Page 127 of Power of the Mind

“Christ. Lemme see what I can do.”

Again, I debated calling Tallus, but if he was in with the psychic, he wouldn’t answer. Better to wait and see what Vern discovered.

It was a long eighteen minutes before my phone rang.

“Give me your email,” Vern said in place of a hello.

I rhymed it off as I pulled up my account on the iPad, ready to receive.

“Anyone asks, you didn’t get this from me.”

“Never heard of ya.”

“Barberian’s on Friday night. Can you swing it?”

Fuck me. Of course he’d pick the most expensive steak restaurant in the city. “Yeah. What time?”

“Seven thirty. I’ll meet you there.”

We hung up as Vern’s email hit my inbox. He’d done away with a trivial greeting. The body of the email contained a still-framed picture pulled from the front desk security camera and dated the previous Thursday morning.

The camera was positioned behind the clerk’s desk and was aimed directly at the civilian standing at the counter, so it offered an unobstructed view of the person’s face.

And I knew that face. I’d seen her before, and her name wasn’t Sandra Morgenstern .

29

Tallus

“How do you know my name?”

Rowena caressed the silky tablecloth with her long, dainty fingers like she was giving it a massage. Her nails were painted what appeared to me as midnight blue and were artfully dotted with constellations of silvery-white stars.

Again, I found it remarkable how ageless the woman appeared.

“I was told you were asking questions about me, inquiring into matters that don’t concern you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do.” She picked up a stack of tarot cards and pushed them toward me. “Two can play this game. Shuffle.”

I didn’t want to. An uneasiness had crept up my spine, and my stomach was in a knot. I’d been had.

But how?

Her unwavering gaze bore into me. Bold. Assessing. Demanding. I didn’t want her to see me sweat, so I took the deck and gave it a half-hearted shuffle before placing it back on the table.

Madame Rowena retrieved the stack and dealt three cards between us, face up. I knew nothing about tarot readings or what the images meant, but I felt sick. Trapped.

“A simple three-card spread.” Rowena pointed from one card to the next. “They represent the past, present, and future.”

I glanced at the images. The first, the one she’d said represented my past, showed a tall building of some kind, windows exploding with flames. Two figures were shown. If they were flying or jumping out the window, I couldn’t tell. Were they superheroes? Did they have capes? I didn’t understand.

“The Tower.” She caressed the card I’d been puzzling as though absorbing its meaning into her fingers. “It represents chaos, upheaval, crisis, but also liberation. An awakening. At some point when you were growing up, you reached a pivotal moment of change. A crux. Illusions were shattered. A life-altering decision was made. The Tower signifies a time when you questioned your core beliefs during a moment of peril.”

A slippery grin appeared on the elderly woman’s face. “Tell me, Tallus, does this sound familiar?”

I didn’t have to say anything. She knew the answer.

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