“I’ll introduce you to my father someday. My dislike for other people’s rules will be evident. Besides, I like my puzzle-solving point of view. You can execute the legalities.”
“Okay, guys. You can bag him—and be careful. Did somebody get me an order to take the body across state lines? I’m no bird-watcher, and I don’t want to spend the next two weeks watching it rain in Maine while the local coroner fucks around.”
“You’re all set, boss. He’s headed to Boston,” said the lone female team member.
“Thoughts?” Dan asked Levi as they moved toward their vehicles.
“Like you said, not much to go on at this point. I’ll be interested to hear what the coroner concludes.” Levi was quiet for a moment. “Poor bastard, I wonder what his last thoughts were, final view—the moon, maybe the stars.”
“Ah, there’s the writer.” Dan shook his head. “Fuck the stars and moon. Something smaller and handier might have resulted in a more promising last thought.”
“Like what?”
“Like a Glock 26 hidden in his sock.”
“Right.” Levi looked over his shoulder. The cove and glass house had vanished from his line of vision, like they weren’t even there. “Guess we’ll see what the ME concludes.”
“From that?” Dan thumbed over his shoulder. “Unless the DB’s dentist doubles as the coroner and recognizes his work, I wouldn’t count on much. It’s part of why I called you in. I wouldn’t mind your help on this one. The whodunit is going to be mystery number two.”
“Because the ‘who is he’ is going to be a far tougher problem to solve.”
“Correct. Can’t say it’ll make for an Emmy-winning story—could just be a local yokel and corner drug deal gone bad. God knows the New Hampshire heroin train can easily ride this far north. Even so, I’d welcome your input.” He smiled at Levi. “In an unofficial capacity, of course.”
“Of course.” The two men reached the road, where the scent of rotting flesh ebbed, swampy nature backfilling. The scene might have passed for bucolic if not for the body bag sagging between four agents plodding through the marsh. “We do have a good track record,” Levi said.
“Listen, you don’t have to sell me. Whatever your journalistic intentions, I’m all for making use of your brain in the name of justice.”
Levi was half listening, distracted now as he busied himself with a soaking-wet pant leg and shoe. He and Dan had worked enough cases together, and Levi knew the arrangement benefited both men. Removing his dripping sock, Levi couldn’t recall if his gym bag was still in the trunk. Even dirty sweats and dry tennis shoes would be preferable. “Trench foot.”
“What?” Dan said.
“Trench foot. It’s what World War I soldiers ended up with from standing in the mud, not keeping their feet dry.”
“It was a couple of hours. I think we’re safe. What made you think of that?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t even know where that random thought—”
Before Levi could theorize, Dan’s phone buzzed with a pure Dragnet 1950s ring. He looked at the device. “Huh. Deputy Chief Sullivan?” He raised a brow. “What the fuck would she want?”
Levi glanced up from his bare foot. Piper and Dan were professional acquaintances, but only because of Aubrey and Levi. “Aubrey mentioned something about Piper being on vacation. Aruba, I think.”
“Maybe something interesting washed ashore.” He answered as Levi removed his other shoe. “Deputy Chief—Field Agent Watney. What can I do for you?”
As Levi was about to check his trunk for dry footwear, a shiny red-and-gold band of paper caught his eye. Instinct drove his next action. From his pocket, he withdrew the multiprong Swiss Army Knife he carried and opened the tweezer end. With it, he picked up the object—a sizable cigar band.
“Say that again.” Dan’s tone caught his attention. “Reception sucks out here.” He plugged a finger to his ear, his gaze shooting to Levi. “No, I didn’t know that. This morning? In Boston?” He was quiet. “I’ve been working a dead body from the middle of a swamp since dawn. What did you say about Aubrey?” Instantly, Levi was hypertuned, tucking the tweezer-pinched band of paper into his shirt pocket. “You’re kidding?” Dan’s steady voice turned incredulous. He held up a hand to Levi, who now consumed all of the agent’s personal space. “So she’s okay . . . they’re releasing her?” He nodded more deeply. “Uh, yeah. I can definitely get ahold of him. Levi’s with me. Yep. I’m sure he’ll be on his way ASAP.”
Levi took out his phone; there were no missed calls, no texts from Aubrey. “Is Aubrey all right? What happened?”
“Looks like our swamp victim will have to wait.” Dan glanced toward the crime scene and back at Levi. “If you can believe it, Aubrey’s day has been more eventful than yours.”
CHAPTER THREE
Surrey, Massachusetts
A few hours after her release, Aubrey sat in her living room staring at a double shot of tequila—a drink Piper had poured. She drew the glass to her lips but put it down. “Do you think he’ll come?”
“Of course he’ll come.” As she spoke, Piper peeked out the curtained window for the third time. “Levi is stubborn, Aubrey.” The women traded a glance. “Okay, jackass stubborn.”
Aubrey made a face.
“A, uh . . . a man who stands his ground. Better?”
“With everything that’s been going on with Pete, between Levi and me . . . today is the last thing we needed.”
“I hear you. But your name never made it to the press. Levi and Pete will only know what you tell them.”
“Clearly you’ve never tried to keep anything from Levi.”
Piper raised a brow and moved toward a leather chair, sitting. It was Levi’s chair, or it had been until he’d moved out five months before. Two months ago their son had followed, choosing to live with his father. Aubrey blinked back tears, never imagining her personal life slipping to less than square one. Piper shifted her weight in the midcentury modern leather recliner. All Aubrey could see was Levi in the chair, the room full of retro decor that had so suited them both.
Her belly, her body filled with emptiness. She forced a smile in Piper’s direction. The two women shared a solid working relationship. At times, it felt like friendship. Right now, it wasn’t what Aubrey wanted. It wasn’t enough. Car doors slammed, rattling her dark funk. Leather squealed as Piper stood. Aubrey couldn’t help but notice the firearm secured at her waist. It was a subtle reminder of the many things she and Piper did not have in common.
“It’s your grandmother . . . a woman’s with her.”
It was typical Piper talk, never conversational, always assessing. “That’s Yvette. You remember. You met her at our Christmas party last year. She lives with Charley. Kind of her caregiver slash companion.”
“Right. Slipped my mind, sugar.” It was opposing imagery: Piper’s blonde curls swaying as she turned a vigilant stare back to the window. “Yvette. Married four times. Hails from Arkansas. Third husband was a serious shit.” She flashed a smile in Aubrey’s direction and returned to the street view. “Kind of man I prefer to deconstruct in an interrogation room while he’s handcuffed to a comfy metal chair.”
Aubrey offered a disapproving glance.
“If I recall, that’s when Yvette took up carnival life.” Piper tapped a finger to the windowpane. “Expert with a needle and thread. Likes to yak.” While Aubrey viewed Yvette in a somewhat different light, she couldn’t disagree. “Your grandma, how’s she getting on?”
“Charley’s tough,” Aubrey said. “I tried to convince her not to come, that everything was fine. Once I told her the whole story, particularly the part about a spirit offering a future prediction. . . well, there was no stopping her. For a woman in her nineties . . .”
Piper glanced at the beamed ceiling and spoke with the seriousness generally reserved for bad guys. “Praise Jesus we all make it that far.” Then she was back to the window. “Newsflash: armor-clad news junkie just pulled up
behind them.”
“Levi?” Aubrey stood.
“I said he could be a stubborn ass, honey. But I’m not blind; his chiseled looks are only second to his loyalty.” Yvette opened the front door. The wheelchair rolled through, and Yvette stopped long enough for Charley to squeeze her granddaughter’s hand.
“Just tell me you’re fine?”
“I’m okay, Charley. You didn’t need to come.”
“I think I did.”
Their eyes and the warmth of physical touch disengaged as the wheelchair moved past Aubrey. Once the path was clear, she stepped out the front door. An audience was the last thing she wanted. On the neatly painted porch—pillow-lined swing, beautifully potted plants, every inch meticulously maintained—Aubrey folded her arms. She glanced down; near the tip of her big toe was a spot of chipped paint. She shuffled forward, covering it. It read like a marker of Levi’s lengthy absence.
He stopped near the integrated ramp at the bottom of the porch steps. “Are you all right?”
Aubrey nodded, her self-comforting grip pulling tighter.
“What the hell happened?”
“I’ve been asking myself that for the past ten hours.”
Levi came up the steps. In her bare feet, Aubrey had to tip her chin upward. Her damp eyes blinked into his.
“You’ve, um . . . you’ve gathered quite a crowd. Why don’t we go inside? You can tell everyone the whole story.”
Aubrey nervously tucked a crow-colored lock of hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t sure . . . they took my phone. Piper said she called you. You didn’t answer.”
“I was on assignment. Crappy service. Dan called this morning. A body was found near Biddeford, Maine.”
“Oh? A body?”
“Yeah. Bullet to the head, execution-style murder. Not much more to report—male, Caucasian, we think . . . exposure.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“No more so than the drug cartel we busted out of the Keys. Listen, could we . . . ?” He pointed toward the living room. “I’m not the one who found myself linked to the word ‘terrorist’ today. Forget Dan’s case. Until Piper’s call, I didn’t even know about the Prudential Tower incident. What the hell were you doing there, anyway?”
“A while back . . . weeks. Maybe a month ago, Zeke called. Yesterday, he texted me.”
Levi remained in standard investigative mode, awaiting more facts.
“He was in town and asked if I wanted to meet him, catch up. You know Zeke, he tends to turn up out of nowhere.”
“Actually, I don’t know Zeke at all—aside from one whirlwind visit where he blew into my living room like he owned the place. What was that, four . . . five years ago? Where was he in all of this today?”
“Nowhere.” She shrugged. “I never saw him. I warned the security guard about the explosion. From there it was bedlam, with me not-so-nicely escorted to a nearby building, basement room.” She turned for the door.
“Wait.” He touched her shoulder. “What do you mean you warned a security guard about the explosion?”
“Welcome to my day, Levi. Do you want to hear the story from the top?”
His expression grew befuddled. Aubrey recognized it. He wore the look when she first shared her gift with him—curiosity combined with a large helping of disbelief. Square one, she thought, on so many levels. Levi headed inside.
Aubrey grabbed his arm. “Where’s Pete?”
He turned back. “At home. He doesn’t know anything about today. He’s staying with the Frasers—condo next door—until I get back.”
“Home is here . . . but fine.” She hated the fact that her son wasn’t playing basketball in the driveway or in the basement working with one of his many miniature models. Worse, Aubrey still could not grasp that neither man in her life would come home to the bedrooms in their house that night. But in this moment, what could she do? She was lucky to have basic freedoms restored, to sleep in her own bed tonight. Aubrey let go of Levi’s arm and walked past him.
Inside the house, a hushed conversation between the three women petered out. Levi stopped near his chair, gripping his hands around the back. It was a meaningless action, but Aubrey read it as possessive. The chair—something Levi wanted. Something he missed. She rolled her eyes and sat on the tufted tuxedo sofa. Wonderful . . . I’m jealous of reproduction furniture . . .
“So,” Levi said, sitting too. “Expand on what you said outside. You had a forewarning about the explosion? I’m a good reporter, Aubrey; I’m not a mind reader. What happened today?”
“To be honest, I have as many questions as you do.” She sank further into the bright orange retro sofa. “On one hand, I had an encounter with an entity this morning.” Everyone in the room offered a blasé hum. “On the other . . . the spirit was a historical figure, quite famous, really.” An uptick of interest rumbled through. “But even that’s not the part that got my attention. It’s what the ghost told me that’s got me spooked.”
For the next hour, Aubrey dialed back the day, filling in the finer details of her encounter with Boston’s most famous silversmith. “So, while I’d like to tell you,” she said to her now-captive audience, “the off-script part was a visit from Paul Revere, that was the least of it. Although . . .” She paused, finally sipping the tequila. “Encounters with the famous and infamous dead are few and far between.”
“I remember one,” Yvette said. “We’d stopped in Milledgeville, Georgia. You were fifteen, maybe? You ran into an author, right?”
“That’s right,” Charley said. “It was the first time you were more amazed than startled by an entity seeking you out. You were queasy but giddy.”
Aubrey smiled. “It’s not every day a book lover gets to chat with a favorite author. Well, at least not a dead one. I told you about that, Levi. Remember?”
He nodded. “Flannery O’Connor.”
“I had no idea Milledgeville was Miss O’Connor’s hometown.” She caught Levi’s glance, which clearly said “Get on with it.” “Anyway . . . today, running into Paul Revere might have been the talking point. But the precise, futuristic information he offered, that part was astonishingly different.”
“And you’re positive it was a foretelling?” Charley queried.
“Yes. Absolutely. I mean, it was a nineteenth-century sort of communiqué. But it was definitely a . . .”
“Prognostication.” Charley’s tone was filled with as much foreboding as Paul Revere’s warning.
“Yes. He sat across from me and said, ‘Woman, I come to share news of a monumental eruption, the likes of which might indicate multiple powder kegs.’ Then he pointed to the Prudential Tower.” Aubrey picked up the ghost gift, the silver thimble, which she’d placed on the coffee table. “His drifting, parting words were something like, ‘Heed my counsel, madame. Move with haste. The patriots inside haven’t much time, and neither do you . . . less than an excursion from Lexington to Concord . . .’ Charley?” Aubrey twisted toward her grandmother. “Spirits have never predicted future events. That doesn’t happen.”
“Not true,” Levi said. All eyes turned to him. “Didn’t you say Brody saved a boy’s life the day he first visited you on Rocky Neck Beach? Didn’t my brother’s ghost forecast a future event?”
“To an extent,” Aubrey said. “But this was different. Yes. Brody prevented a single incident whereby a toddler would have drowned. And you’re right—it was a warning about a future event. But this was so much larger. It was also completely detached from me.” She was irritated that she had to point out the blood bond between Levi’s dead brother and their son. “Brody connects to my life . . . our life. Pete is his nephew.”
“I see what you mean.” He eased back into the chair, sipping the drink he’d fixed.
“But today, if that tower hadn’t been calmly evacuated, I can only imagine the pandemonium that would have ensued. Everyone, including me, thought it was a terrorist attack. It might not have been the explosion that killed or injured people, but the guara
nteed panic.”
“Indeed,” Charley said. “So the good news here is that you were able to offer a forewarning, my dear. Hang on to that.” In Charley’s lap, one swollen, misshapen hand rested over the other; she gripped it tighter. “Your father was never as fortunate.”
“My father? What does today have to do with my father?”
“A good bit, or so it would seem.” Charley’s tired gaze panned the group. “A great deal of time has passed. Years that have turned into decades. My Peter . . .” Her aged eyes looked across the room, taking in second and seventh grade photos of her great-grandson. “He’s been gone so long. I thought surely we’d passed a point where your father’s gift no longer mattered.” She focused on Aubrey. “Your gift . . . I truly had come to believe it would never manifest itself like this.”
“Like what, exactly?” Levi said.
Charley raised her wrinkled arm, touching her fingertips to her forehead. She focused on her granddaughter. “My dear, how much longer have you lived than your father? Quite a few years, I believe. If my mind hasn’t gone too fuzzy.”
She thought for a moment. “Ten years. I’m about ten years older than he lived to be.”
“That’s what I thought, and much of the reason I felt we were in the clear.” Her head bobbed with a telltale tilt. “Let me ask you something: Would you agree our gifts exhibit differently? For me, it’s seeing the living connected to the dead in my dreams.” On the coffee table, in front of the group, were the photos Piper had provided—the victims from the Prudential Tower explosion. “And when I dreamed of these people, saw their faces, they were very much alive.”
“These people,” Aubrey said. “The ones who died today?”
“Yes. I recognize their faces. I dreamed about them several nights ago—a family reunion, I believe. There were others, but you’re only showing me these photos. I didn’t know who they were or how they would connect to a spirit you were likely to encounter. I certainly didn’t know they’d end up victims of a tragedy.” Staring at the pictures, she raised a wrinkled brow. “An interesting yet no less frustrating amendment to my own gift.”
Foretold (A Ghost Gifts Novel Book 2) Page 7
