife is dead, stabbed to death while running in her own town, and the police don't have any leads.

But Kitty might.  Because while the victim didn't ask for a Tarot reading, she did come into Kitty's stall at the fair and she spent time petting Kitty's familiar, the golden doodle mix named James.

Suddenly Kitty can't stop blaming herself for not using every bit of her energy to read every card.  Even if it couldn't possibly have been her fault, she feels responsible in part for Nicole Reardon getting killed, and the only way she can atone is to read the cards during the second weekend of the fair, too.

Just in case the killer comes back.

Just in case the killer wants to know what Kitty reads in those cards.

Now it seems like Kitty's solved the crime.

And put herself right in the path of a killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zoey Summers
• Release date: Mar 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781519912053

Book preview

Free Book Anyone?

Thank you for downloading In the Cards. For your enjoyment, if you would like to download the sequel, In the Cards 2 for FREE, just subscribe to my Insiders Club. You will also get the latest on my new releases, discounted books and free books on supernatural cozy mystery. This is a spam-free zone and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Click Here to Download Your FREE Book

Click Here to Download Your FREE Book

Chapter 1

If she were truly decent at predicting the future, she'd have known whether or not to bring an umbrella. Kitty Tremaine squinted up at the dark clouds hovering over Rivertown, California. Changeable conditions, the weather report had said, so she'd worn a hoodie over a tank top, and a long swirling skirt possibly suitable for witchly behavior at the town founder's day celebration. Records showed that Rivertown, named for the American River that didn't actually run through it, and located between Auburn and Meadow Vista to the north up Interstate 80, had probably been founded in October. Changeable weather in October could actually include snow flurries because Rivertown was far enough up in the foothills that led eventually to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, so the annual celebration had been set in late May.

It was that kind of town. It was also the kind of town that included Tarot readers and crystal ball gazers and henna designers among the stalls at the festival, along with watercolors produced by local painters, homemade jerky of questionable origins, candy from local kitchens, and arts performances by high school students.

It was the kind of town Kitty felt comfortable in. After leaving both her husband and Los Angeles, and looking for a place to relocate, the small-town friendliness of Rivertown had felt welcoming. If three years later it sometimes felt cloying or downright nosy, she was willing to make that tradeoff.

For one thing, Rivertown had Dani and Alexa in it. Both of them were headed her way, talking animatedly despite the shiny red candied apples they were eating. Alexa held an extra in her hand, meant for Kitty.

So are you ready, Madame Tremaine? Alexa asked, bouncing to a stop right before the card table Kitty had covered in an old, blue jersey sheet. The sheet set had been a favorite, printed with gold stars, moons, and suns. Now she wasn't certain if it looked appropriately mysterious and paranormal or like an old sheet tossed over a card table.

Of course, I'm not ready. My confidence has been thrown by not properly predicting the weather. She grinned at her two friends—tall, thin Alexa, dusky skinned and dark haired, her Chippewa heritage showing, and the much shorter, much blonder Dani, whose yards of hair made up for her lack of height. Kitty was right in the middle with auburn hair at shoulder length, medium height, medium weight. Kind of medium everything.

I'm sure you're totally stressing, Alexa said, surveying the half tent erected over the card table. The edges of it were flapping in the not so warm breeze.

Little bit of stage fright, Kitty said. She generally spent her days working an unobtrusive and uninteresting job doing billing for half a dozen medical and accountancy offices owned by entitled white men who had banded together to hire her then tried to tell her various factions didn't have the funds to pay her. Kitty had pointed out, somewhat acerbically, that she was the one keeping their books and, therefore, knew better and as if she'd passed some kind of test, she'd had no further problems with any of them.

She also had very little dealings with