by Dale Mayer
“It’s special, isn’t it?”
“It is indeed. It’s also got to be a pain in the ass when the weather is ugly.”
“Which isn’t very often,” he said. “Remember where you are.”
She smiled. “I’m never going to forget,” she said sincerely. “Thanks again for not sending me back.”
He sighed. “I told you that I wasn’t planning on doing that.”
“It doesn’t mean you won’t change your mind. I’m just trying to be good and not get in your crosshairs.”
“Honestly, I think you’re already there permanently,” he said with a note of humor.
She glared at him, but he held up a warning finger. She sighed and shifted her gaze back to the table full of well-dressed people. “I feel underdressed,” she said. “I didn’t bring anything really nice with me.”
He twisted to view the table she was looking at. “What difference does it make?”
“None. Just that table over there,” she said wistfully. “It’s nice to dress up every once in a while. The men look so good in a suit,” she said. “It’s always nice to see them dressed up.”
“Suits or men?” he asked in mocking confusion.
She just smiled at him.
Just then six platters of some incredibly aromatic foods arrived, all holding various items from rice to what looked like fowl of some kind, plus some oranges and figs. She stared in awe. The platters were passed around. She took bits of every item so she could try them. The Moroccan rice was absolutely delicious.
She couldn’t stop eating. She quickly finished her plate and looked to see if there would be any leftovers. Sebastian reached across the table, grabbed the closest platter and put half of what was left on her plate.
“There’s tons,” he stressed. “You’re the one still healing. Make sure you eat lots.”
“If I eat lots, I’ll get fat.”
Chana chuckled. “You’d need twenty pounds to even begin to cover all your bones.”
“That’s not fair,” Lacey protested. “I regained twenty pounds after Mom died.”
“I can imagine. You were staying up night and day for her and wearing yourself down.”
“I used to sit and read to her all the time,” she said with whimsical remembrance. “And she never cared what I was reading, so it was history books about Pompeii.”
The others stopped and stared at her. Mark raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
She grinned. “What can I say? I have always been addicted to this part of Italy.”
“Wow, you should have come here a long time ago then.”
“I would have if I could have.” She dug into her plateful again. “This rice is absolutely divine.” She tried to slow herself down, but she was famished. Now she was past the point of thinking it was the fresh air and exercise. Sebastian’s explanation that she was healing was the most likely theory, but it didn’t really matter because all she could think about was putting more of this lovely dinner in her mouth.
She finished her second plate just as everyone else polished off the leftovers. She glanced along the table and asked, “Do you ever take leftovers home when you’re out in a restaurant?”
Several of the men nodded. “We often do. For midnight snacks, sometimes lunch the next day.”
She smiled. “Then next time we have pizza, we should order extra so we take it back to the apartments, even for breakfast the next day.”
Mark chuckled. “A girl after my own heart. Pizza works for all meals in a day.”
Privately she agreed with him. She loved her vegetables, but there was just something about pizza.
With the boss handling the bill tonight because it was a treat for the crew, they all got up and trooped down the stairs. As she made her way behind the crowd, she caught sight of the man sitting in the corner again. He never smiled at her. She gave him a half wave, smiled and disappeared downstairs.
Sebastian came up behind her. “Who are you waving at?”
“The single guy in the corner,” she said. “I’m not sure what he’s drinking, but he’s dressed all in black, and he looks really somber. I thought maybe a friendly face would cheer him up, but he didn’t even smile.” She stepped outside to the street, still feeling the heat of the day hanging heavily around her. She tilted her head up and studied the sky. “It’s so very different here.”
“Is that good or bad?” Sebastian asked.
“It’s great,” she said warmly. “Everything about it is absolutely perfect.”
He grabbed her arm, tucking it into his as they walked behind everybody. “Good,” he said. “We want to make sure your visit is as nice as possible.”
“Now you sound like Chana,” she complained.
“Hey,” Chana said from just ahead of them, “there’s nothing wrong with him sounding like me, if he’s making sure you get a good vacation.”
“But it’s a working vacation,” Lacey corrected. “I’m not here for everybody to take care of me.”
“Then stop stepping in front of cars,” Mark said in mock exaggeration, turning to smirk at her.
She just rolled her eyes at him.
He chuckled loudly and stepped up to walk with Katie, who was farther ahead.
Back at the apartment Lacey smiled at Sebastian. “Thank you.” As she was about to step inside behind the others he pulled her off to the side and said, “I contacted the historian friend of mine. He would like to meet you.”
She frowned and chewed her lip. “He’ll ask questions, and I don’t have answers.”
Sebastian smiled. “You let me worry about that.”
She shrugged. “Okay. When?”
He checked his watch. “He’s at a coffee shop this evening. He sings there sometimes. How about we go and have a coffee right now?”
She frowned but nodded.
“I’ll grab the sketchbooks from my apartment,” he said. “If you want to, I’ll meet you back here in five minutes.”
At his suggestion, she nodded and stepped inside.
Chana asked, “What happened to you?”
“Sebastian wants me to meet someone.”
Instantly the apartment fell silent.
*
Sebastian walked into his apartment. There was no sign of Jeremiah. He picked up the sketchbooks and walked back out, locking the door behind him. As he reached the other apartment, he could hear someone talking inside but not clearly enough to understand what they said. The door opened as he approached, and Lacey stepped out.
“What’s that all about?” he asked with a tilt of his head toward the apartment as he led her down the hall.
“They asked me what was going on, and I said you wanted me to meet somebody.”
His brows drew together. “And?”
“Then they teased me,” she muttered. “As if to say, we were going on a date. But I couldn’t tell them what we were really doing.”
He chuckled. “In that case”—he snagged her arm, hooked it through his bent arm—“we might as well look the part.”
She tried to protest, but he wouldn’t listen.
He liked being around her. There was something so damn nice about her. He also wanted to ask what the hell was going on at the rooftop restaurant too because she’d been so distracted. But he figured there would be enough questions once they got to the café.
He led the way to the coffee shop, pointing out little idiosyncrasies, facts about the stores as they walked past. “Bruno runs this little corner smoke shop,” he said as they passed it. “He’s on his fifth wife.”
She gasped. “Five wives? Are you kidding?”
He nodded. “The first three he had at the same time, but he didn’t tell anybody. Now he’s down to just one, and it’s a new one at that.”
He had her laughing by the time they made it to the coffee shop. He noted with satisfaction her relaxed shoulders and the genuine smile on her face as they walked into the café. At least she wasn’t stressed out at the moment.
As they walked in, Sebastian found Bruno sitting with a large group of people. He motioned to his friend and nudged Lacey to the back of the restaurant into a booth. He ordered coffees to be delivered to them there.
Bruno joined them after a moment. He bowed over her hand in an exaggerated flare and introduced himself. Sebastian could see that Lacey was enchanted with him.
“I’m sorry I missed your singing earlier,” she said. “I imagine it was wonderful.”
He beamed at her. “Aren’t you the sweetest thing.”
She chuckled. “I don’t know about that. I’m nothing but a headache for Sebastian these days.”
Bruno waved his hand at Sebastian. “That’s not an issue. Sebastian is used to problems. And if he must have one it should be a pretty one like you.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes at his buddy. Coffee was soon delivered, and then he pulled out a sketchbook and laid it down on the table.
Bruno drew it closer to him and flipped back the cover. He made several gasps of surprise as he flipped through the pages, and yet, stopped to study each one in more detail. “These are fantastic, and so accurate they are almost as if you were there.” he said. He raised a sharp gaze to Lacey. “You do realize how talented you are, right?”
She shot Sebastian a look. He nodded. “I’m not sure about that,” she muttered. “I’ve never really drawn much.” She corrected, “I used to, then stopped, because I didn’t have the same natural talent as everybody else in our class.”
“What kind of art class was it?”
“Oils and still life. We did some nude models too, but I couldn’t get the hang of it.”
“Did you ever work on black-and-whites?”
She shook her head. “No. My instructors were really big on color.”
“That’s likely what happened. Too often you get forced into a medium that isn’t your style, so you walk away. Whereas all you needed was to keep trying different art methods, different techniques that appealed, that made the art yours.”
“Maybe so. I spent a few years thinking that, if I practiced, if I worked at it hard enough, I’d get there. Instead it seemed like I never got anywhere,” she said in a plaintive voice. “And I haven’t done any formal drawing until today.”
He flipped through the images, until he stilled his hand as he lifted his gaze. “All of these today?”
She nodded. “All of them today.”
At that point, Sebastian pulled out his cell phone and flicked to the video he’d taken while she sketched and held it up for Bruno.
Bruno watched, seeing the images appear in lightning speed in front of Lacey as she worked. “Wow, that is fantastic.”
“What it is, is odd, weird and kind of distressing,” she clarified. “I’m not sure about fantastic.”
Both men turned their gazes to her.
She shrugged as if put on the spot. “I don’t know how they came to be. So, of course, I’m a little worried about what’s going on and what might be coming next.”
In a low voice Sebastian picked up the story and explained about what she’d seen and what had happened. He prefaced the story by saying, “She was also hit by a car two nights ago. I didn’t realize it earlier, but she hit her head. I don’t know if that’s a contributing factor to what’s going on or not.”
Bruno looked at her with gentle horror in his gaze. “Are you all right?”
Sheepishly she said, “I’m fine. I accidentally stepped out into the street when I should have waited for the traffic signal to change.”
“And you didn’t break anything obviously,” he said with a hand wave at her body. “I don’t see any casts, and I don’t see any stitches or big gauze bandages.”
“Exactly,” Lacey said with a nudge toward Sebastian. “But he keeps hovering as if I’m seriously injured.”
“He’ll have a reason, my dear. Sebastian always has a reason for everything he does.” Bruno stared down at the video, then hit Pause, handed it back to Sebastian and returned to studying the diagrams. “Any training on 3-D printed work or architectural or blueprint drawings?”
“No, I haven’t done any of that.”
“Interesting how very straight everything is,” he said. “I bet we could set a ruler by these.”
“Which also would be very strange for me.” She explained further. “I usually paint free form. Dab paints on the canvas and try to make sense of it all.” She laughed. “Often I was the only one who could make sense of my paintings. The teacher never did.”
“Still, it’s an interesting technique,” he said. “So you’re sitting there in that video, and you look up. You see where a line goes, where a window belongs, and you look down at your paper, and you draw it. Is that what happened?”
“More or less,” she said. “I was just drawing what I saw.”
“And yet, you couldn’t see it?” Bruno turned to ask Sebastian.
“No.”
Bruno tapped the pages. “Fascinating.”
“Not really,” she said. “As much as it’s interesting that I might visualize what went where in this underground dig, the clarity, the detail, none of that is explainable.”
“Oh, my dear. Not everything in life is explainable.” Bruno settled back and reached for his coffee, took several sips, holding the cup with both hands. Finally he replaced the cup on the table and said slowly, “And the things that are explainable are not always things we want to hear the explanation for.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Just that the explanation we have here might not be something you’re comfortable with.”
“Do you have an explanation?” She leaned forward eagerly. “That would be awesome if you did.”
“Let me start with, what do you think happened?”
She sat back, glanced at the images and shrugged. “I honestly have no clue. I’m obviously drawing something either from memory or making it up on the spot.”
“Or you’re tapping into the energy of the place and somehow seeing what buildings were there at the time.”
“If that’s possible, except that, of course, it’s not.”
“Everything in life is possible,” Bruno said. “In this case, you have to look at the evidence. You could see what nobody else could see, and you saw it clear enough that you could draw it. Not only draw it but draw it with precision. So either you touched on a past life, touched on the energy of the space or connected with somebody else who was showing you all of this.”
“Not one of those sounds like a good idea to me,” she said suspiciously. “I’m very open-minded to a lot of this, but it still has to make some sense.”
He flipped through several more drawings, then came back to one in particular. “And yet, in this one, you interjected a person. We know for sure that person wasn’t there because no one was around but your own crew, right?” he asked Sebastian.
Sebastian nodded. “Right, no one else was there.”
Chapter 9
“I didn’t see anyone around at the time,” she said, “but there could have been.”
“She also has an incredible appetite these days,” Sebastian told Bruno.
Bruno nodded to Sebastian, noting the comments. In response to Lacey, however, he repeated, “An explanation is not always available. It’s possible you’re downloading somebody else’s data. There’s a term for it when people paint or write. Spirit-writing is one term, where you’re given messages by a spirit, and you write them down. You think that either they are your own thoughts or inspiration from someone above, but, in actual fact, the spirit sends you the information.”
“If the person doesn’t know, that sounds like a mean prank,” she said in surprise.
“It’s not always possible to stop the process. Sometimes, like a medium, people connect with a spirit while they’re painting. Next thing they know, they’re painting what the spirit wants them to paint.” Sebastian’s lips quirked. “Sometimes literally. The spirit wants to sit there with a paintbrush in their ha
nd and paint. Other times they have a message they need delivered. So the person painting somehow ends up painting what the spirit thinks will be an important message. And sometimes nobody can understand what the message is at all.”
“That must be very frustrating for the spirits.”
He gave her a look of approval. “Exactly. Glad to hear that you’re more compassionate to spirits than many people.”
“If they leave me alone,” she said, “then I’m perfectly fine. But, if they don’t leave me alone, that’s a whole different story.”
“How do you think you’d feel if you ever saw a spirit?” Bruno asked.
She stared at him, wide-mouthed.
Sebastian laughed. “First, she’d have to be aware of what she’s seeing, and, second, I don’t know if it would make any difference or not.”
Bruno and Lacey both looked at him.
Sebastian smiled. “Because she just recently communicated with a spirit, and she didn’t even know.”
She stared at him, her jaw dropping open. “I did not,” she argued.
“Yes, you did,” Sebastian said. “At the restaurant on the rooftop deck. Not only was there no table in the corner but there was no man in a suit, drinking a glass of dark liquid.”
He watched as the shock hit her face, and then her understanding dawned. Her jaw dropped a little more, and her shoulders sagged.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her up close. “Honestly, it’s pretty special that you got to see him.”
She shook her head. “I was feeling sorry for him. He was all alone. He didn’t look like he wanted to be alone.”
“I don’t know if it’s because of the bump on the head,” Bruno said, “or if something happened on the dig site that, all of a sudden, has you seeing all this.”
“But can we be sure it’s all of a sudden?” Sebastian asked. “It’s quite possible she’s been seeing this kind of stuff for years. She’s been beyond fascinated by Pompeii since she was a child.”
She gave him a broken laugh. “No way I’ve seen spirits and ghosts for years. I live in a small town. Nothing ever happens there.”
“What clothes were the people wearing at that other table you were so interested in?” He listened while she described what the ladies wore.
