AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A coven's count on a moonlit night.
I’m death in tarot, a superstitious blight.
Miles read it through three, four, five times, unable to see anything other than a jumble of words that seemed orderly on the surface but on closer inspection said nothing. The words death and blight unnerved him a little, but he couldn’t shake the feeling this was one of Jessica’s attempts to draw his attention.
But below the riddle was something else. Another section to the puzzle, only it was a jumble of capital letters.
ZRRG ZR NG GUR PRZRGREL VA PYRNEIVRJ CNEX GRA CZ GBAVTUG BE LBH JVYY QVR.
Miles pored over the message, neither the riddle nor the nonsensical string of characters offering any immediate insight. A coven’s count? What did that even mean? A coven of witches? And death in tarot he assumed referred to tarot cards, something he was equally as clueless about as covens.
But at least those terms meant something to him, unlike the jumble of letters. Was it a cipher? An anagram? And more importantly, why would someone leave this for him? He didn’t recognize the handwriting, and while none of it suggested Jessica’s involvement, it pained him to admit that he couldn’t have identified Jessica’s handwriting if someone had a gun to his head.
Miles felt the room begin to close around him. The cryptic riddle and the jumble of letters felt like an unsolvable puzzle, a maze with no clear entrance or exit, and he didn’t have the energy to dig much deeper. But the idea that someone had been in his back garden, so close to his personal space, pushed him further to the edge. Every shadow seemed darker, every creak of the house louder. The anonymity of it, the lack of any clear sender or motive, made it all the more disturbing. He glanced around the room, half expecting to see a pair of eyes staring back at him from the darkness.
In a moment of decision, Miles crumpled the note in his hand. The paper, once meticulously folded, was now just a wad of frustration and fear. He stood up, walked over to the trash can and dumped the paper inside, discarding the unease it brought along with it.
‘Garbage,’ Miles said. Probably just a new type of junk mail, or maybe it was one of the neighbors’ kids messing with him. He wouldn’t put it past some of the delinquents around here, and Miles reassured himself that if the message was so important, the sender would find another way to contact him.
But try as he might, Miles couldn’t shake his fear. He ran through recent events in his head, trying to pinpoint any new enemies or old enemies returned. Maybe it really was Jessica playing a game with him, or maybe one of her dumb friends trying to exact vengeance for treating her the way he did.
The unease clung to him, a shadow that wouldn't be dispelled by rational thoughts or logical explanations. He tried to focus on the mundane, the everyday life that awaited him tomorrow, but his mind kept circling back to the mysterious note, to the feeling of being watched. Miles looked around the living room once more, his eyes lingering on the dark corners, the spaces behind the furniture where shadows gathered. He shuffled to the windows beside his patio doors and locked them shut. The idea of calling the police crossed his mind, but what would he tell them? He found an anonymous note taped to his patio door? He had cause to do it, but he’d be the fool when police traced it back to a bored kid who lived down the street.
Back in the living room, Miles glanced at the trash can where the crumpled note lay hidden. Part of him wanted to retrieve it, to try to solve the puzzle once more, but he resisted the urge. It was better left alone, a mystery that wouldn't find its solution tonight.
As Miles turned away from the trash can, a sudden, chilling sensation gripped him. Every nerve ending in his body came alive. The unsettling feeling of being watched intensified, morphing into an undeniable presence sharing the same space.
In the dim light of the room, a shadow detached itself from the darkness. It was almost imperceptible at first, a slight shift behind the curtains. They billowed as if caught by an unseen breeze, then a blur in the periphery of Miles' vision moved with a startling quickness. Before he could react, before he could even process what was happening, the figure sprang at him from the shadows.
CHAPTER ONE
Agent Ella Dark sat in the interview room of Virginia State Prison, hands clasped together in mock prayer. Unanswered questions had brought her to the prison doors, and her contacts and credentials had gotten her through the four layers of security. Now she awaited her interviewee, soon to be escorted in once the clock struck midday.
A week ago, Ella had finally exorcised the demon that had haunted her since she was five years old. She’d captured Logan Nash – an underground assassin and the man who’d killed her father twenty-five years ago – after a year-long exhaustive journey. She’d been the one to hunt him down, capture him and put him in front of a judge, but Ella had a problem. She hadn't played by the rules throughout her personal investigation. She'd used a few tricks, called in a few favors, operated outside the confines of the FBI guidebook. It had put Logan Nash in a secure location, but Ella had been concerned that once Logan came to trial, she'd have to divulge all of her misdeeds to the world. Doing so would not only have put her job on the line but cemented Logan Nash as an innocent man in the eyes of the law.
But Ella must have had a guardian angel watching over her, because two days ago, she’d found Logan Nash dead in his safe house. A bullet to the head, executed in cold blood. Ella hadn’t been able to erase the image of Nash’s corpse from her mind, and every time she focused on it, a bittersweet rush stabbed her in the gut. The author of her pain had been wiped out, deleting not just Nash’s existence but all of her problems that came with him being alive.
Only this mysterious triggerman had hijacked Ella’s story and given her a surprise ending. She could never talk to Nash, listen to his excuses, look in the black slits that passed for his eyes and relish in his defeat. Her problems might have been vanquished, but so had her opportunity for closure.
And there was another problem. Who killed Logan Nash – and why?
Ella had one idea, and that’s what she was here to confirm. Logan Nash worked for an underground group named the Red Diamonds, and in most cases, you had more chance of catching a ghost than one of their members.
However, Ella had already bagged two Diamond members on the road to Logan Nash. And if they were still alive, it begged the question as to why Nash wasn’t.
The door to the interview room finally opened, and a prison guard escorted in her interviewee. A middle-aged man in an orange jumpsuit, athletic, well-built, but clearly reeling from his short stint in prison. She hadn’t known his name when she’d busted him, but she now knew him as Nathan Russo, a twenty-year Diamond veteran.
Russo sat down, rubbed the back of his neck and yawned. Ella saw right through the façade to the grisly truth beneath. Russo tried to play the part of the dominant, but he had a fifteen-year sentence ahead of him. Meanwhile, she was a free woman with enough sway to reduce his sentence should he assist her.
‘Mr. Russo,’ Ella said.
Russo sighed. ‘I don’t remember your name.’
‘Sure you don’t, but my name’s not important. What’s important is that your little pal, Logan Nash – shot dead in a place he should have been safe.’ Ella didn’t miss a beat.
Russo’s expression didn’t falter. He peered over at the glass along the far wall and checked his reflection. ‘You don’t say.’
‘I do say.’
