Never Fear - The Tarot: Do You Really Want To Know? Read online

  My hand went right through to the table.

  I yanked it back. What the hell was going on? I couldn’t bear to think something had happened to Jagger! Not Jagger. There was no one like him. I couldn’t look at him, so I turned away to face the doorway. Oh, God, what was I going to do? My hands shook, my heart broke, and I shut my eyes to tell myself I must be dreaming. Suddenly a cold wind blew into my face.

  My eyelids flung open to see that same woman standing in the doorway. “He is mine,” she growled.

  “You keep your hands off of him!” I readied to yank out my phone to clobber her if she tried to get near Jagger. But, I wasn’t sure she was even real.

  “Emily,” a soft, raspy sound came from behind me.

  I swung around. The man lying there was not Jagger at all! Oh, God. What is happening? This man was very old, white hair and glassy blue eyes. Not Jagger at all.

  Emily flew past me. “Joshua. Joshua. Joshua Mendelson. “ She leaned toward him and started singing again.

  That was my cue to exit.

  I didn’t even remember running through the tunnel, but found myself in the common area where patients had been watching TV. No one around. No great surprise. Even the nurse was gone. I started to head toward the door out of this hell, but stopped. The nurse wasn’t around. So, I decided to go behind the desk and see what I could find for my case.

  Patient records were held in silver metal, flipchart-type records. This place was back in the fifties for sure. I opened several, read through notes and found bills. Bills that were over sixty years old!

  Someone was still billing the Atlas Carrier Insurance Company from this unit. I’d have to ask John about that. When I went to stick the flipchart back into its holder, I noticed a name on the lowest chart. Joshua Mendelson. I grabbed it and sat to read through it.

  Joshua Mendelson was being treated for a psychosis. He’d received massive doses of antipsychotic meds. Even I knew the doses were way too high. He also received electric shock therapy several times a week. Today must have been one of those days. I could only guess that those doses were also way too high. I thumbed through to find out his history. Joshua had been institutionalized since he was seventeen. His parents reported him seeing a woman who was not there. “A visual hallucination,” I mumbled. He had tried to hurt his parents, so they had him committed to Amity by the Sea—in 1956.

  Nineteen fifty six.

  I shook my head and continued reading. Joshua was a wild patient, often needed to be restrained with cold wet packs to calm him down. Back in my student nurse days, I remember the instructor telling us how patients were stripped of their clothes, wrapped in cold, wet sheets much like a mummy, with only their head sticking out. Apparently, the archaic swaddling calmed them down and they remained that way until the staff felt them ready to go back to their ward.

  Upon further reading, I learned that Joshua had formed a relationship with a female patient who had been suicidal. Emily? I could only guess. As I read further, sure enough, Emily and Joshua had fallen in love. She became pregnant and the nurses took her son as soon as she gave birth, sending her deeper into her psychosis.

  Neither Joshua nor Emily were ever the same nor were they allowed to be together. I touched my pocket to feel Emily’s card. When I pulled it out of my pocket, it came out upside down. Now I had to know more about the meaning of the card.

  I heard shouting in the distance, and since it wasn’t a cry for help, I stuck Joshua’s record back into the holder, got up and hurried out of the unit.

  If it even was a unit.

  The entire place was so weird that nothing made sense to me.

  What was real and what was not.

  Joshua and Emily were real, but now…

  *

  Once I was safely back in my room—if I could be safe anywhere around here—I held my phone toward the window. More bars. Great. I Googled The Lovers tarot card. When I picked it up after Emily had dropped it, I held it upright. That meant love, trials overcome. Maybe that’s what made me think I saw Jagger lying there instead of Joshua. On the other side, the reversed side, it meant failure and foolish design. Poor Emily and Joshua fell right into that one. How sad.

  I tried to call Adele to find out where Jagger was. This time she answered. “Hello, Chéri!”

  I loved the way the French Canadians spoke. After a bit of chit chat, I asked, “Adele, do you know is Jagger on a case? Do you know where he is?”

  “With you, Chéri, with you.”

  The phone fell out of my hand. I collapsed backward onto the bed. With me? He couldn’t be.

  Not in this lunatic asylum. Quickly I got up to clarify with Adele, but the phone was dead.

  Oh… my… god.

  I packed up my stuff, found my pink pepper spray, which I’d gotten as a gift from Jagger, and stuck it in my pocket. Maybe that’s why I saw him here. A premonition. My mother swore by them but I’d never had one… until now.

  Sneaking down the creaky staircase, I looked to see John not at his post. Great. Hurrying across the room as if my speed would make it creak less, I got to the front door, yanked it open and out I scurried to stick everything into my car. I’d find Jagger and get us both the hell out of here. Fabio could balk all he wanted about the case, since I’m sure neither he nor the insurance company would believe me about them getting billed from a ward that was stuck in the fifties. Right now, I could care less. I had to find Jagger.

  After I’d locked everything but my phone and pepper spray in the car, I headed back inside. Despite my determination, I didn’t feel quite that confident. I mean, I could hold my own against criminals committing fraud, but I was guessing this time I was not playing on an even field. Being Catholic, I don’t think I was supposed to believe in ghosts. But damn it, there sure was a lot of proof in this nutty place.

  John was at his desk. Great. I went over to him, once again interrupted his reading, and asked, “Is there a male unit here at Amity?”

  Without looking up, he mumbled, “Ward 313.”

  I shook my head, “I should have guessed that.” If Jagger were undercover here, he’d probably be assigned to a male ward. At least I hoped so. “What floor—”

  “White house by the beach.”

  Now that I couldn’t have figured out by myself. I swung around, hurried toward the door and turned toward the water. That house had to be one of the little white cottages with the shingles blowing in the wind. When I got close enough, I saw the doctor in blue standing in the doorway. He quickly turned, went inside and shut the door.

  He must have seen me. Did he know I’d been snooping around? No matter. I ran up the steps onto the porch and tried to open the door. Locked. “Damn it.” I started to pound on it, half expecting the doctor to open it and chastise me. But that didn’t matter. If Jagger had come to help with this case, I needed to hook up with him and maybe, just maybe, tell him about the weirdness I’d been through.

  A young guy in blue scrubs opened the door. “Yeah?”

  “Hi. John told me to come here. I’m the new nurse.” I bit my lip and waited for him to tell me to get lost. But he didn’t. Without a care, he stepped aside and let me come into the shabby living room where a few men sat, once again watching TV. Color this time. Poor things. Not much mental stimulation around here.

  He pointed toward what looked like a makeshift nurse’s station. I went behind the desk and looked for the flipcharts, but there was a computer here instead. Interesting. Made Ward 213 look very retro. No charts had billing information on them. I guessed there was a separate department for that, unless John Valeri did billing too. Before I could get up to look around more, I heard talking down the hallway.

  I remained silent for a second, then heard a deep voice say, “Yes, Doc.”

  Leaning as far over as I could without being seen, I saw the guy who let me in talking to the doctor in blue. “Give him another shot of propranolol.”

  The guy hesitated, “But, Doc, isn’t that way too high of a
dose after the previous ones?”

  “Where’s your psychiatric degree from, Bryan?”

  “I don’t have one, Doctor Mendelson. I’ll get the shot ready.”

  Mendelson? Oh… my… god. He was Joshua and Emily’s son! The nurses must have secretly raised the baby. Maybe that’s why they hung around here after I’m sure they had passed on. I got up and stood near the desk. Too much propranolol could cause memory loss and plenty of heart problems. Whoever they were giving it to, could be in serious jeopardy. I was ready to head down the hallway to talk to the doctor, when his words stopped me cold.

  “At least he’ll forget all about the billing issues, Bryan. You don’t want to go back to prison, do you?”

  Before I waited for Bryan’s response, my intuition kicked in. Jagger! They had to be talking about Jagger. I saw Bryan turn into a room, which was probably the medication room and the doctor went down the hallway. Within seconds, I silently walked down the hall, looking into each room.

  In the second to the last room, a man lay on a treatment table. Not just any man… but Jagger!

  “Oh, no!” I ran in and leaned over a passed out Jagger. “Jagger, wake up. It’s me, Sherlock. We have to get you out of—”

  “He ain’t going anywhere and neither are you—nurse whoever you are,” Bryan said, holding a syringe out toward me.

  “I think this patient has had enough.” While I spoke, I touched the pepper spray in my pocket and wrapped my fingers around the container. Please, God, let it still work.

  As Bryan came around the treatment table toward me, I pulled it out and sprayed the crap out of him. Despite his screaming and falling to the floor, Jagger remained silent, but the doctor came rushing in.

  “What the hell?”

  I stooped down, grabbed the syringe from Bryan’s hand and stuck it with all my strength into the doctor’s arm. Since it would take a bit to work, I sprayed him too. A lot.

  Then I leaned over, shook Jagger several times and said, “Come on, Jagger, wake up. Wake up!”

  His eyelids fluttered open, I leaned forward and kissed him, then looked to see a card sail to the floor from his hand, landing upright. The Lovers. I stared in disbelief as Jagger mumbled, “What the hell took you so long, Sherlock?”

  With tears of joy running down my cheeks, I realized The Lovers apparently led me to the man who made me quiver so I could save his life this time.

  And Emily and Joshua helped.

  8

  the chariot

  taRa nina

  Upright: Succor, Triumph, Providence, War trouble, Presumption, Vengeance

  Reversed:Riot, Quarrel, Dispute, Litigation, Defeat

  Chapter One

  It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled, rattling the windows of the abandoned warehouse. Agent Josie James drew her gun, eased along the darkened corridor and readied for whatever lay in wait. Her muscles tightened, fingers whitened with her grip on the weapon. Wind whistled through broken panes, making it difficult to determine which noises the fugitive made and which belonged to the gust of cold air laced with rain.

  Each step brought her closer to the dim light at the end of the long hallway. Her heartbeat increased. Pulse thumped through her veins. Someone hid in that room. She heard the shuffle of feet and the scrape of a chair. Had they somehow sensed she was there? Josie froze, watching, waiting for a sign, some signal giving her the advantage she needed to take her prey by surprise.

  *

  Anora reread the first words she’d managed to write in over six months. With the stress of her divorce and the battle with Tony in court over the rights to her novels, it was refreshing to at least be in front of the computer. All that “he said, she said” scenario had torn her apart. His claim to have been instrumental in the creation of her Josie James mystery novels was ludicrous. The judge initially leaned in his favor. Thank God, her smart attorney requested proof of Tony’s knowledge of the storyline, without using any media devices to retrieve information, while in court. When he couldn’t give basic particulars concerning the characters, titles, or plots of any of the thirty-six best sellers in that series, the judge was forced to reconsider.

  Since there was no prenup, the ass was awarded a decent chunk of her money as reimbursement for all the years he’d worked to support her writing “hobby.” If the judge had known the amount of verbal abuse, the lies, and the humiliation she’d suffered in silence… It didn’t matter. It was over. It wouldn’t have made a difference in the judge’s decision. He was a man, and men stuck together. Tony hadn’t been a controlling, manipulative monster when they met, but he turned into one the instant she created a formidable name for herself in the publishing industry. Anora kicked herself daily over that mistake made while wearing the blinders of love and stupidity.

  Hobby! She snorted. The judge called her work a hobby. Her lawyer had soothed her anger by saying he was just jealous that one book alone made double the benchwarmer’s yearly salary. That still made the edge of her lips twitch into a small smile.

  She leaned back, staring at the blinking cursor. Here she sat working on book number thirty-seven. Words whirled around her brain, trying to form a blockbuster start to her latest creation, but what she’d written didn’t ignite her imagination or make her fingers itch to burn up the keyboard.

  “Pure crap,” she muttered under her breath. Her finger hovered over the delete key, but never landed.

  She jumped as a bright flash of lightning filled the room, illuminating the shadows that had taken over. Thunder rumbled across the slate shingles of the old cabin on Chariot Lake at the same time a hand landed on her shoulder. Anora screamed as she shoved away from the desk, spun the chair and leapt simultaneously. Her IPOd headphone cord caught on the arm, snatched one bud from her ear while the other remained steadfast, causing her head to swivel in the direction of the intruder. Laughter pealed, breaking through the writer’s fog, which consumed her brain mere moments earlier. Recognition sank in as the man switched on the overhead light.

  She snatched the ear bud out, freeing herself from the tangled mess of her headphones. “Dammit, Elijah! I should kill you for that! Haven’t you ever heard of knocking or at least calling before you scare the bejeezus out of someone?”

  He straightened his glasses as he cleared his throat, stilling his laughter. “I did. Check your cell phone. There should be three missed calls and two voice mails from me. Got nervous that an ax murderer or something up here in the boondocks had killed you, so I took the three hour drive, thank-me-very-much, to make sure my number one author wasn’t chopped to pieces. And as for the door,” he continued, pointing a finger toward the opened wooden door, “I knocked. You really should lock that thing when you’re sitting with your back to it, lights off, and music blaring through your headphones. You never know. Next time it really could be an ax murderer. Then, where would I be?”

  “Looking for a new number one,” Anora practically growled, staring at him. Part of her was excited to see him. He’d been on her mind a lot lately, and not in a professional manner. The other half was trying to regain a normal heart rate.

  His black hair hung sexily over one eye before he brushed it back into the funky hipster style he wore. Those big brown eyes of his were hidden behind the popular black plastic rims every male member of the hipster community donned, and his clothing was straight from the pages of GQ—straight-leg jeans, white button-down with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, topped with a deep green sweater vest and cool, cutting-edge loafers on his feet—no socks. With his tall, leanly-muscled frame, he’d be the perfect poster child for the casually dressed business male. Elijah was dreamy to say the least. He’d been her agent for seven years and had been behind her every step of the way. Not her ex. She breathed deeply, calming the nerves he’d frazzled. When he turned away, it didn’t last. Her gaze landed on the mold of those jeans to his ass and her heart rate spiked again.

  “Ah, yes. But I wouldn’t like it.” He walked to t
he door, stepped outside for a moment then returned with a large carryout bag. Shutting the door, he smiled. “I brought food from the only open restaurant in this town. Joe’s Fish Shack or something like that. The young lady behind the counter swore they made the best coleslaw.” He tilted his chin, poking his nose in the air comically. “I’ll be the judge of that. You know how I loves me some coleslaw. Which way to the kitchen?”

  She pointed. The scent of fish wafted to her nose as he walked past her to the kitchen. Her stomach groaned, reminding her the last meal had been breakfast. Anora hurried behind him, images flipping through her head. Had she or hadn’t she cleaned? Were there dishes in the sink? She hated not being able to remember if there were or not. Ask her anything about one of her novels and she could spout it accurately without a second thought, but day-to-day life, well, that was a different genre entirely.

  She caught the swinging door, entered and released her breath. The kitchen wasn’t a disaster. Her cereal bowl and spoon were in the dish drain along with the coffee mug. The glass carafe on the coffeemaker contained one last cup, but had long ago shut off via a timer. So, not bad.

  Elijah set the bag on the small stainless steel, square table, which was pushed against a wall in the quaint kitchen. It wasn’t a large room, just big enough to suit its purpose. The cabinets formed an L-shape along one side of the room. The sink sat directly in the middle of the stainless steel countertop of the lower cabinets. A refrigerator stood at the end of the L beside the back door. The stove was on the opposite wall and had a shelf above it containing a microwave. A faded shade of yellow covered the walls. The black-and-white, checkered-patterned linoleum had seen better days.

  “You want to eat in here?” Elijah unpacked the bag, while looking at her.

  “Nah, let’s sit in the other room. It’s bigger, not so close.”