Priscilla Nolan’s shop
Mystic Mermaids is a twilight realm of tarot readings and past-life regressions. In steps Dax Burton—pupils dilating in search of her daughter—tall, handsome, talented, and disturbed. Scorpions skitter up Priscilla’s spine.
Piper Nolan, a promising clairvoyant raised amid seashells and sunshine in Nocuma Beach, California, is ill-prepared to recognize evil when it’s packaged so attractively. She dismisses her mama’s warnings about Dax. The man radiates charisma that sends her swooning. She is convinced they are bound by destiny.
Across town, sixteen-year-old Tess MacKinley is coping with an abusive father, beaten-down mother, and perpetual hunger pangs due to a fridge stocked to sustain alcoholics. She navigates her house like a shadow, trying to disappear from her father’s feral eyes, and at night slips into the darkness, using street smarts to survive. Then the discovery of a hidden Polaroid picture leads Tess to Mystic Mermaids and Dax, who has taken to gleefully tyrannizing Priscilla and Piper, pitting mother against daughter.
Priscilla reaches out to her staff, dedicated spirits from beyond, to identify the source of venom kinked behind Dax’s dazzling smile, only to encounter a kaleidoscope of indecipherable clues. Tess holds the key to unlocking the mystery but refuses to help, shellshocked from her own trauma.
Dax’s brutal behavior escalates, and Priscilla moves to banish him from their lives. Rushing to his defense, Piper unwittingly subjects her mother to a devastating attack. Now Piper and Tess are left on their own with a madman, while Piper flounders to correct what she insists is an aberration of fate.
An Incomplete Death
A Novel by Laura Moses
Horror: Supernatural
Copyright © Laura Moses 2024 All Rights Reserved
Laura Moses 