The Stone of Shadows. R. A. Finley

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СКАЧАТЬ believe even as the evidence mounted. Her pendant should have prevented this—should have at least warned of the woman’s approach, not to mention the strike of her blade. It should be acting now in her defense.

      “Not…possible,” she rasped, struggling to breathe. She was going to be sick, even as blood filled her lungs.

      Next to her ear, the woman laughed, and the hilt of the knife pressed harder against Lettie’s back. She couldn’t turn her head, couldn’t see anything of the woman. Cormac’s partner. Lettie had assumed he was working alone. He’d always worked alone.

      How she longed to say something that would wipe that smirk off his face. But she hadn’t enough breath to speak. And what could she say without giving anything away? She’d lost, yes…but he hadn’t won, either, even if he thought he had.

      Her laugh was more of a spasm, but her murderer translated it well enough.

      “Something amuses you?” The woman’s taunting voice, though whisper-soft, rang a bell.

      Understanding dawned, sharp and cold.

      Lettie went numb from it. The implications were too terrible, the situation far worse than she’d dared imagine.

      “Not the eyes,” she said, the words nothing but strangled sounds as blood bubbled in her throat. She coughed, tried to pull in a breath. “The rest of it. Not the eyes.” Blood surged into her mouth, trickled down her chin.

      She would have wept had it not been too late.

      Oh, Thia. Forgive me.

      The arm pulled away and Lettie’s body dropped, sliding off the knife to land facedown in the stagnant muck.

      CHAPTER 2

      Granite Springs, Oregon

      28 October

      The packing tape was gone. Just…gone. Thia rooted around the desktop clutter in bewilderment. This was crazy. She’d just set the roll down a few seconds ago.

      She picked up a folder stuffed with invoices, found two pairs of scissors and a half-eaten candy bar. No tape. She stared at the chocolate a moment, seeing it as another indication of a life fallen inexplicably out of order. Her normal self would never leave milk chocolate with nut-truffle crème lying around.

      Nor would her normal self have workspace this messy, she thought as she slapped the folder down on a stack of catalogs—one of several stacks the office had acquired since her great-aunt had left on a buying trip.

      Thia missed normal. And her great-aunt, she admitted—then acknowledged the incongruity with a wry smile. One of the world’s foremost eccentrics, when Leticia McDaniel walked into a room, “normal” went out the window.

      That she and Thia had gotten along so well, not only working but also living in close quarters, had been both a surprise and relief. To Thia, anyway. Lettie hadn’t seemed anything but delighted from the moment her grandniece had arrived, as if she’d expected them—veritable strangers aside from a few childhood visits and holiday phone calls—to have nothing short of a grand time.

      “Ms. McDaniel?” Stefanie’s tentative voice came through the door.

      Thia bit back a groan. Nothing made her feel older than her thirty-two years than the unfailing formality of her great-aunt’s clerks. “Come in,” she called and, as Stefanie entered, gave it one last try. “Please, as I’ve told you before, call me Th—”

      “Ms. McDaniel,” the girl wailed, ignoring her in the rush up to the desk. “People are still going through the decks. Look. Look at all this.” She held out several packs of Tarot cards and a large wad of cellophane.

      Lettie had hired Thia to set up Eclectica’s online sales branch, but in her absence, Thia had become more and more acquainted with the particular workings of the “brick and mortar” store itself. This was one of the odder ones. And, unfortunately, it came up a lot.

      She indicated a relatively clutter-free spot on the desk. “Go ahead and set them down. I’ll add them to the list.”

      Stefanie set the opened cartons down, then laid the cellophane on top. Immediately, the wrinkled plastic began to shift and expand with soft, foreboding crinkles. “I guess the sample book isn’t working, huh?”

      “No,” Thia said. “Maybe the stock should be kept in one of the—”

      “Ms. McDaniel, um, since it’s not too busy right now, I was thinking it would be a good time to, you know, um… smudge.” Stefanie’s eyes were alight with fanaticism. Or addiction. To sage smoke? Was it possible?

      “I think we’re still good from yesterday, thank you,” Thia said carefully. “But if you need something to do, I think Abby mentioned a lot of pocket stones have found their way into the polished stone display.”

      “Pocket stones.” Stefanie frowned. “Those the ones with words put into them?”

      “Engraved. Yes.” For reasons that remained a mystery, the silly things were one of the website’s best-sellers.

      “You’re sure you don’t want me to smudge?”

      Thia hadn’t felt so sure of anything in days. She shook her head, called up a phrase she’d heard Lettie use. “Energies are good right now.” Whatever that meant.

      “Oh. Okay, Ms. McDaniel. I’ll do the stones thing, then.” Shoulders slumped in disappointment, the clerk made her way out of the room.

      “Thank you.” Thia kept a straight face until the door clicked shut. It wasn’t nice to find amusement in another’s misery, but there it was.

      Her grin faded when she caught sight of the ruined Tarot cards. She’d have to count to be sure, but she figured there were now more packs in Lettie’s office than out in the store.

      She stuffed the cellophane into the trash, then made a quick list of the particular sets. Dragon Tarot. Renaissance. Fairy Oracle. Two Ryder Waite decks. Oh, come on—two? Thanks to movies and TV, even she knew what those cards looked like.

      She dropped the lot into the drawer to join the rest awaiting pickup by Mrs. Sharpe’s art students for use in their end-of-term collages.

      Maybe they could take some of the catalogs too, if Lettie wouldn’t mind. Thinking to ask her later, Thia pulled a new roll of tape from the supply drawer and returned to prepping the day’s shipment.

      An esoteric tradition of the Tarot was costing the store some serious money. Thia wasn’t sure she’d make the same decision Lettie had. Sure, if it were true that previously handled cards could be dangerous to the new owner, then of course customer safety came first. But it seemed to her nothing more than superstition.

      She tore off a strip of tape, laid it over the mailing label on a box destined for Maryland. Inside were a whimsical ceramic toad and a wand made by a local artist, if she remembered correctly. Amazing to think she was in a small Oregon town and doing business with—she read the label—Megan Wilcox, someone who had likely never set foot inside the store. Although, true enough, the Shakespeare Festival attracted СКАЧАТЬ