Tarotica

row of sparkling white teeth broken by a single, gold incisor. “Where you headed now?”

“Back to my cabin to relax.”

“You stayin’ at the Wranglers’ Camp?”

She nodded.

“Mind if I walk with you?”

He told her his name was Jeremy and that he was a professional bull rider.

Ordinarily, Miranda might’ve been intrigued and shown more enthusiasm, plying him with questions about his rodeo adventures. But as they walked toward the camp, her attention kept wandering.

“I got a couple steaks an’ some beer,” he said when they reached her cabin. “How ’bout sharing ’em with me t’night?”

“Thanks, but I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll pass.”

He looked disappointed, but not convinced. “Maybe once you get washed up and rested a bit, you’ll change your mind. If you do, my RV’s over there, the one with the flames painted on it.” He pointed toward a camping area. “Just gimme a holler.”

* * *

After a hot shower, Miranda felt better. Briefly she contemplated accepting Jeremy’s offer, but her heart wasn’t in it—and neither was the rest of her. She wished Eli were here. She tried his cell phone, but got his voice mail.

Sipping a Coke she’d bought from a vending machine, she stretched out on the bed, replaying erotic images of the two of them together on her mental monitor. What’s wrong with you, girl? You’re acting like a lovesick teenager, she chastised herself.

She got up and pulled a paperback novel from one of the pockets in her suitcase.

As she did, the crystal she’d found in Uncle Bright’s field fell out. Its planes and points sparkled when she picked it up, inviting her to look deeper. Holding it in her hand, she remembered the scenario she’d seen inside the crystal, more than a week before the attack in New Orleans occurred. I glimpsed the future once before. Can I do it again?

She rubbed the crystal between her palms like Aladdin’s lamp, and took a deep breath. Letting her gaze follow its pattern of wisps and flecks, she noticed shapes slowly forming inside.

A sunny day. Rows and rows of green-gold vines, laden with purple fruit. Eli, wearing a white T-shirt and faded jeans, plucked a grape from one of the vines. Miranda smiled, watching him. He looked happy. Then a pretty, petite woman with black curls approached Eli. She opened her mouth and he fed her the grape. The woman sucked his fingers suggestively, stepping closer…

A sharp pain stabbed Miranda just below her left breast and ran through her body, like a hot sword. A dark, murky fear bubbled up within her, the same feeling she’d experienced when she’d previewed the scene in New Orleans’ Jackson Square. The word danger flashed in her mind, before the image in the crystal vanished.

“You son of a bitch!” she swore. “Is that why you went back to Napa?”

Miranda’s blue eyes filled with tears as she tucked the crystal back into her suitcase. I thought we had something special. I thought you really cared about me. I thought one day you’d be my husband. She fingered the Navaho silver bracelet on her wrist.

“How dare you lead me on like that!” She glowered at the mirror, as she rouged her cheeks and brushed on mascara. “If you think you can make a fool of me, Eli Hart, you’re dead wrong!”

She swiped lipstick on her full lips, unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse, and opened the cabin door. Tossing her purple-streaked hair, she strode defiantly toward the RV with the flames on its side.

Card 16: The Tower

Standing before Edward Hopper’s famous painting, Nighthawks, Miranda studied the couple seated at the counter of the eerie, brightly lit diner. Had they stopped for a cup of coffee after a night out on the town before going home to their bungalow in Brooklyn?

Or was the woman in the red dress a prostitute, the man beside her a john? And what about the lone man, whose face she couldn’t see? All three seemed lost in their own thoughts, allowing her to observe them, but not inviting her into their isolated world.

“Miranda?” A voice stirred her from her contemplation.

She turned to see a man with salt-and-pepper hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and eyes like smoldering coals. “Zeke Parelli?”

“What are you doing in Chicago?” he asked. He gave her a quick hug, pressing her cheek against his Egyptian cotton shirt.

“I’m touring the country, something I’ve wanted to do since before Dad got sick,” she answered, gazing up at him. He must be sixty, but he’s still damned good-looking.

Until she was six years old, her father and Zeke Parelli traveled the East Coast, performing in bars and restaurants, at weddings, corporate functions, and private parties—anyplace that would hire them. Most of the time they sang soft rock classics, Danny Malone’s clear Irish tenor backed up by Zeke’s rich baritone. After a bit too much to drink, however, they crooned old ballads with heartbreaking beauty.

When Zeke sang at her father’s wake, men and women cried openly. Miranda remembered sitting on his knee that evening, Zeke wiping her tears with his handkerchief while he told her stories of the duo’s days on the road, their youthful dreams of stardom.

Dreams that ended when Danny Malone took a job at the GE plant in Lynn, Massachusetts, to support his family and Zeke Parelli became a lawyer with a cadre of questionable clients.

“Lucky I ran into you,” he said. “Why didn’t you’d let me know you were coming to Chicago? I would have arranged to take time off to show you around.”

“It was an impromptu decision. I didn’t know myself that I was coming until two days ago,” she explained.

“At least let me take you to dinner. Are you free tonight?”

Miranda nodded. “I’d like that. Thanks.”

She told him the name of her hotel and Zeke promised to pick her up at seven.

“Wear something pretty,” he said with a smile that held implications she couldn’t quite decipher.

* * *

Located in a beautifully restored Victorian brownstone, the Chicago Chop House resonated with the city’s colorful past, when meatpackers, politicians, and gangsters vied for control of the Windy City. The entire staff appeared to know Zeke Parelli and greeted him with deferential smiles.

“This restaurant serves steaks almost as big as you,” Zeke teased Miranda.

He ordered martinis for them both and a bottle of Chilean Cabernet for dinner.

What would Eli think about that? she mused. She hadn’t spoken with him since viewing the vineyard scene in her crystal; he’d left a message on her voice mail yesterday, but she hadn’t returned the call. Let him wonder what I’m up to, while he’s fooling around with his little grape-sucking bitch.

Scanning the appetizers, she noticed cherrystone clams and flashed back to their risque act in the New Orleans restaurant. The memory triggered sparks between her legs.

I’ll never again eat clams without thinking of him. Under “Desserts,” she spotted an item named Eli’s Cheesecake. Dammit, I can’t seem to get away from the boy.

She slapped the menu closed. “I’ll have smoked salmon to start, followed by spring lamb chops.”

After giving their order to the waiter, Zeke checked his cell phone. “Sorry, I have to make a call.” Ten minutes later, he returned and asked her a few questions about her trip, before excusing himself again. “Sometimes it seems like I’m bound to this phone,” he said.

“Can’t it wait until after dinner?”

Zeke shook his head. “These aren’t guys you keep waiting.”