The Love of the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

on the table in front of her, took a deep breath and opened it.
    She pulled the pack of Tarot cards from the bag and laid the cards, tidy in their pack, on the table. She held the pack, turned it this way and that in her hands. She didn’t get anything from it. No sense of whose it was. Better that she didn’t know whose pack it was. It was easy to see what her mind already knew, make it into something she believed.
    She took the cards from the pack. The pack had been dusted, but it hadn’t been cleaned since. The owner’s fingers had touched this pack. She knew the owner. Henry Meakings. She’d met him a few times, when she used to speak at church. She’d liked him.
    Now he was dead.
    Killed by some psychopath. It wouldn’t have been an easy death. Being murdered was hard on the soul. He’d be adrift. Violent, sudden death could be confusing for a spirit.
    She understood that people cried for their dead. She knew he had a son. She felt bad for him. Left behind. Left to pick up the pieces.
    She didn’t feel bad herself. She was cold.
    She had to be.
    Pain was hot, hard and sharp. The cold protected her.
    She stopped thinking about Henry and started thinking about the pack. The last hands to touch these cards were the killer’s, not Henry’s. The police had yet to find any fingerprints. They probably thought he wore gloves. Beth suspected he didn’t need to, but she just couldn’t understand it.
    He’d killed three people so far. Three mediums. Like her. Maybe not like her. Just mediums. Speakers for the dead. Beth was somewhat different, but in line, maybe. In danger?
    Maybe.
    Scared?
    She didn’t scare easily, not anymore. But a little? Yeah. Probably.
    She fanned the cards out, face up. Looked at the artwork. Rider-Waite Tarot. The same as her deck.
    She dealt out eleven cards, in a neat figure of eight, face down. One for the top, middle, and bottom. Four for the top of the circle, four for the bottom. Eleven cards.
    She picked up her whiskey tumbler and set it down on the middle card. Turned the top. The Hierophant.
    Him. The murderer. Did he fancy himself the Hierophant? She wasn’t sure. It was him, for this reading, but it wasn’t his card. It felt like a joke, but she didn’t really understand why. It was a red herring. A lie.
    Yes, she thought. A lie, but like the best lies, there was a hint of truth in it, too.
    She turned the top half of the figure of eight in quick succession. The Eight, Nine, and Ten of Swords, and the Fool. Dark, oppressive cards, apart from the Fool. But she got a bad feeling about the Fool. The Hierophant was a joke. The Fool in the pack, too? It wasn’t him. It was someone else. She was sure it was a person, not an event.
    She read despair in those cards, a hint of things to come.
    If she’d turned these cards for a client, she would have lied. Softened it. Said the cards weren’t to be taken literally.
    But this reading wasn’t for a client. It was for her, and him.
    She lifted her whiskey. The middle card was the High Priestess.
    Her? She didn’t think it was her card, but maybe he did. Now she knew this was his reading and not hers.
    Then the Hierophant made sense. He saw himself as her counterpoint.
    The next four. Swords. Two and Three. But then, two discordant notes. The Hermit.
    The Hermit didn’t fit. It was someone else. Some thing else.
    The next card was the Hanged Man. Both the Hermit and the Hanged Man felt out of place. They weren’t for her. They weren’t the killer’s. They shouldn’t be there, but she couldn’t deny it.
    A question for later, maybe. She couldn’t put the last card off, even though she knew it before she turned it.
    The Tower.
    She held the card in front of her, staring. Despair. The end of things. She lowered the card to the table and saw his hand, reaching out for the card. Looked up and saw him. Really saw him. He smiled.
    He saw her, too. He saw her and knew her. Somehow, he saw her perfectly, and suddenly she was scared