Dead spread, p.1
Dead Spread, page 1
Dead Spread
Bethany Browning
Contents
Also by Bethany Browning
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Bonus Content
About the Author
Praise for Sasquatch, Baby!
Also by Bethany Browning
WAR OF THE WILLS
Watch Now on Amazon!
On the brink of financial ruin, Will Hadeon III gets a lifeline in the form of an inheritance from the grandfather he never knew. The only problem? He must outlast his scheming, vindictive father in a war of wills to claim what’s rightfully his.
SASQUATCH, BABY!
After being cruelly banished from her posh Napa Valley friend group, Tabitha Eggs retreats to her dream house in Del Norte County, California to drink herself to death. But when a curious Sasquatch saves her from a suicide attempt, they form a haunting and everlasting bond. Will it be enough to convince her to live?
Coming Soon
QUEEN OF TENTACLES
Book Two in the House of Cards Mystery Series
When Mariner’s Cove fortune teller Baba Caracatiță turns up dead, only one person in town has a motive—rival tarot card reader Carrie Dettwiler. Exhausted and looking to make a fresh start after the last murder she was accused of, Carrie wants to stay out of the way. But forces beyond her control, including her girlfriend Stormy’s bizarre behavior, draw her into a world of deceit and misdirection.
Coming Soon
TROUBLE’S AFOOT
A Hollywood icon goes missing, and the only clue is a foot in one of her shoes that washes up on a Malibu beach. The problem? The foot doesn’t match her DNA. Professional organizer Everly Aprés is called in to help sort through the missing woman’s mess, and unwittingly becomes the lead investigator on a case that has the entertainment industry holding its breath.
Read her short stories and horror novellas, get extras for this book, and more at bethanybrowning.com.
Help an indie author! If you like this book, kindly leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon.
DEAD SPREAD. Copyright © 2023 by Bethany Browning. All rights reserved. No part of this book or eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews. For information or permission, please contact the author at bethany@bethanybrowning.com
For George Dondero, who makes everything possible.
Chapter One
If you’ve never spent a morning untangling your pet raven’s gnarly claws from the impossibly curly hair of a local clickbait journalist, have you really lived?
“Get. Him. Out. Carrie,” the Prosperity Post’s sensationalist scribe, Daisy Chatterly, shrieked. “Now.”
“Hold still,” I said. “Waggery wants out of this as much as you do. In his defense, your hair does resemble a nest.”
“Quok,” Waggery agreed. He flapped his wings, which pulled him backward, yanking Daisy’s head with him.
“Why is he wet?” Daisy demanded, wiping a droplet off her cheek. “Did he pee on me? It went into my mouth. If I get infested with bird worms, I’ll sue you.”
I finagled Waggery’s claw out of Daisy’s ringlets. He flapped into a nearby branch and gave himself a vigorous shake. Water droplets rained down on us both.
“I can see the headline now,” I said. “Urine Trouble: Morbid Corvid Extorted When Pissed Reporter Sues Over Ooze.”
“My lawyer’s going to love this,” she muttered under her breath as she continued to inspect herself.
“He didn’t pee and there’s no such thing as bird worms, unless you mean the ones early birds catch. He’s wet because it’s our normal Tuesday spell time,” I said with a shrug.
“Spell time?” she asked in a tone that made it sound like she’d caught me in an impromptu confession. “So, you’re admitting you practice the demonic arts? Can I get a quote from you for my exposé?” She clicked a pen.
“It’s nothing out of the ordinary,” I said. “Every Tuesday, Waggery bathes in the blood of Prosperity’s virgins and bolts out the window to I.D. his next victim. I’m sorry to say it, but you’re next, Daisy. Prepare to be ensorcelled.”
I crossed my eyes, stuck out my tongue, and wiggled my fingers at her.
Judging by the look on her face, she was not prepared to be ensorcelled or anything else. Not by me, anyway.
Cute enough to be Homecoming queen and compact enough to always be the top of the pyramid, Daisy was the physical embodiment of high school popularity. I loved getting her riled up, and I’d been perfecting my technique since she launched a vigorous anti-witch bullying campaign that haunted me for four excruciating years.
“I knew it,” she hissed as she checked her gingham sundress for blood splatters. She looked up at me, her azure eyes the size of saucers. “What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m joking, Daisy. It’s Waggery’s bath day. He likes to dry himself off up there.” I pointed to where he had landed. “It’s a sunny spot.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Waggery looked adorable perched in Aunt Inez’s mimosa tree, a black void with shiny eyes surrounded by delicate wisps of silky pink flowers. He puffed his feathers a final time and uttered a sweet purring sound.
“I’m glad you’re happy,” she said, blowing a few straggling ringlets out of her face. “That beast could have sliced me to ribbons.”
“Seriously, are you okay?”
I only asked because I was raised to be polite, not because I cared one whit if she’d gotten a wee scratch or nick. Served her right. Daisy was forever skulking around my house. I’ve caught Daisy peering through the windows in the hopes she would catch me in the throes of spellcraft, conjuring spirits, communing with the dark lord, or whatever else she thought the readers of the Prosperity Post might pay to read about.
But, since I never did any of those things, she was forced to rely on her imagination.
Most recently, she’d published a Pulitzer-worthy piece entitled Witch Hunt: Tarot Card Priestess’s Craven Raven Spells Hell for Waterfowl.
That headline ran alongside a photo of me fetching Waggery from an impromptu visit to his girlfriend, a duck we called Ligeia, who lived at Prosperity’s duck pond, a shimmering attraction in the center of our town plaza. In my cotton dress, Mary Janes, and the second-hand denim jacket I wore to keep Waggery’s quarter-inch claws from puncturing my shoulder, I looked more Polly Pocket than Sanderson Sister. The only thing that spelled hell as far as I could see was that the photo appeared to have been taken from inside the bushes. Daisy’d been crouching in the oleander, waiting for us to appear.
“This is definitely making the paper.” She whipped out a notepad and made a big show of scribbling something.
“How about I write the headline for you?” I offered. “No Deal: Hack Spies, Lies When She Tries to Dig Dirt on Beloved Tarot Reader.”
“Clever,” she said with a hint of a snarl on her lips.
“Stanford English degree, remember?” I said with mock smugness. Everyone in the town of Prosperity knew I was in debt up to my eyeballs for that highly prestigious, completely worthless degree. But it was a worthwhile dunk on Daisy, who was insecure about the fact that the only reason she wrote for the Prosperity Post was because her parents owned it.
Waggery wafted down from his branch and landed on my shoulder. “Mwah,” he said, giving me a kiss.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us,” I said. “Waggery and I have a reading scheduled with Miriam Cringe.”
“I’ve got my eye on you,” Daisy said. “Soon, my readers will know all about the black magic you’re performing at House of Cards Tarot and how it’s a danger to our community.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” I turned on my heels toward the cottage. “You’ll get me. And my little bird, too.”
§
“Never let them think you’re psychic.”
These were some of the first words of wisdom my Aunt Inez shared with ten-year-old me when she began teaching me how to read tarot.
“As a tarot card reader,” she said, while nimbly shuffling her deck, the same one I began using after she died, “your job, your vocation, is to tease out messages in a near-infinite combination of images, numbers, colors, and symbols found in your client’s spread. These messages reveal opportunities, offer encouragement, and suggest safe courses of action when danger is near. But you? You never predict the future. For yourself, or anyone else.”
“I don’t?” I asked. This w
“No, Carrie,” she said, placing the shuffled deck between us and looking at me very seriously. “We use tarot cards to help our clients write the story of their lives.”
“But what if they want to know how their story ends?” I asked, pretty sure I’d outsmarted her this time.
“It’s a dangerous game,” she said, her dark eyes twinkling, “drawing conclusions for someone else.”
She told me the story of two patients who were diagnosed with the same terrible illness. One was told he had six months to live. The other was told he could live a long and prosperous life, to a hundred or more. “What do you think happened?” And before I could venture a guess, she said, “Exactly what was predicted came true for both. You can offer a roadmap with many twists and turns, but the client must determine their own fate. Let your clients write their own stories.”
I’m not psychic. And I don’t practice witchcraft. I’m a tarot card reader—one of the best, trained by the G.O.A.T.
“Sometimes,” Aunt Inez said, peering at me over her star-shaped reading glasses, “it’s best to not know what comes next.”
§
“Open up, Carrie Dettwiler.” My first client of the day, Miriam Cringe, was pounding on my front door.
‘Tis some visitor rapping at my chamber door,” I whispered to Waggery as I flounced past his perch.
“Nevermore,” Waggery croaked in excitement. He danced back and forth and bobbed up and down.
I unlatched the hook, opened the door, and welcomed Miriam into my reading room. “Always a pleasure,” I said, with my hand on my heart.
It wasn’t always a pleasure.
“Did the spirits fail to mention that I was on my way?” She shouldered past me toward the reading table and staked her claim in her usual seat, her dark, curly hair bouncing as she settled in.
She sniffed deeply, cleared her throat, and swallowed whatever it was that came up.
“I don’t talk to spirits,” I told her for the millionth time. “And you’re early.”
“What’s happening there?” she asked, gesturing to the gaping hole where my doorknob used to be.
“Waggery’s new thing,” I said. “Disassembling doorknobs.” I pointed toward the jumble of metal on my kitchen counter. Waggery, hearing his name, blinked and cocked his head. “I’m using that sad little hook to keep it closed now.”
“I don’t know why you allow that feathered fiend to live in your house.” Miriam looked at Waggery with what Inez would have called “the hairy eyeball.” She sat down at the reading table, pulled a claw hammer out of her tote, and set it on the table between us. “It’s like living with a flying monkey.”
Waggery giggled. Miriam wrinkled her nose in disgust.
Most of the things I inherited from Aunt Inez—her mortgage-free home, her beloved Waggery, and her vast tarot card knowledge—were things I cherished. But Miriam Cringe wasn’t one of them. Insults shot out of her like a Tommy gun. Negativity gushed from her mouth like an unplugged hydrant. Offensive taunts launched out of her gaping maw with the force of a—never mind. You get the picture.
Unfortunately, she was my most reliable client, arriving every Tuesday like clockwork, exactly like she did when Aunt Inez read her cards. And let’s face it, I was in no financial position to turn anyone away.
“Why don’t you tuck the wham-stick back into your bag,” I suggested. “And we’ll begin.”
There was a joke bouncing around my brain about Miriam and a bag of hammers, but I knew better than to make it. I took my normal seat across the table from her and stifled a giggle.
“I refuse to disarm myself while that doom chicken is in the room,” she said, clearly not seeing the humor. “He’s leering.”
I glanced at Waggery to see if he was, in fact, leering. He yawned.
“He’s harmless.” And that was true.
Mostly.
I tapped the cards a few times to wake them up. I turned them over, relishing the weight of them in my palms. The cool feel of the cards never failed to bring me back to myself, to center me when the world threw chaos my way. My cards were my touchstone to sanity, like a deep, cleansing breath. Some people had crystals, crosses, or charms; I had cards.
“A quick three-card or a full Celtic cross today?” I asked.
“Three for me,” she said, and I did my best to hide my disappointment. The three-card spread is universally useful and easy to understand. The Celtic cross was a highly detailed reading, and it cost more.
“We’ve got to hurry,” she said, tapping her watch-free wrist. “I’m going to ambush your buddy Mayor Brix in his office. I need to beat some sense into him about that duck pond, and he keeps saying he’s too busy to meet. Reason’s gone out the window.”
Miriam was singing a tune I’d heard among a lot of the locals. Mayor Brix had spearheaded a wildly successful downtown reinvention campaign that put Prosperity on the radar of day-trippers, second homers, and social media mavens who clogged up traffic and thronged around our town plaza and its perfectly picturesque duck pond. Our once-sleepy hamlet was becoming a playground for the elite, and small, family-owned businesses that catered to the residents were being forced out.
But Miriam’s specific beef with the mayor was about the duck pond. Miriam, obsessed with water hazards after her husband drowned at Lake Liminal last year, wanted it filled in and transformed into a community garden. They’d been battling over it for months.
“What’s your question?” I asked, eager to change this controversial subject.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would.” I sighed louder than I should have. Miriam was, in a word, paranoid, and she was fearful I would use her questions against her with the mayor.
“I keep everything confidential,” I assured her.
“Get to the cards,” she said. “My question has nothing to do with you.”
“Waddle it be? Calling fowl on the duck pond?” I smiled at my own joke. She did not.
I continued. “I’m going to read your three-card spread left to right, past to future. In your past position, you’ve got the Three of Cups, reversed. You’re frustrated with a group project or committee.”
Miriam stroked her hammer with increasing intensity.
“You’ve decided to take matters into your own hands,” I said, fixating on her hammer. “Is that accurate?”
“Always,” she said. “If you want something done right you’ve got to do it yourself.”
“Totally agree,” I said, taking the opening. “You have no idea how many group projects at Stanford I did all by myself—”
“Read the cards,” she said, tapping the middle card, the one that showed the present. “I’m not paying for your walks down alumni lane.”
“In the center, you’ve got the Five of Cups reversed, which is an interesting juxtaposition next to the three, also reversed,” I said. “You might suffer a setback and blame yourself for the outcome.”
“I don’t blame myself for anything,” she said. “Ever.”
True. Miriam never said she was sorry.
“The three spilled goblets suggest that you’ve lost support,” I said, silently wondering who supported her in this doomed mission to begin with. “But look at these two behind the cloaked figure. They’re still standing. Your wing men still support you. Does any of this fit the bill?”
