The Tarot Reader, page 27
He sat on the couch next to my father and eyed me sitting still in my chair and gave a sickly-sweet smile. “Good girl, sitting there like you were asked. You’re as much of a pushover as your father.” He slapped him on the back like this was a family barbecue.
“Whatever you think is going on here, I can assure you that you’re wrong,” I said, doing my best to sound confident, although I was on the verge of tears. I’d never experienced violence from another man like that. Sure, I’d been groped, but the feeling of being dragged around like a weightless doll made me feel so powerless that I wondered what we were even trying to accomplish here. There was no way we could best this man when he could clearly wring my neck with little to no effort.
“So after all these weeks of you trying to take me down, I’m supposed to just believe that you were here, hanging out in your dad’s bedroom—which if that’s true, that’s fucking weird, by the way—when your dad calls me and tells me I’ve been robbed?”
I gulped and my dad spoke, but Adam held up his hand. “Shut the fuck up,” he said calmly, as though he were asking a waiter for a glass of water.
“I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. I just called the tip line for the reward money, and it was a lucky guess.”
“Sounds pretty unlucky to me with the way this is all going to end for you two.” He turned to my dad and smiled like he was about to tell a joke. “Do you realize how much of a fucking pain in the ass you’ve become? I mean, it’s truly amazing.”
How much time had passed? Surely at least five minutes. Only five or less left to go. I needed to get Adam to confess, but more than that I needed to keep him calm enough so he didn’t do anything to me or my dad. Or worse, discover that Stevie was still hiding in the bedroom—the same Stevie he still believed was dead.
“Whose wallet and ring was in your safe?” I asked with a gulp. It was a risky question, but I was running out of time. “You sounded worried—maybe I can help.”
“You know. Don’t you, Jade?”
Subconsciously, my eyes darted to the coffee table, where my phone was duct taped to the underside, recording and waiting for a confession. He must have followed my gaze and paused. He tilted his head.
“What are you looking at?” he asked pleasantly, his voice at odds with his clenched teeth and veiny forehead. I swore I could see his heartbeat in the large vein shooting from the crown of his head to his eyebrow. He was about to snap.
“Nothing,” I answered, trying to sound as casual as he did. “I’m sorry, you’re just making me nervous.”
My stomach dropped as he jumped up and lifted the table a few inches off the floor and peeked below. When he finally spoke, a deep, violent rage boiled beneath and my body readied itself to flee, even though I couldn’t. “You fucking Crawfords. Like fucking rats always sneaking around, taking whatever you want. How long has this been here?” He ripped the phone off and flipped the table over completely.
He shut the recording off, then turned and gripped my dad by his shirt collar and reeled his other fist back, landing one solid punch to his jaw with a sickening crunch.
Two minutes. Surely there’s less than two minutes until the police get here. If they come at all.
“You want me to do to you what I did to fucking Thomas Nichols?” He punched my dad again. “I already killed one daughter. Do you want me to kill another? Make you watch before I kill you?”
Despite the fear coursing through my body, I glanced at the floor under my father’s seat. Knowing Adam might find my phone, we’d started a voice recording on Dad’s phone and hid it under the chair. This was our last chance to get the recording, or we would look even more guilty than we had before.
“You want me to do to you what I did to fucking Thomas Nichols?” We’d gotten it. We’d gotten the confession. Not just for Nichols, but his attempt to kill Stevie, who he had no idea was hiding under my dad’s bed, very much alive. We had the confession—as long as he didn’t find Dad’s phone.
Adam reeled back again, punching my father so hard he went limp. If he didn’t stop, he would kill him.
“Stop!” I launched myself at him, trying to pull his arms away, but it was no use. I clung onto his back, so desperate that I wasn’t thinking about the outcome of this or how stupid it was for me to try to overpower him.
I thought I heard the crunch of tires on gravel in the distance, but there was no time to keep listening before he threw me off and my tailbone slammed into the floor, the back of my head hitting the chair’s armrest on the way down.
* * *
I groaned in pain, my vision skittering. There was an explosion of noise, and I wondered if this was what dying was. Not a gentle pull toward the light but a violent auditory hallucination of all the moments in your life, experienced all at once.
There was light, but no, wait. It was a flashlight, beaming on my face through the window. I followed it as it trailed over my father’s face. The noises continued, the shouts of numerous people so loud that I didn’t bother following.
“Adam Pulaski, you’re under arrest,” a policeman shouted. I let loose a sigh of relief, wanting it all to end here. But instead of finality, there was a heightened tinge of desperation in the room—an increase in panicked breaths and obstinate arguing.
I pushed myself up to sitting and was hit with a wave of vertigo. I turned, noticing a bloody mark on the wooden armrest where I’d struck my head. I tried to count the amount of police in the trailer, but my vision doubled, making it impossible. I pushed myself out of the way, pressing my back into the wall, and breathed out a sigh of relief.
There was a blur of movement as Adam tried to push his way through the police in the trailer. Sounds erupted from every angle—Adam’s fists making contact with the officers, then his struggled breathing as they slammed him to the ground. A metallic click of handcuffs accompanied by chatter on the police radio while sirens sang in the background. It all sounded so beautiful. It sounded like relief.
We’d done it. We’d gotten Adam’s confession on tape, and although the three of us were covered in wounds, both physical and emotional, we’d made it out alive. It was over.
EPILOGUE
Stevie
ALTHOUGH THE POLICE said his confession wouldn’t have held up in court on its own, the police had found enough evidence on their own to send Adam away for a very long time. Adam had left a trail of data with his cell phone location, linking him to not only the location where Nichols’s body had been found but to weeks before when he’d been following Nichols, waiting for the right moment to strike. But the final nail in the coffin had been the single hair on Nichols’s body that they were able to match to Adam. Despite Adam constantly telling the police that my father had helped cover up the murder, there wasn’t enough proof to pin anything on my dad.
It was nearly a full year later and he hadn’t been sentenced yet, and I dreaded the day we would be dragged into court just to relive this all again. Although, I did crave the moment where he would lay eyes on me, whom he still thought dead—a fact that Jade and I found hilarious. His attacks on my family would only add to his sentence, something that brought me great joy as I fell asleep each night.
The Pulaskis, including Jade’s ex, Chris, had been horrified to hear what Adam had done. They were constantly trying to make it up to us, leaving dishes of pierogis and potato pancakes at our new apartment that the three of us shared.
After deciding she couldn’t cheat people anymore, Jade sold the shop and got the normal, boring job she’d always craved at a local grocery store. Even though she’d always told herself she was helping her former clients, we both knew it was still dishonest at its core. She didn’t want to stay in this position forever, but maybe somewhere down the line she’d realize what she really wanted to do with her life. Until then, we were both happy with the pleasant mundanity.
Despite enjoying the direction her life was taking, she still spoke often about Daniel. Jade had come to terms with the fact that he would probably never forgive her and certainly never want to speak to her again, but as she went on first dates and came home rolling her eyes with disappointment, it was clear her guilt still brutalized her and she might never get over what could have been with Daniel. Despite their distance, he still agreed to help me get affordable therapy, and I was now having weekly appointments with his coworker at a severely reduced rate. I was still amazed that he hadn’t asked for anything in return. No negotiation. Just kindness.
My dad had been disappointed at our career change at first, but he was slowly coming to terms with it. Together, the three of us had normal jobs and normal lives, although the new friends I was making at school thought it was highly abnormal for our dad to be paying us rent. But it was working well so far, and it was only until he could get his own place. And yes, the rent money he paid went to the bank and not to a can of soup hidden in the pantry. Everything was going to be blissfully normal from here on out. No tarot cards, no cleansings or palm readings. No more revenge.
Now, as I sat at the breakfast table while Jade got ready for work, I stared down at the newspaper Dad had silently placed in front of me.
“The Nichols-Stellman Family Curse Continues: Local Teacher Takes Own Life.”
The reporter—luckily not the one that had practically hunted Jade and I—detailed the sordid history of the Nichols and Stellman family, uncovering more of Nichols’s under-the-table deals with local criminals.
The article went on to describe Stellman’s fall from grace as a respected teacher—I scoffed at the term, glad I could finally laugh instead of cry at the mention of him. After the councilman was found dead—Stellman’s cousin and close friend since birth—Stellman’s family was quoted describing his increase in drinking and withdrawal from everyone around him.
“He spent every night alone, drinking his pain away,” his mother was quoted as saying.
Poor Stellman, suddenly showing up at my workplace, begging for forgiveness. Mumbling a pathetic, slurred apology at me. “I’m sorry, Stevie,” he’d said. “It was wrong. I was wrong.”
The first time he’d said it, I’d been so taken aback that I’d pitied him. After the tenth time, I’d grown angry at his meager tears. I was supposed to be the one crying. I’d been the innocent, ignorant girl he’d taken advantage of. Why should I feel bad for him? Why should I forgive him? He hadn’t come back to the bar after his reading at the shop, but I’d only grown angrier.
The look in my dad’s eyes as he’d given me the paper said it all. He was proud of me. Of what we did and what we finished. And I was proud too. Stellman deserved what Dad and I did to him—the revenge we finally got for me and those other girls. For Mom. For Dad’s time in jail. A year later, and everyone still believed he’d taken his own life. But Dad and I knew the truth, and we would take that to our graves.
I tucked the newspaper away as Jade and Dad left for work. Chris Pulaski had gotten him work in repairs, ironically working for the same company that fixed the shop’s ceiling. In an hour I had class, something I was still nervous for despite this being the third week of my first semester. After the dust settled with Adam, I’d called the school and asked for a year-long deferral.
We were all breaking our habits, trying to be better. Maybe deep down we were the same, but we were making an effort to be better people and finally move on.
We all deserved a second chance.
Well, most of us.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’D FIRST LIKE to thank my agent, Katie Shea Boutillier, for her guidance, support, and patience. Additional gratitude is owed to Rachel Saylor, whose brainstorming and spot-on opinions helped my infant drafts turn into a grown manuscript. To Holly Ingraham, who edited this book with me until nearly the end, and to Thaisheemarie Fantauzzi Perez, who arrived in time to see the book home—your help and guidance are appreciated every step of the way. Thank you to my copyeditor, Rachel Keith, for your keen eye and comb that is expertly fine-toothed. I’m grateful for the artistic work of Dana Steele, who executed my vision for the cover. And to the rest of my Crooked Lane team, thank you for your hard work behind the scenes to bring this book to fruition.
Thank you to my extended family and friends, especially the Deckers, the Trents and Dawn, the Turners, the MacFarlanes, and the Boyds. To my best friends from college who love me no matter the miles in between: Catherine Anne, Margaret, and Hilary, with additional thanks to Hilary’s husband Peter for help with Polish nicknames. Your support and excitement has spread to new readers, and I couldn’t thank you enough for being my “street team.” A huge thank-you to the lovely author Shannon Morgan for help with my epilogue; your perspective is exactly what was needed when I was blinded by stubborn myopia. To my readers, thank you for taking valuable time out of your lives to spend time with my stories. To those of you who have reached out after reading The Engagement Party, you have no idea how much your kind words bolstered me to keep going and have confidence.
And finally, but most importantly, thank you to my family. To my husband, Tyler, thank you for cheering me on whenever I second-guessed myself and for listening to me huff and puff through brainstorming sessions while walking through the neighborhood. To my children, Ellie and Roman, don’t tell my books, but you’re the best thing I’ve ever created.
Also available by Finley Turner
The Engagement Party
Author Biography
Finley Turner is a thriller writer. Initially convinced she wanted to be a professor, she got her master’s in religious studies at Wake Forest University, focusing on new religious movements, cults, and religious violence. During her program, she applied for a student position in the university library and quickly realized she would rather be an academic librarian than be at the front of a classroom teaching. She worked as an archivist at Wake Forest University for six years after getting her master’s in library and information science from UNC Greensboro. She now writes and parents full-time. Finley lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with her family.
Books should be disposed of and recycled according to local requirements. All paper materials used are FSC compliant.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2025 by Finley Turner
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 979-8-89242-307-6
ISBN (paperback): 979-8-89242-315-1
ISBN (ebook): 979-8-89242-308-3
Cover design by Danna Steele
Printed in the United States.
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First Edition: October 2025
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Finley Turner, The Tarot Reader
