He turned back. “I think we’ve established that and then some.”
“You can’t keep giving me bullshit answers like ‘He’s coping.’ It’s not fair.”
Levi shifted his wide shoulders. “What do you want me to say, Aubrey? It’s about the same as when we both lived here. Last night was unremarkable. He didn’t come screaming into my bedroom. But the week before, I spent two nights on the floor of his room.” He snickered. “Odd. For some reason I can’t convince him there’s no monster under the bed.”
“That’s very helpful, Levi. Smart-ass remarks are just what I was hoping for—particularly after the day I had.”
“Sorry.” He paused, pursing his lips. “We’re managing. We try to focus on normal. Schoolwork, his friends. Irrelevant things, like skateboarding. He misses his models. We get his math homework done, get more takeout than I’d like. It . . . it’s all temporary.”
“Temporary to what end?” When Pete asked to move out, Aubrey passionately fought it but reluctantly agreed. Despite any issues between herself and Levi, he was an excellent father, and she couldn’t deny their son a chance to search for answers or what he regarded as normal. “I didn’t think he’d stay away this long.” Aubrey plucked a sweater off the back of a chair and tugged it on. A chill, emotional and physical, penetrated.
“He’s doing the best he can. He asks about you; we talk about you. Look . . .” Levi strode toward her. “Our son is smart and confused, brilliant in many ways. But sometimes he’s just a terrified twelve-year-old boy.”
“Who, for as much as he’s like me, is also very much like his father.”
“Lucky kid.” The brooding look returned to Levi’s face. “When he’s ready, he’ll come back. Whether it’s to live here or visit, that I don’t know. But he misses you, whether he says it out loud or not.”
Aubrey nodded, an acknowledgment that this wasn’t a typical tug-o-war between estranged parents.
“It’s just for now.”
“For now, not being with his mother feels pretty good to him.” Tears that she’d kept in check all day spilled past the rims of her eyes.
“Aubrey, it’s not about good or bad. It’s just what makes Pete comfortable. He’s experimenting. You know how difficult this past year has been for him. We got away with his life for a long time. Our assumption, or wishful thinking, that his gift was more like Charley’s.”
“Until clearly it wasn’t.” She knotted her arms, rubbing her hands against the knitted fabric of the sweater. In recent years, Pete’s vivid dreams had taken a sharp turn. One night, he’d torn into his parents’ bedroom, hysterical, screaming about a wildly vivid dream—one where he believed he woke up to find a ring of people standing at his bedside. For any other boy, in any other house, the child would have been soothed and encouraged to go back to sleep. “It was a nightmare, son. See. There’s nothing in your room, your closet. Here’s a flashlight in case you get scared; we’ll leave the door open . . .” Instead, a stunningly wide-awake Levi had sprung from the bed, asking, “What did they want?” and inspecting his son for physical damage. Aubrey had been too terrified to move. The sound of Levi’s voice, in the moment, in their living room, startled her back into the conversation.
“Aubrey? We still agreed on that much. Right?” Levi said. “Pete comes first. Helping him figure this out, handle it.”
“So he doesn’t end up like my father.” A point that had circled in the back of Aubrey’s mind landed front and center. She could only imagine what it was doing in Levi’s head.
“Or it could be that Pete is more like his uncle, so at a loss to be understood that he can only see one way out.” He hesitated. It’d been years since Levi learned the truth about Brody’s death, but the reality of it had never eased. “Suicide.”
“Levi, don’t even.” Aubrey closed her eyes. She was surprised his thoughts were about his family and not Aubrey’s. Sadly, the reminder wasn’t without merit: Brody St John and the desperate choice he’d made to end his suffering. She couldn’t imagine her own son reaching a state of such despair.
“I’m trying not to do that. You have no idea how much. I have every hope Pete will work this out, just like you did. He’s tough. He has us. But I think it would be unwise to lose sight of what can happen.”
Aubrey swallowed down the dark thought. While Levi had moved out months ago, luggage and laptop, it was the physical distance that felt most peculiar. Perhaps more so today. He only stood a body length away, yet it felt like the width of the entire commonwealth.
“So tell me,” he said. “What happened today, what you learned about your father—how’s that sitting?”
“Fidgety” was what she wanted to say, something crawling up her leg, invading her mind. Any other emotion would result in a complete meltdown, and Aubrey stabbed at humor. “Perplexed,” she said. “What do I do if Ben Franklin shows up with a key and kite string, warning of an incoming tsunami?”
He laughed. At least levity was hanging in there. “Tough call. But you’re not without a point. There isn’t much to do besides wait and see if it happens again.”
“So while we wait . . . ?”
Levi’s gaze turned examining. “While we wait, I’d like to get a closer look at the papers inside that letter box. I want to know more about what’s written on them, how it works, what it all means.”
“And that’s something you’re willing to do?”
His cheeks ballooned and he expelled the air. “Why not? Personally . . . obviously, things aren’t great between us.” They mutually avoided eye contact. “Even so, we’ve proven to have some solid tag-team mystery-solving skills.”
“But to be clear, you’ll really be doing it for Pete. I mean, that’s understandable, I just want to be honest about . . .”
She didn’t finish the thought, and he was quiet. “Not just for Pete. Aubrey, I—” Levi took a step in her direction. “Listen, today was a lot for all of us, but mostly for you. My hard-ass exterior gets that. Do you . . . if you want, I can go get Pete. We can stay the night.”
“You mean you can force him to stay the night.”
“He’s not the only one who’s allowed some understanding here.”
Every exhausted part of her wanted to scream “Yes!” “No,” she said. “We agree on that much. I won’t force him, and that’s what we’d be doing.” He didn’t argue, and Aubrey sat, finally finishing the hours-old tequila. “I’ll be fine.” She smiled cagily. “I’ll take a hot bath . . .” She held up the glass. “Maybe have another one of these . . . call a friend.”
“Which friend?” His question was abrupt, and Aubrey’s mouth gaped in reply. “The people you’d talk over today with, as far as I know, that’s a short list.”
“I could call Piper.”
“Really?”
“Or I’ll call Yvette, my grandmother.”
He glanced at the mantel clock. “My guess is it was an hour past their bedtime when they left here.”
“What’s your point, Levi?”
“Nothing.” He folded his arms. “Maybe something. Look, obviously there are issues.” He pushed up his glasses. “But the reasons for our . . . being apart are complex. Aside from Pete, it’s not like we tired of each other or fought over money, or one of us cheated.”
“Good point. Why take typical routes of estrangement when we have so many other options?”
“Aubrey, I won’t dismiss everything noted under common causes. Your go-to list of confidants may be short, but there is one of them who happens to be in town: Zeke Dublin. I haven’t forgotten what prompted you to go into Boston in the first place.”
“And you’d be so opposed to me seeing Zeke that you’d force your son to spend the night?” Aubrey squashed a flicker of surprise. “That’s a little knuckle-scraping, particularly for you.”
“Just tell me if that’s your plan. It’s only a question.”
“Remind me again of your current address?”
“So it’s not my busines
s?”
“Levi, I don’t have the energy to go ten rounds about us right now. Zeke’s an old friend. Nothing more.”
“If you say so.” His mouth bent to a frown. “Before today, our life was complicated. That just expounded tenfold.” Levi plucked his jacket off the chair. “No matter how old it is, or how innocent you view it, nothing positive will come from Zeke Dublin’s presence. Whatever our issues, I’m positive about that much.”
CHAPTER SIX
South Side, Chicago
Fifteen Years Earlier
The light on Jesus’s face was different. That was the first thing Zeke noticed as he slid into a pew of Precious Blood Catholic Church. He was alone and purposely early for his sister’s wedding rehearsal. Last time he sat in the sanctuary, it was in the front row and more than twenty years ago. Back then, their neighbor, Mrs. Cavatello, had poked Zeke, telling him to sit up straight, pay attention.
Hell, fourteen-year-old Zeke had been paying attention—it was his parents’ funeral. What the fuck else would he be doing? Of course, his attention wasn’t precisely where Mrs. Cavatello thought it should be: prayer, grief, and reflection. Only if prayer, grief, and reflection were precursors for revenge.
Vengeance was where Zeke’s mind had been on that steamy August day and in the years since. He and Jesus exchanged an in-the-moment glance. I’m on the right path. You know I am . . . an eye for an eye. “And if You object,” he said, speaking aloud, intent on fending off his conscience, “now’s a good time for that lightning bolt.” He waited. “Okay, then. And aside from one giant unforeseen complication . . .” Zeke peered to the sides of the pews, decorated for tomorrow’s wedding, with knots of blue hydrangeas, white ribbon, and betrothal. He sighed. “I’ll take your no comment as a sign that I should keep right on going.” Zeke straightened his spine to a position that would meet with Mrs. Cavatello’s approval.
Their South Side upstairs neighbor had been a decent woman. After their parents’ deaths, she’d even tried to convince her husband, Vitale, to take in the Dunne kids. On funeral day, Zeke stood in the Cavatellos’ hall and eavesdropped on Vitale Cavatello’s objections: One, they couldn’t afford it. Lucina only needed to look around the cramped Chicago project dwelling to realize as much. Two, if they could afford it, Vitale wasn’t interested in raising orphaned kids—particularly Micks. Three, the Dunne’s deaths were not a murder-suicide like the police had concluded and newspapers reported.
His accented voice, which only seemed to know how to yell, lowered, and young Zeke had had to press his ear to the door: “No one will dare speak it beyond a whisper, Lucina. But it’s whispers all over the neighborhood. Kieran Dunne and his wife are dead because of the people he worked for. No man gets in with Giorgio Serino and keeps their hands clean. Kieran, he crossed Giorgio, snitched on the eldest son. Doesn’t matter what the cops say—they’re all dirty. Kieran paid; his wife paid. Now you ask me to connect the Dunne bambini to our house . . . it’s una pazzia!”
Zeke traded another memory-refreshing glance with Jesus. After his parents’ funeral, Zeke’s and his sister’s belongings were packed up and moved from the Cavatellos’ apartment to temporary housing at the Department of Children and Family Services.
At the time, Zeke didn’t know what to believe about his parents. The things Vitale Cavatello said, they couldn’t be true. His father was no snitch. Of course, the alternative was even more damning. If his parents’ deaths were a murder-suicide, what did that say about Zeke? It would make him the son of a killer. Someone twisted enough to have murdered his own wife, the mother of his children.
In his head, Zeke could still hear Kieran Dunne, who’d emigrated from Dublin, his Irish intonation crisp. “Just you wait, Ezekiel . . . there’s better times ahead for us Dunnes.” Zeke had compelled himself to believe his father’s words. It also meant believing Vitale Cavatello was right and that Giorgio Serino was responsible for his parents’ deaths.
Zeke squeezed his eyes closed again. To this day, the imagery was a mural on his brain: After nearly getting caught stealing candy at the corner deli, Zeke had discovered his parents’ bodies. He’d sprinted up four flights of stairs. Home. Safe. Coming inside, Zeke had leaned against the wall, breathless and with a mischievous grin, positive adrenaline couldn’t pump any harder. He’d blinked into the splatter, standing in red puddles of darkness. His pounding pulse all but exploded as the tiny space registered, a room filled with blood and bits of his parents.
His mother had been perforated by bullets; his father’s body marred by one clean shot to the head. Even though fights between his parents had been rare, and his father had the whiskey under control that summer, everyone appeared to accept the official conclusion, including Vitale Cavatello, whose true opinion had to be overheard.
Sitting in the pew, Zeke opened his eyes. It didn’t help. He was bound to the horrific images, permanent as the Polaroids the police had taken. As the years went on, Zeke had returned to the neighborhood, asked questions, secured more details. Whispers came clearer as time loosened lips, and other damning facts surfaced: It had been more than retribution. The hit had been a lesson for Jude Serino, Giorgio’s eldest son, a demonstration in how to handle disloyal employees. Jude had been there; he’d stood by and witnessed cold-blooded murder.
With that information firm in his head, Zeke reviewed his plans once more. While there’d been no obvious objection from Jesus, cloud cover had dimmed the sunlit hues on the Savior’s face. “Yeah. I get it. Something to do with vengeance being Yours, not mine. I learned that one at the Whittaker stop in Apple Cove.” Zeke recalled the scripture from nightly Bible study at foster home number four. “It’s too late; I’ve come too far. I’m not leaving this world without evening the score.”
Rising from the pew, Zeke plodded forward. In his mind’s eye, he saw two caskets passing back down the aisle. Mentally, Zeke got a grip on the hot edges of anger. In the moment, he couldn’t do a damn thing about revenge. Among his vows was the one about protecting Nora’s happiness, which meant watching her marry Ian Montague, half-brother to Jude and Bruno Serino.
Thunder rumbled and the sanctuary’s stained glass darkened. The church doors opened, and cheery, tipsy voices rose from the vestibule. One last time, Zeke and Jesus made eye contact. “If You can’t root for me, could You just not rain on Nora’s wedding day? I’d be obliged.”
The next morning, Jesus went as far as to provide sunny weather. Everything else, especially Nora’s groom, remained a fateful paradox. It all put Zeke closer to the Serinos than he ever imagined. Ian’s mother, a Brit, had been briefly married to Giorgio Serino and around only long enough to produce a last spawn. Upon divorcing Giorgio, whom Ian’s mother caught with a housemaid a week after Ian was born, she’d returned to England. Ian was raised there, so distanced from his American relatives that he’d taken his mother’s surname. He’d come to the States not long ago, seeking his American heritage and finding Nora. Nora, who, because of Ian, appeared truly happy for the first time in their young but troubled lives.
Nora was so head over heels about Ian, she’d sworn Zeke to secrecy. She never wanted Ian to learn about her tragic youth—his bride raped by the boy in the room next to hers and at the hands of the system meant to protect them. She didn’t want Ian to know how Zeke and Nora ended up in foster care in the first place. “A tragic car accident, Zeke. That’s what I’ve told Ian about Mummy and Daddy. It’s all he ever needs to know. He certainly can’t know anything about . . . me. Otherwise, Ian might prefer to marry someone else . . .”
Zeke had stared into Nora’s teary eyes, a heartbeat away from telling her the truth. He couldn’t do it. It would end Nora to know she’d fallen in love with the son of the man who’d murdered her parents. So for different reasons, secrecy was fine with Zeke. It would also keep Nora safe. The last thing Serinos, Jude in particular, needed to know was that Zeke and Nora were Dunnes, not Dublins—the surname Zeke had assumed years ago.
Bells chimed, and in
the vestibule of the old church, Zeke focused on his sister. Dee, a longtime carnival friend, fussed with the veil. It would have been Aubrey’s job, had she been there. He’d seated Charlotte moments ago, on the bride’s side, where their own mother would have sat. Yvette, Carmine, and a few other members of the Heinz-Bodette troupe sat nearby. And that was it; that was their family. Months ago, when Zeke visited Charlotte in New Mexico, she’d made her granddaughter’s excuses. “Aubrey’s just started a job at a newspaper in New England. She and Owen are trying to start a life. It’s taken her so long to get to this point, Zeke. You and Nora understand. She sends her best wishes . . .”
He’d been disappointed but accepting. Zeke would do anything for Aubrey, including stay out of her life, if that’s what was best. It was especially true now.
“Is it time? I think it’s time,” Nora said.
In the history of brides, she was probably the first one to show up early to her own wedding. But the gush of happiness wasn’t lost on Zeke. He’d just have to protect Nora while negotiating around circumstance. In the back of the church, Zeke scrunched his toes inside the tight rented patent leather shoes. He looked at his sister and tried to match her radiant smile.
“You saw him, right? I mean, Ian’s here.” Nora giggled, taking a bouquet of pink cabbage roses from Dee. “Of course he’s here! Last night, Ian said heaven and earth would have to come apart to keep him away—and even then.” She blinked, damp-eyed, at her brother, who found himself pissed off by the lump in his throat. Nora leaned forward, peeking through the crack in the vestibule doors. Organ music faded, and a soprano voice flooded the sanctuary with an effusive rendition of “Ave Maria.”
“What?” Nora said, focusing on her brother. “Happy. You told me you’d be nothing but happy today.”
“I am.” Zeke glanced about, struck once more by the irony of the location.
“Then why are you looking toward that dais like your stare could set it on fire?”
“Just getting my head around it. All that money, the world as your altar. You could have been married on either coast, their Vegas resort, or an orchard in Maine. I don’t get here.”
Foretold (A Ghost Gifts Novel Book 2) Page 9
