Not in the Cards Read online

  “What happens if you don’t? Sell, I mean.”

  “I’ll be arrested, charged with a crime I didn’t commit, and all my assets will be seized and auctioned off to the highest bidder.”

  “So, either way, Oracle Bay will be sold, but if you sell it, you can avoid going to jail?”

  He nodded his affirmation.

  “What if, and hear me out, you are exonerated of the crime? If you’re arrested and charged, won’t they hold off on seizing and auctioning until they find out if you’re guilty or not?”

  “That seems probable,” Vincent admitted. “But I’ve seen the proof. It’s very convincing. It convinced me to sell off everything I owned in an attempt to pay back the company from which I’ve supposedly embezzled.”

  “That probably makes you look even more guilty to a jury of your peers, doesn’t it? You didn’t fight it.” Misty sighed, drained the rest of her drink, and signaled for the waiter. When he appeared, she said, “This conversation is too heavy for another Long Island. I’m going to need a Hendricks martini, dry, with a twist.”

  “Of course, Misty,” he said. “Anything for you?” he asked Vincent.

  “What the hell,” he muttered. “I’ll have the same, but with olives instead of a twist.”

  Misty clapped her hands together and squealed in delight. “I just figured out what we need to do with the empty storefront next to the bookstore! A cocktail bar called ‘Olive or Twist!’ and then the bookshop can change its name from ‘Title Wave’ to ‘What in the Dickens!’” She leaned back and grinned, clearly pleased with herself.

  “Is there some kind of town statute that all businesses must have a pun in their name?” Vincent asked, returning her grin. “And isn’t that phrase from Shakespeare and not Charles Dickens?”

  “First of all, no. Of course not. It’s just a bonus when they do. Secondly, yes, from ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ but almost no one knows that. You’ve ruined my fun, Mr. Bryson.”

  “Olive or Twist is a great name for a cocktail bar, though,” he soothed her.

  “It really is. I’ll just need to find someone who wants to… Oh. Never mind.” She picked up the martini that had appeared in front of her and sipped it.

  Vincent took a long drink of his. This was even harder than he’d anticipated.

  “How soon do you need to make the sale? When do you need the money?”

  “I need to have proof I can pay by November third.”

  “Just under a month,” she mused. “Can you put off the developer that long?”

  “Will it matter?” he asked. “I’d rather get this over with and try to move on with my life.”

  “You swear you didn’t commit this crime?”

  “I swear. It wasn’t me, and I don’t know who it was.”

  “Shake on it?” Misty held out a hand with long, graceful fingers.

  Vincent took her hand, impressed with her cool, firm grip, and shook.

  “You didn’t do it,” she said. “We can fix this. I don’t know how yet, but I will find a way. Oracle Bay isn’t going to become some sterile, cookie-cutter coastal town with no punny business names. I won’t let it.” She tossed back the rest of the martini and stood up. She wobbled for a half-second, then straightened, donned her raincoat, and walked out. “Drinks are on him,” she called back over her shoulder. “He owes me.”

  Chapter Five

  Vincent paced up and down Main Street. He knew that what he was about to do to Oracle Bay was wrong, but he didn’t see any way around it that didn’t lead to jail time and the eventual piecemealing of the town anyway. He ran his fingers through his short, dark hair and sighed. Maybe he should talk to a psychic.

  He laughed at himself. Had he sunk so low that consulting a charlatan was the best idea he could come up with?

  He scanned the street again. There were four psychic shops readily visible. Which to choose? One shop had a blue, blinking crystal ball and nothing else. One advertised ‘Alexandra’s Psychic Readings.’ There was one with a neon palm framed by the words ‘Mystic’s First Hand Knowledge.’ The last one was devoid of neon but had a night sky painted on the shop window and ‘Written in the Stars’ emblazoned on the door.

  He guessed that ‘Mystic’s First Hand Knowledge’ was Misty, and he wasn’t ready to face her again. He knew he was a Pisces and didn’t care to know anything beyond that. The remaining choices were Alexandra or the blue ball. He cracked a smile, but after what he’d inadvertently let slip to Misty about his sex life—or lack thereof—earlier, he wasn’t sure he was up for any balls, blue or not.

  “Alexandra it is, then,” he muttered. He squared his shoulders and marched over to her shop. His hand was on the doorknob when he hesitated. What was he doing? This was ridiculous. He let go of the door and was starting to turn away when it opened with an ungodly screech.

  “Oh,” a woman’s voice said. “Were you coming in?”

  He blinked a couple times peering into the darkness of her shop. Then, her features started to coalesce out of the shadows. He swallowed, tried to smile, and then realized he’d been staring, silently, for much longer than was polite. “Alexandra?” he asked. Real smooth, Vincent.

  “Call me Sandy,” she said. “Did you want to come in for a reading?”

  “Yes.” He stepped forward as he said it, but hadn’t made that intention clear, and walked right into Sandy. “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay. I know the difference in the light level makes it hard to see.” She led him to the back of the shop, and he tried to keep his eyes where they belonged instead of lingering on curves hinted at beneath her flowing skirt and peasant top. He brought his eyes up from her hips just in time to be entranced by her long, blue-black hair.

  She turned around and smiled, and the way her blue eyes lit up made him weak in the knees.

  “I can do a couple different readings. The most common is to lay down three cards to inform us of the past, present, and future of whatever’s on your mind. Then, I’ll lay down six more to further delve into what caused the past situation, what’s influencing the present, and what the likely future outcomes are. For the simple reading of three cards, it’s twenty dollars. For the more in-depth reading, it’s thirty.”

  “I’ll take the thirty-dollar reading,” he heard himself say. He handed over his card, and she swiped it on her phone. She returned his card before handing him a deck of cards she pulled out of a worn, velvet bag.

  “Hold these cards and think about what you want answered. When you’re ready, hand the cards to me, but keep your question fixed firmly in your mind.”

  He did as he was told and tried not to twitch when her skin met his. He thought about the embezzlement charge and selling off Oracle Bay and how beautiful the woman seated across from him was. No! Concentrate! Embezzlement. Falsely accused. Selling Oracle Bay. When he was sure he was ready—and when did he start taking this so seriously?—he handed them back. She shuffled them, cut them, and then laid down the top three cards.

  “Your past—the five of pentacles, reversed. Your past had job loss, cheating, loss of faith. A huge financial downfall.

  “Your present—The Wheel of Fortune, reversed. This represents a change in fortune. Your luck is turning right now, but there’s nothing you can do to control it. You need to trust in the signs you’re given, and you’ll get that second chance you need.

  “Your future—the two of pentacles. You will need to make a choice in the near future, but when you make the right one, your reward will be beyond what you imagined.”

  “What’s the right choice?” Vincent asked, a little hoarse from the shock.

  “You’ll know when it’s time,” Sandy replied. She reached for her deck again and started laying out more cards. “Further modifying the past card, the card of financial loss, is someone from your more distant past—the page of wands. This is an eager young man, usually, although it could be a woman.” She pursed her lips for a moment, then said, decisively, “No, it was a young man. M
aybe an intern, or someone eager to learn from you. Following your job loss, in the more recent past, is the seven of swords, reversed. Someone is trying to get away with something, something nefarious. But it’s not you. It’s the page from your past.”

  “A page from my past?” Vincent was beginning to feel thoroughly confused.

  “The young man, the intern or whatever,” Sandy tapped the card with a perfectly manicured coral-colored fingernail. “Now, your present. These two cards are what are currently influencing your present situation—the change in luck you’re starting to experience.

  “The Star, reversed…” it might have been his imagination, but he could’ve sworn she blanched a bit when she looked at the card. “This card indicates that there will be a spiritual influence on your life—a positive one—that will help guide you through the changes. The other card, the four of pentacles, indicates that your current life choices are based solely on your future financial security, and serves as a warning to look beyond that and concentrate on the values you hold dear, the things that make you, you.”

  She glanced up at him, but he couldn’t hold her gaze. He knew that it was probably easy for him to find meaning in what she was saying, but he couldn’t help but feel it was a little too specific. “And the future?”

  She smiled what was probably supposed to be a comforting smile, and tapped the first card. “Oddly enough, once again, your future is more relationship based and less money based. I guess that indicates how you’re likely to choose when that big choice comes for you. The two of cups, reversed, when paired with the decision represented by the two of pentacles, means that you have the chance for a relationship, but it will be awkward and fraught with distrust, initially. It will be work, but it will be worth it. The final card, also a two—like all your future cards—is the two of wands, again reversed. In order to achieve the happiness promised, you’ll have to give up something you thought you held dear. It’s back to that choice. Your future is so amorphous right now—you’re wavering between two vastly different outcomes, and you could get a different reading in an hour if you start leaning the other direction.”

  Sandy slumped back in the chair and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them again, and her Mediterranean blue eyes met the flint black of Vincent’s. “It sounds like you have a lot of soul searching to do, Vincent.”

  “How’d you know my name?” he gaped at her.

  She laughed. “It was on your debit card, silly.”

  He chuckled, a little embarrassed, then stood to go. “Thank you. That was very…interesting.”

  “Come back any time,” she said. “I’d love to see you again. I mean, your future. I’d love to see your future again. Or whatever.” A flush crept up her cheeks, and he was glad that he hadn’t been the only one affected.

  “I’ll be in town most of the rest of the month,” he said, much to his own surprise. “I’m sure I’ll run into you again?”

  “You know where I work.”

  “Maybe we could have din—”

  “No!” she said, sharply. Then, more quietly, “No. I’m sorry, but I’m just getting out of a marriage. I’m not ready to date.”

  “Fair enough. I try not to date married women, anyway. Maybe another time.”

  “Maybe.”

  He took her in, marveling over her simple beauty, then turned and left.

  Sandy sat at the small table in her kitchenette and poured a glass of wine with shaking hands. The readings were getting both easier—in that she barely had to think about the card’s meaning, and harder—it was taking longer to recover and stop shaking after each intense reading. Hence, the two o’clock in the afternoon glass of medicinal wine.

  If she was being honest with herself, though, the shakiness today was more than just the effort of the reading. Vincent had been…something else. When she closed her eyes, she could see his dark eyes, black hair, and dark skin that hinted he could be from anywhere and everywhere. He smelled faintly of cloves and pipe tobacco, although she’d be willing to be the rest of her life savings that he didn’t smoke. His suit was expensive, as were his shoes, but he’d flinched when she’d mentioned the financial ruin, which meant that the nice suit—and the Porsche she’d seen him get into when she watched him leave through the dingy window—were holdovers from when he’d had money to spare.

  “Fine,” she thought. “He was good looking. And he asked me out. So what? I am a married woman. Still. For a little bit longer.”

  She gulped the wine, replaced the cork, and pushed it back onto the counter. She was never going to make a living at this if she needed a thirty-minute wine break between every customer.

  Sandy went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and went back downstairs, turning the sign back on and unlocking the door. It wasn’t good for business, but she really hoped it was a slow afternoon.

  Vincent was walking to his hotel from the car, still mulling over the tarot reading—and the tarot reader—when someone touched his shoulder. He wheeled around, briefcase held before him like a weapon, and saw Darwin.

  “What do you want?” he asked, somewhat ungraciously.

  Darwin held up his hands. “I only wanted to know if you’d made up your mind. I saw you talking to all the psychics in town—thought you’d gotten some insight into the future where I lower my offer.” He guffawed at his own joke, and Vincent fought the sudden and inexplicable urge to punch him in the face.

  “I’ll think about it, as I said earlier. I’m not likely to cave to pressure, no matter how desperate you think my situation is. The harder you push, the less likely you are to get what you want from me. If I were you, and I’m giving some inside information here,” Darwin leaned in close, and Vincent almost whispered, “I’d back off.”

  Vincent straightened and strode off without looking back.

  When he got to his room and had hung up his suit jacket, he looked himself over in the mirror. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t antagonize the only buyer you have for the whole lot of it!”

  His reflection had no answers for him, so he shrugged, stripped, carefully hung up his suit, and put on running shorts, a t-shirt, socks, and shoes. When he got down to the beach, he was delighted to find a paved trail, slightly overblown with sand, along the edge of the beach.

  He started slow, warming up his muscles with a series of plyometric exercises and some stretching, and then jogged a little faster. His thoughts went back and forth between his meeting with Darwin and the tarot card reading—or, more accurately, the tarot card reader. There’d been something about her, and the reading, that made his skin prickle. Misty had the same air about her, but with Sandy, it was heightened.

  “It’s because she ticks every one of your boxes,” Vincent muttered to himself. “Dark hair, dusky skin, eyes like the sky at dawn, and curves like crazy.” Too bad she turned you down. He had a very strict rule of never asking twice. When a woman said no, she meant it, he figured. He didn’t ever want to be one of those guys. But those eyes… Maybe she’d be the one to break his rule, if she ever showed interest and looked at him twice. He was already trying to manufacture an excuse to get a second tarot reading, just on the off-chance that, once she was divorced, she’d consider it. Then they’d both be playing by the rules they’d set forth. Well, she would, at least. He would’ve broken his rule about asking her out a second time.

  “Maybe she’ll ask me out,” he panted. He looked down at his watch and realized his pace was almost a minute per mile faster than he usually ran when he wasn’t racing. He slowed it down and immediately felt less like throwing up and/or passing out and more like he could hit the two-mile mark, turn around, and make it back to the hotel without dying.

  “Let it go,” he said. “She’s a small town psychic who takes money from tourists and delivers nothing in return.” Like you? his subconscious prodded. He really needed to stop both talking to himself and antagonizing himself with silly answers.

  Vincent ran, savoring the feel of his feet h
itting the pavement, the almost too-cool salt breeze hitting his sweat-soaked body, and the fatigue starting to permeate his muscles. He kept his breathing even as he kicked up the pace a little and checked his watch again. Even, seven-minute miles. He let his mind go blank except for the small part needed to watch for obstacles on the path. Running was like a meditation, the perfect time to empty his mind, let go of what was bothering him, and focus on nothing more than how he felt in the moment. He looked up and saw his hotel in the distance. When his watched beeped four miles, he slowed to a walk to cool down before stretching.

  When he was done, he walked into the hotel and saw Darwin sitting at the bar. The man was infuriatingly persistent. Vincent ducked behind a couple walking through the lobby and stayed behind them until they got on the elevator. Maybe he was being paranoid. Maybe Darwin was also staying at this hotel—it was the nicest in Oracle Bay—and wasn’t there to harass him more.

  “Vincent!” the man boomed, sticking his arm between the closing elevator doors. “Just the man I was looking for.” He got onto the elevator, assessed the couple they were sharing space with, and dismissed them.

  “Join me for a drink?” he asked.

  Vincent looked at the developer, then down at his own clothes, rather pointedly. “I’m hardly dressed for a drink.”

  Darwin waved his hand dismissively. “I can order room service, and we can have drinks in my room!”

  “I’d really like to shower.”

  “So meet me for a drink downstairs after.”

  “No.” Vincent didn’t often go for the hard no. It wasn’t in his nature, nor was it good business strategy. But this man was beyond persistent. “I’d like to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening alone.”

  The elevator dinged, and a couple got off. The doors hadn’t quite closed when Vincent heard the woman say, “That was awkward…”

  Vincent looked at Darwin as the elevator started moving again. “This is awkward. You need to back off, or I’ll find someone else to sell to. Several someones if I have to.”