“Unless the perp was a vampire,” Cody suggested, leaning over the table to study the cards, caught up despite himself. “You said to think literally, and an arrow’s pretty close to a wooden stake.” He flushed. “Ah . . . assuming, of course, that there is a perp. We’re a long way from making that conclusion.”

Mom smiled at him. “Don’t worry. All readings are strictly confidential.” She turned over the final card. “The culmination.”

It was La Sirena, the mermaid, but the card was upside down, or reversed, as actual tarot readers say.

“An alluring woman,” Mom murmured. “But she’s in distress.”

I touched the strand of freshwater pearls looped around my neck. “Could it be a naiad or an undine?”

“It’s possible.” She looked worried. “There’s something bad going on; that’s for sure, Daisy, baby.” She gathered up the cards, shuffled, and squared them, setting them back on the table. “I’m willing to try, if you’d like me to do a reading for you, Officer Fairfax, but the cards usually only get vaguer when they’re questioned twice on the same issue.”

He shook his head. “I’ll defer to the expert, but call me Cody.”

“Cody.” A hint of a smile returned to her blue eyes. “I’d be happy to do a reading on a more personal matter.”

He cut the deck and glanced at the uppermost card: La Luna, the moon. Of course, that would so totally be his significator. “Another time, maybe.”

Her smile deepened. “Anytime.”

Chapter Seven

Seven

“Your mom’s not what I expected,” Cody commented on the drive back toward the town.

“How so?”

He gave me a sidelong glance, topaz eyes glinting. “Oh, I don’t know. She’s really . . . nice.”

I yawned, slumping a little in my seat. “Meaning I’m not?”

“Let me put it this way,” he said, not unkindly. “You’ve got a short fuse.”

I gazed at his hands on the steering wheel. Cody had good hands, nicely shaped, with long fingers, strong and sinewy. Rather like the rest of him, from what I’d seen. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

He concentrated on the road. “What we talked about earlier . . . You’re right about Jen Cassopolis. Her sister’s still out at Twilight Manor, right? I’d forgotten about some of the crap she went through. She deserves better.”

I sat up straighter. “Hey, now! I didn’t say better.”

Cody shrugged. “It’s what you meant, and you were right. It’s okay. I’ll call her. I’ll do the old ‘it’s not you; it’s me’ routine. After all, it’s true.”

“Is it because of the whole mating-within-your-species thing?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

I let the silence ride a while, but I couldn’t help being bedeviled with curiosity. “Did you love her?”