“That’s new,” I said dryly.
Grace opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again as if she debated to explain it or not. “Actually, it’s a timeworn technique, and it will keep Otto or anyone else from being able to see that y’all are here. At least for a little while. You could have learned to do this,” she said and elbowed me.
My breath caught at her near-dig about my gifts.
Blake and Alexa squinted into the distance, unsure of where to focus.
“What is it?” Alexa asked.
“A sealant,” Grace answered. “To keep your whereabouts quiet as long as you’re here.” She narrowed her eyes and focused on the edge of the bubble.
“Huh,” Alexa said and walked toward it. “Is it over the entire property?”
“No, it does best with an object at the center. Creates a hiding place. In this case I used our house as the center.”
“It ends just at the far side of the drive there,” I said and pointed.
Grace’s eyebrows lifted with surprise, her smile broadened in admiration. “I’ll teach you how to do this,” she said to me.
I grinned. “Okay.”
“How long does it last?” Blake asked.
“Depends. A few days, usually. Then I redo it,” Grace said.
“And you think Otto can read people or places at a distance?”
“I don’t think Otto can, no. Though he tends to surround himself with people who can do a lot more than he can. So I don’t take chances.” Grace ushered us through the front door. The heat inside the house was welcoming.
“I need to make a few calls,” Blake said and he held up his phone.
“You’re welcome to use my husband’s study. Or you can pace out here in the drive if you like, as he often did,” she said. She had a faraway glimmer in her eye as if she could still see her husband mark off his steps in conversation with a phone to the side of his head.
“I’ll pace,” Blake said.
“Suit yourself. We’ll be on the veranda in the back when you’re ready. Make yourself at home.” Grace smiled and clicked the strands of her pearl necklace between her fingers.
Alexa and I dropped our luggage at the foot of the grand staircase and gazed over the large family room that held so many of our childhood memories. I could still see vivid, warm images of our family gatherings throughout the years. With our brightly lit Christmas tree in the background, Alexa sat atop her brand new pink bike with training wheels. Grace dared her with one stern glare to ride the bike inside, while Grandpa encouraged her to do just that.
Me on the couch with my roller-skated feet propped over my father’s legs while in a fierce competition of Go Fish. Isabella smiled and placed a tray of cookies and eggnog on the table, then kissed and bear-hugged her husband around the shoulders.
“Come on, let’s go eat,” Alexa said and broke my visit to the past.
I waited for the familiar heartache of my father’s and grandfather’s absence to ebb, then followed Lex to the back veranda which overlooked the water. Grace enclosed this best-loved room each winter to keep the elements out and the warmth in.
Two dolphins played in the deep water sound just a few feet beyond Grace’s docked boat as if they came to celebrate our return. Alexa and I took our usual seats at the same glass and iron table we’d occupied since we were in highchairs. Without the extra leaf, there were six chairs at the table, enough for each member of our family.
“So, as we discussed on the plane, you’re starting the conversation, right?” I whispered to Alexa.
“I will,” Alexa said. “Though I’m not telling Grace about the recording equipment. I’m standing on the hope that I don’t have to tell anyone about that. Where is our mother?” She noisily scooted her chair toward the table.
“She’s on her way back from Atlanta, sugar. She didn’t expect you in until later this afternoon.” Grace made her way to the head of the table and gave Lex a raised eyebrow for scraping her chair against the floor.
“Sorry,” Lex said.
“We had an opportunity to leave early and we decided to take it,” I said.
“Considering how Otto’s pursued you lately, I’d say that was wise,” Grace’s southern accent emphasized the long I in wise. She strengthened any word she felt was most important in the sentence.
Out of habit I stopped my breath on the top of my inhale and waited for the I told you so, I feared was on its way. This time it didn’t come. And when I exhaled more audibly than I meant to, Grace’s light blues landed on me.
“Some things can’t be avoided, sweetheart,” she said as she gave my arm a loving squeeze. “Sometimes the challenges of life have to be worked out by just traveling the path. They won’t resolve any other way.” She let go of my arm but not before giving me her signature triple pat. It always spelled out I Love You. Sometimes she said it along to the beat. Sometimes the beat said it for her.
There was no I told you so, she didn’t fuss at me for going to work with Otto as both she and Isabella had originally. Everything was just easy.
Too easy.
I studied my grandmother’s face while she sipped her chilled white wine, and listened to Alexa chat about her art. Grace’s face had very few lines and wrinkles, and even fewer brown spots. It was as if age had decided that ten or twenty of her birthdays should simply go uncounted. I guessed this was thanks in part to her wide-brimmed, Southern hats and a general aversion to the sun. Nevertheless, beneath that smooth exterior pulsed information just out of my reach. Something she held back. Deliberately.
Grace gently returned her wine glass to the table, and I reached out and placed my hand over the fifteen-carat emerald engagement ring my Grandfather had given her. I hoped she would be so engrossed in conversation with Alexa that she would absently hold my hand, which would allow me a little time to explore beneath the surface.
Grace slipped her hand from mine.
“Don’t go fishing for trouble.” She wagged her index finger back and forth just once, as if she could cast a spell with it.
“I just…” I felt her push my probing energy back. “Sorry.”
“We need to talk about next steps for you as soon as your mother arrives.”
“Yes,” was all I could manage to say, and tried to arrange my thoughts in logical order.
Cocoa yipped excitedly when the front door opened, and my mother, Isabella, made a grand entrance as usual. She rushed into the room with Blake on her arm, her ginger-flavored hair, thick with a light wave, still long and youthful. She often was mistaken as Alexa’s and my sister, an error she not only welcomed, but encouraged.
“This is who I found outside! Isn’t he just beautiful?” She emphasized the last word with three distinctly pronounced syllables. She kissed Blake on the cheek before he went to his seat, then did the same with Alexa before she made her way toward me. She kissed each of my cheeks once, then first cheek again. “My darling angels are home again.” She beamed at Lexie and me with pride.
Isabella had left Great Britain when she was just a girl but shades of her British accent remained around the edges of her words. She refused to give up her accent entirely, and often said she simply liked the way the British pronunciation of things felt in her mouth.
Her floral perfume, a subtle mix of sandalwood and irises, left its trace in the air. I brought the side of my collar up and breathed in her leftover scent, just as I had done throughout my first day of elementary school.
“You’re just in time, Isabella.” Grace poured her daughter-in-law a glass of wine. “Ruby has made a delicious late lunch. Or maybe it’s an early dinner, I’m not sure. Alexa is telling me all about everything, except what’s really on her mind. And sweet Addie here is quiet as usual and fishing for my secrets. See? Nothing has changed. You’ve not missed a thing.”
Alexa and I exchanged a glance then pleaded with wide eyes to our mother for help.
“Grace, you make everyone feel like they live in a goldfish bowl,” Isabella sa
id. Then she took her seat at the end of the table opposite of Grace, which had historically been our grandfather’s seat. She was the only one to break with the traditional seating order.
“Mmmm, Ruby, I don’t know what you do to a hush puppy to make them turn out this way, but I’m glad you do it,” Alexa said with a mouthful.
“I’m happy you like them, sweetheart, and I’m glad you’re home.” Ruby leaned down and gave Alexa a red-lipped kiss on the cheek. “You should come home more often.” Ruby gave Alexa a little shove with the side of her hip, then carried Cocoa out to the kitchen with her.
Grandmother Grace lowered her fork, then scanned me with her light blue eyes like an X-ray.
“Okay,” I said to the unasked directive and gave Alexa a raised eyebrow, a cue for her to kick off the conversation.
“No,” Grace said. “I think I’d rather hear it from you.”
Alexa tossed the last half of the hush puppy in her mouth, and smiled an almost tight-lipped-chubby-cheeked smile, thrilled to not be on the spot.
She and Isabella and I had already spoken at length about Otto since I’d called them before we left. They knew about Otto’s threats and Grace said she had sensed as much. I told them I was unsure of our next steps, and wanted their help.
Today I shared my story of how my father and grandfather—Grace’s son and husband—had visited me in my dreams just before Blake and I left for France. Then I told them how I felt they weren’t dead, that somehow, some way, they must still be alive. Not just because Otto said he knew where they were, but because I’d seen how he thought of them—as though they were alive.
I suggested my plan. I would involve William and the FBI, set up a sting whereby I would have access to Otto and his things, find out where my father and grandfather were, and locate the Gardner art for William. Because this was better than a life of running.
Then I waited.
At the very least I expected a slew of questions, as well as their insistence to be involved behind the scenes. At best I hoped for their outright support, then for Grace to calm Blake’s objections and recruit him to our team. Instead I received nothing but quiet. Grace and Isabella each glanced at Blake who silently twirled the stem of his red wine glass.
We all sat quiet for a moment, and missed the men we loved. I glanced out at the water and saw the Civil War soldier place his gun and knapsack in the shade of a large live oak tree. Then he sat and leaned against its trunk as he drank from his canteen.
“If they were alive, I, or any of us, would be able to sense their location,” Isabella said with a note of finality.
“They’re dead, honey,” Grace said. She patted my hand quickly, then took it away. “If they came to visit you in your dreams, then you’re the first of any of us to feel their presence, and you should be glad about it.”
“It wasn’t a normal visit from the Other Side. I’ve seen hundreds of other people’s dead relatives before. This wasn’t that,” I said.
Grace and Isabella exchanged a glance.
“What was different about it?” Isabella asked politely.
“When someone comes to me from the Other Side, they’re decidedly…gone. They no longer have a presence here. They’re dead. Trust me, I know dead,” I said and cast a quick glance at the soldier in the shade. “And ghosts are dead but just not yet gone. Dad and Grandad were…neither. I’m not sure how to explain it except to say that I was left with a feeling. An impression about them that hasn’t dissipated.”
I could tell by Grace and Isabella's solemn expressions that I wasn’t convincing them. Old childhood frustrations of being discounted rose up within me.
“I’m not imagining things,” I said, and fingered the stem on my wine glass. “I know what I saw.”
“If they’re not on the Other Side, then…where are they?” Isabella asked.
“What if they’re some place between this world and the next?” Alexa said. “And they can see us?”
Isabella placed her wine glass loudly against the table. “Alexa, please.”
“I…I’m not some idiot who’s letting Otto reel them in. And if I hadn’t had the dream—and saw how he thought of them—I wouldn’t put any stock into what he said. It’s just too coincidental that he brings them up and I’ve had this recent experience where they’ve reached out to me,” I said.
“Sometimes it’s hard to read things accurately in the moment. That was a terribly frightening morning for you. So you might have misread how he thought about them. And you don’t know that they were reaching out to you,” Grace said. “At least not for help. You miss them, sweetheart. It’s hard to be objective.”
I sighed loud and hard and stared at the soldier who was now cleaning his gun. “I don’t know anything about the state of their being, I agree. But I have my gut, and my gifts, and trusting both is something you’ve always encouraged me to do.”
Grace’s lips thinned with frustration. “Working with Otto in any form is a bad idea. He took my husband and my son, he’ll take you, too.”
Blake nodded in agreement with Grace, and I wanted to punch him.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” Blake leaned forward onto the table. “And I think we have to examine all the reasons why Otto wants you with him. First, there’s the Gardner art. Somehow he needs your help there. Second,” he said and touched his middle finger, “he wants to punish me for setting him up and for taking you. Getting you to voluntarily leave is the best way to do that. There is a third reason. And I don't know if Otto even realizes it himself.”
Blake ran his hand through his thick, dark hair, then shifted his glance to Isabella. I knew what he hesitated to say in front of my mother and grandmother.
So I said it myself. “Carolena.” I grimaced at the thought of it. “I think it’s safe to say that he’s never stopped loving her. I know he’s never stopped searching for her. We think he sees me as his one chance to replace her.”
“In what ways?”
Grace held her left hand in her right, and slid her thumb along the side of her left index finger. “All ways, probably. Makes sense.”
“What a cheek!” Isabella said.
“Addie’s able to do many of the same things she can, psychically. So, while he says he wants her to work on the Gardner art, beyond that, I think what he really wants is to re-enter the black market with her as his partner,” Blake said.
The wind rattled the porch windows. A sickly sweet sensation coated my stomach as I caught a whiff of Otto’s feelings for Carolena.
“He wants to own her,” I said.
Blake touched the end of his nose, then pointed at me. “Bingo. And he’ll own you if he can’t get to her.”
I remembered the one touch I’d accidentally placed on Carolena’s bracelet and thought about the scene of the two of them dancing, holding one another. They seemed so in love. Perhaps it had been real at one time. Though obviously she’d left him for good reason.
“It’s what he does. He surrounds himself with the best of everything. Art. People,” Grace said.
“The best of the best,” I said as I remembered Otto’s favorite catchphrase. “It doesn’t matter if it’s an imported coffee bean, a piece of art from one of the masters, or a human being. His goal is to simply have the best,” I said.
“His goal is to simply own the best,” Blake said.
“He’s a psychopath,” Alexa said.
“Easily,” Grace said, then turned to me. “So, it’s settled. You won’t work with him.”
Anxiety flowed through my chest and tightened all the muscles in its path. “I don’t disagree about anything you’ve said about him. I don’t. What if this is our one chance to get a real lead on where our family is?”
“Your father and grandfather are not accessible to you. They’re gone. If anyone could have located them it would have been me. Right?” Grace put her wine glass and her proverbial foot down.
I eased back into my chair. There it was. The “I told you so” I’d b
een waiting for. Not the one for going to work at the firm against her advice. The one for not using my gifts the way she and Isabella had always said I should have.
“I think the point is that Otto is a man without a conscience. If he has you within his grasp, there’s a very good chance you’ll disappear the way your father and grandfather did. And there isn’t anyone at this table who wants that to happen,” Blake said.
“You went against Otto,” I said.
Blake leaned in. “And I lost, didn’t I? The odds are not in your favor on this. And I won’t lose you.” He extended his hands across the table and invited me to put my hands in his.
“Addie, please. Don’t do this,” Isabella said.
I felt trapped. By the people I loved most in the world, and those who I knew were watching out for my best interest. Although trapped, nonetheless.
“I can’t walk away from my family. You didn’t see them the way I did.” I pushed away from the table and glared at Blake. “I need to find a way to help them. We need to find a way to help them. I really thought that you of all people—someone who has spent his life protecting the one he loved most in the world—would understand that. This is no different.”
I waited for a response but everyone at the table stared at me in silence. I scoffed and shifted my attention to the outside. The Civil War soldier startled when he saw that I had seen him. He quickly gathered his knapsack and ran.
I wanted to turn and run, too. I thought I would have had Grace and Isabella’s support on this. At the very least, Blake’s. Apparently, this situation was no different than any other in my life. I’d have to go my own way with it. I could still get William’s and the FBI’s support. He already knew that Otto threatened and tried to kidnap me. Now I’d just have to show him Otto’s text, make my offer. I had no doubt he’d back me.
Isabella and Grace, however, would lose their tempers. I could get over that. Blake would probably try to convince William not to involve me. Then he’d try to persuade me not to do it. He’d just have to get over it.
Somewhere in Time Page 12
