Deadly Gamble Read Online Free PDF Page B

retrieve the card.
    The skeleton on horseback stared up at me.
    Death. Of course it would be that card.
    I picked it up, hiked back up the stairs and got a fresh shock.
    No, Nick hadn’t come back.
    But the cat had. He was fat and white and fluffy, with china-blue eyes, and he sat on the cheap rug just inside the door, switching his lush tail back and forth.
    â€œChester?”
    â€œMeow,” he replied.
    I dropped to my knees, reached for him, drew back my hand. If it went through him, I was going to lose it. I couldn’t deal with another ghost.
    â€œChester?” Okay, so I was repeating myself. I’d automatically called him by name, so I must have recognized him.
    Another meow, this one a little less patient than the last.
    Tentatively, I touched his head. Warm. Solid. Soft.
    I saw a flash of crimson in my mind. The cat— this cat, lying on his side, dead, shot through with an arrow. I swallowed a rush of bile and sat back on my haunches, still on the landing, still clutching the Death card in my left hand. I had to take four or five deep breaths before I could be sure I wouldn’t either faint or vomit.
    â€œHow did you get in here?” I asked.
    Like he was going to answer.
    The way things had been going, he might have. I had definitely tumbled down the rabbit hole at some point. Let’s just say, if I saw a bottle marked Drink Me, I wasn’t planning to take a swig.
    Chester gave his bushy tail another twitch, turned and strolled regally back into the apartment.
    I heard the side door open downstairs and, afraid somebody would see me kneeling on the landing and ask a lot of questions I didn’t want to answer, I scrabbled inside, with considerably less grace than the cat had exhibited, and hoisted myself to my feet.
    My mind was racing.
    I remembered what Bert had said earlier, about how his aunt Nellie had seen her dog, gone to Bingo and died.
    I peered at the Death card again, then made my way into the living room. Chester was perched on the back of the couch, delicately washing his right forepaw with a pink tongue.
    â€œNick?” I demanded. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
    No answer, of course.
    Chester paused in his ablutions and regarded me with pity.
    â€œThis is not funny,” I told him.
    â€œMeow,” he agreed.
    I looked around the apartment. No one had a key except Bert; I’d had the locks changed after Tucker and I called it quits—not because I was afraid of him, but as a statement, as much to myself as to him—and besides, he’d never have pulled a mean trick like this. Even if he’d been so inclined, he couldn’t have known about Chester.
    â€œGet a hold of yourself, Sheepshanks,” I said aloud. “This can’t be the same cat.”
    â€œMeow,” said Chester, sounding almost indignant.
    I saw the blood again. The arrow sticking out of the animal’s side.
    I ran into the bathroom and dry heaved until my empty stomach finally shriveled up into a tight little ball and stopped convulsing.
    â€œI thought you’d like him,” a familiar voice said mildly, from the doorway.
    I whirled from the sink, my face still dripping water from the frantic splashing, and there was Nick, in his funeral suit, leaning casually against the doorjamb.
    â€œY-you—”
    Nick’s mouth quirked at one corner, and he nodded his head. “It’s me, all right.” He wasn’t glowing, I noticed fitfully. Must be a nighttime phenom.
    â€œThis cat—where—?”
    â€œI found him wandering in the train station,” Nick said.
    I stared at him, goggle-eyed. My stomach threatened more mayhem.
    â€œ What train station? What the hell are you talking about?”
    Chester arrived on the scene, wound himself, purring, around Nick’s ankles.
    â€œIt’s a kind of cosmic clearinghouse,” Nick explained. “On the other side.”
    â€œRight,” I agreed. “You just