Chills & Thrills Paranormal Boxed Set by Connie Flynn Read Free Book Online Page A

up a large jar that had
rolled to a stop at her feet. Furry tentacles came alive, clawing at the glass,
but Liz stared at it unaffected, then put the jar back on the floor.
    "Is that a tarantula?" Zach asked over the sudden
tightening of his throat.
    "Where?" She sounded dazed. "Oh, the jar.
Yes. Mama liked to keep them around. Said they were good luck." She tilted
her head in question. "Don't you remember?"
    "Some things are better forgotten." He toed one of
the jars closest to his foot, hoping nothing moved inside. It was labeled in
French and contained a gray powder that broke apart in chunks as the jar rocked
back and forth. He looked down at the others, all filled with various powders,
crushed leaves, and other substances he wasn't sure he wanted to identify. Each
jar had a label, with names written in careful handwriting, some in English,
but mostly in French. Some were medicines, but some could easily be poisons
meant for gris-gris bags to ward off evil.
    He hadn't seen jars like this in years. Not since he'd
attended college, met and married Rita, with her round, full-busted body, her
sloe eyes and dark curly hair, her soft, slurred voice and sweet dependence.
They'd settled in Baton Rouge and only went to the Port on holiday weekends.
    But in the sweet days of his childhood, the ladies of Port
Chatre furtively boated out to see Ellie, begging her to gaze in her crystal
ball or lay out the Tarot and reveal the loves and fortunes coming their way.
Nor were the men immune, but they came by night to learn how to defeat a rival
or to get a concoction to cure baldness or impotence or other ailments Zach
hadn't even known the meaning of at the time.
    And always there was Izzy, impulsive, irrepressible,
emotional. As unpredictable as the winds. "Do you still read Tarot
cards?"
    Liz gave him a look that said she doubted his sanity, then
stood up and grabbed one edge of the sideboard. "Can you help me lift
this?"
    "I'll do it for you."
    "No, no. It's too much for one person." In
contradiction, she already had one foot on the base and was doing her best to
lever the huge cabinet up. Zach took a few hasty steps and took hold of the
top.
    When the piece was back in place, she picked up the jar with
the tarantula and put it on a shelf. Next, she got the single unbroken dinner
plate and turned it around in her hands.
    "Mama was so proud of this set," she said. "I
mean, look at it. It's just stoneware she got from a grocery in Abbeville, one
place setting at a time, but she always kept them in the sideboard to use when
papa boiled crawdads for a fais do-do ." She smiled sadly.
"Remember how everyone brought out those old tin instruments, and the
music would play, and we kids would jump around between the old folks dancing
on the grass and sneak sips of beer when they weren't looking?"
    Surprised by her fervency, Zach only nodded.
    She set the plate on a shelf, then reached for a teacup with
a chunk broken off. Still holding it, she knelt and began brushing through the
sharp pieces on the floor until she came up with the missing section, still
fairly well intact. She looked up at him with another sad smile. "Maybe I
can glue this back together."
    Holding the handle between her thumb and index finger and
daintily crooking her little finger the way one might at a Ritz-Carlton high
tea, she gazed at the worthless cup from the grocery as if it came from a
rajah's treasure chest.
    Zach noticed a bead of blood.
    "You cut yourself." He took her wrist and gently
removed the cup from her hand. Her pain had become so visible, and he had the
feeling she didn't know it, that she honestly believed she was just talking old
times. He wanted to pull her close and ease that pain, and made a move to do
so.
    Liz immediately read his intention and was so tempted. Lord,
to just sink into Zach's arms and let things be okay again. But she'd left that
all behind, left him behind, and hurt him badly. And she couldn't even give him
an explanation, at least not