When Pete was born, Aubrey’s longing for a normal life vanished. It was immediately transformed into the daunting task of motherhood. She’d never held a baby until they handed her one in the hospital. “Is there a practice model?” she’d wanted to ask. No. You just dove in with your squalling infant and significant other—a man who had only moved in with Aubrey the week before Pete was born.
It was a distant but poignant memory. At the time, it appeared perfectly logical. Levi had just recovered from the near-fatal gunshot wound; he lived and worked in Hartford. Plans came together slowly but naturally, or so she’d thought. Malcolm retired and MediaMatters offered Levi the job as the Surrey City Press editor in chief. Where he should reside was obvious enough; heck, they were already having a baby together.
But Pete hadn’t gotten any memo about a grace period and surprised his newly cohabitating parents by arriving three weeks early. It’d been the three of them without ever having a chance to be the two of them. Aubrey and Levi had no time to agree, or not, on what shade of blue to paint the spare bedroom or to discover that neither of them could make a meal beyond toast. Still, it managed to work. Pete had solidified a bond that had a strong, if not frenzied, beginning. They were cautious parents, more inexperience than anxiety. They didn’t know enough to be fearful. They might have anticipated a strong-willed son—that was a no-brainer given his father. But Aubrey had always been wary about what a son might inherit from his mother. Maybe nothing; and she never could decide if this was truly what she had hoped for. Before Pete’s second birthday, she knew. It wasn’t her gift, not precisely, but a curious iteration.
In the earliest years, she kept much of this to herself. Levi was tuned into the everyday moments of Pete’s life, and she thought this was good. One of them was hyper-focused on the ordinary, and the other was not. Regardless, it didn’t take long for Levi to catch up. Right before Pete turned three, their son woke from a wild reverie, his red face sticky with sweat and his tiny teeth chattering. As Levi held him, Aubrey stared into her son’s stark, wild eyes, his whole body trembling in his father’s arms. Short, sniveling breaths trembled in and out of Pete, his tiny fists clutching Levi’s undershirt like this might anchor him to earth.
Aubrey had remembered reading about toddlers and their dreams; it explained that they did not yet possess the brain growth to dream like adults. Their minds weren’t developed enough to induce vivid autobiographic or episodic visions. Yet looking into Pete’s blue-gray eyes, maybe deep into the black center of his irises, she knew this was precisely what was happening to their son.
Once Pete quieted, over an hour later, they went back to bed. Another hour passed, and Levi’s voice pierced the silence. “I’ve never dreamed like that. Have you?”
In a whisper, she’d answered, “No.”
As he lay beside her, Aubrey could feel him think, an intrinsic stream of consciousness between Levi and her.
“There’s no stopping it, is there? We’ll have to manage, help him, whatever it is.”
A tear had slid down her face. “Yes. It’s just us and him. But it’s more than I had.”
In the dark, Levi had reached for her hand.
In their backyard, Aubrey pulled in a breath of night air. This would be Pete’s third night gone. The tire swing caught in her peripheral vision. The heavy rubber sphere swayed in dusky stillness. She reached out and steadied it, too upset to think beyond a gust of wind she’d missed. Not when the thing she missed most could be anywhere on this earth—or not. A nearby wooden picnic table had played a part in a common family ritual, and Aubrey climbed onto the bench, her body weighted with guilt and fear. With her elbows planted on the cedar table, she folded her hands and bowed her head into her solemn knot of fingers.
When it came to Pete’s fate, she didn’t know whether to wish for a common crime, early teen angst, or to beg for anything but the incomprehensible. Maybe she would just pray for any answer that led to the safe return of their son. A chill spread from her spine, enveloping her whole body.
“Took me long enough to find you.” The voice was scored to her soul. Aubrey looked up, nearly blinded by the eye-level sun, a knotted sphere of daylight. It seemed committed to a fiery descent, and goose bumps rose on her arms. She blinked. Zeke was there, swinging his long legs over the bench on the opposite side. “Thought for sure I’d find you in the house. What are you doing way out here?”
“I needed a little time alone. I was going to call . . . or text you. Do you know what’s—”
“I know everything.”
Aubrey was grateful she would not have to retell the facts, such as they were. Zeke must have had a conversation with Levi. Interesting what would bond natural enemies. “Good. It was hard enough to tell Charley. I didn’t want to at first. Levi insisted.”
“I think that was the right thing. She’d want to know. Everyone will want to help, sweetheart. I want to help.”
She undid her knot of fingers and placed them flat on the table. “This is so surreal, especially after what happened with the rest of the Serinos, the ones you don’t deal with.”
“You mean Eli.”
“I meant Suzanne.” She furrowed her brow. “But interesting you should mention Eli. He’s actually the reason—”
“I know. I heard that whole story too.”
She nodded. It could be that Levi told Zeke about Eli as well—a cursory conversation, all before getting into what he really wanted: to pick Zeke’s brain about Jude Serino. What was Zeke’s connection, if any, to nameless remains found in a Maine swamp? Aubrey shook her head. Even the most diligent, dogged parts of Pete’s father wouldn’t be focused on chasing a story right now. Not even Levi could compartmentalize to that extent. At least she didn’t think so.
“How did you hear about Eli, from Charley or Levi? If anything, I thought Levi would have framed it in terms of what Suzanne had—”
“I was just thinking of what you said about Eli. His manner of death, his suicide.”
“What about it?”
“He helped you, Aubrey. He helped find those missing boys. I guess a soul never knows what it’ll have to do to earn a ticket out of here. Knowing you, I found that to be the more important part of the story.” A Zeke grin appeared wider than the setting sun. “Do you think he did, sweetheart? Find something better than here in the end?”
Aubrey’s mind wasn’t on Eli Serino. She hadn’t given him a thought since reading his text, right before Diane Higley called. “Could be.” She hesitated, unsure how to frame her thought. “I’m not privy to details beyond what you might fit . . . in a text. Remember? I’m not that special.” She blinked into Zeke’s dark eyes, so drawn to the comfort of his presence. But like a taut rubber band, her thoughts snapped back to Pete. “You know, there aren’t too many people I can discuss my son with. The possibilities when it comes to Pete’s disappearance.”
Zeke nodded. “His dreams.”
“Yes. His dreams.” She drew a thinking breath, a habit she’d picked up from Levi over the years. “His father doesn’t want to hear it. It’s almost like when he first learned about my gift—Levi won’t accept what he can’t explain.”
“You’re being harsh. It’s a lot to get your head around.”
“Wow. Are you suddenly on Team Levi?”
“’Course not. I just know what it’s like to be the ordinary person in your life.”
“Not how I would ever describe you or Levi.”
“That’s because you’ve never looked at it from our perspective. All the extraordinary things about you, it was enough to intimidate me, keep me running, as opposed to taking you up on your offer all those years ago. Do you remember?”
“My senior year of college, when I asked you to stay . . . or at least come live inside after I graduated.”
“The night I gave you the pearl necklace.”
“I still have it.”
“But you never wear it.”
“Doesn’t change the significance of the ke
epsake.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t. Remember that.” Silence settled between them. “Not to rehash ancient history, but do you see now what a mistake that would have been? Not for me, but for you.”
“You don’t know that.”
Zeke peered in the direction of the back door, and Aubrey glanced over her shoulder. The house had grown fainter in the waning light. “The ace reporter, he might not have happened.”
“Again, how can you know that?”
“Because if I’d taken you up on your offer, I would have never let you go.” Zeke drew his hands from his lap to the tabletop, clasping Aubrey’s. Physically, he was ridiculously close compared to the house, the back door, maybe who or what was inside.
At the same time, Zeke seemed to blend into the haze of evening colors, the puddling purples and reds, a sun setting roundly behind him. Aubrey saw Zeke as close as a carnival campfire and as distant as those summers they left behind. It was all so soothing. With Levi at such an emotional distance, Aubrey wanted that almost as much as she wanted her son.
She sighed. Not even Zeke stood a chance of numbing current reality. “If I’d taken you up on your offer, I would have never let you go.” She couldn’t fake a smile at his endearing observation, and fresher tears ran down her face. She felt his hands squeeze harder around hers. “Hey, come on. You’ll find him. I promise.”
“So you and Levi think.”
“It might be different instincts that drive us, but we’re both right. Trust that.” He leaned into the table, his rolled-up shirtsleeve exposing the tattoo she’d seen the other day. It brought back to center Levi’s theory about recent events, and Aubrey removed her hands from Zeke’s. She inched her gaze onto his shirt pocket. A pack of cigarettes peeked from the edge.
While it was a Herculean mind trick—or practiced psychic technique—Aubrey willed the conversation in a different direction. “Zeke, I need to ask you something. Something that has nothing to do with Pete.”
“Go ahead.” It sounded as if he’d been waiting for her to ask.
“The John Doe found in Maine, the case Levi is working with Dan Watney. The victim, he has . . . or had, a tattoo like yours.”
“Did he?” The sun and Zeke’s mouth dipped downward.
“But like you said, hundreds of different men could have that tattoo, right?”
He didn’t reinforce the notion.
“They, um . . . they found something else at the scene the other day. A cigarette butt caught in a heron’s nest. It was a Camel filter. The same brand you smoke.”
He avoided her stare. “If only I could have quit for you years ago.”
“Zeke,” Aubrey said carefully. “Levi’s uncovered some information. He’s been able to establish that Jude Serino should be well into a lengthy sabbatical.”
“Jude goes annually, has since I’ve known him. They’re the quietest weeks of my life. Of course, this year . . . I’m definitely getting an extension.”
“And why, um . . . why do you say that?” Aubrey’s heart pounded harder, unsure what she might do if Zeke confessed murder in the middle of her backyard.
“Because I don’t work for him anymore.”
“Right . . . of course.” She heard the nervous flutter in her own voice. “He, um . . . Levi spoke with Jude’s assistant. She said she hasn’t heard from him in weeks.”
Zeke shrugged. “Nothing unusual there.”
“That’s what his brother, Bruno, said. Jude’s whereabouts didn’t seem to concern him.” She shifted on the hard bench, and her gaze caught on the last of a sun swallowed by dusk. “Come back to something else for me. Is it true that Jude had the same tattoo?”
“What are you asking me, Aubrey?”
“I’m asking if I should be concerned . . . if there’s a reason you’re not.”
“I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking if I think Jude Serino might be your John Doe, or are you asking if I had something to do with it?”
“Both,” she gulped.
“I won’t lie to you. I had a lot of reasons to hate Jude Serino. Some of them are connected to you. Now more than ever, I’m afraid.”
“Me? What does Jude Serino have to do with me?”
“I have to tell you something.”
Aubrey’s knees locked hard around her side of the bench, bracing. Zeke curled his hands into two soft fists.
“The missing ghost gifts, your father’s predictions. I took them—the good ones, anyway.”
“You did what?” She lurched back on the bench and in her mind, repelling from Zeke.
“It started long before I ever got involved with Jude Serino. Then, unfortunately . . . I did. I worked for him for years. Of course, you know that part.”
“What don’t I know, Zeke?”
“He didn’t employ me because I was so slick at managing off-site projects—I was capable, good at it. But Jude kept me on the job because it was a dubious trade, because I provided him with a steady supply of Peter Ellis’s ghost gifts—the winning predictions.”
She gripped her fingers tight around the wooden seat. It steadied her body and kept her from smacking Zeke across the face. She felt duped—by her steadfast belief in Zeke, by what suddenly seemed like Levi’s realistic assumptions. “I . . . I don’t understand. Why would you do that?”
“Jude’s been blackmailing me for . . .” He was quiet, and in the rising moonlight, Aubrey couldn’t make out his expression. For the first time in her life, Zeke appeared more like a shadowy and uncertain object. “Years, really,” he finally said. “At first it was Nora. Things connected to her life. Then he came after me. Jude would threaten and promise. From the beginning, I knew it was wrong, but I never thought it would be more than dishonest. Not until now, not with what’s happened.”
“What happened, Zeke? Tell me.”
“You should know, I’ve wanted Jude Serino dead since I was a teenager. The story goes that his father, Giorgio, killed my parents. That it was retribution, meant to send a message to the masses.”
Drawing her fingertips to her mouth, Aubrey took a moment to factor in the rumor Genève Renard had unearthed. “I heard . . . well, Levi . . . he asked an old friend from Chicago to look into the reports surrounding their deaths. She discovered the same rumors, which, I guess, are facts.”
“Ugly ones. But not all the facts are right. Not even the ones tied to rumors. A couple of months ago, I found out Giorgio didn’t kill my parents—Jude did. He confessed it to me; he gloated about it.” He paused, focusing on his knotted fists.
“Zeke, I’m so sorry. I can’t begin to imagine how that made you feel.” She didn’t need to further prod him and the rest of his plot spilled out.
“Long before learning that little kicker, I’d bought a gun. I had a plan.” He looked from his curled fists to Aubrey. “Jude’s confession, it should have been enough right there to kill him.”
“But it wasn’t.” A flicker of hope rose. “Even after Jude told you that, you didn’t follow through. You didn’t do it.”
“No. I didn’t. Not at that point. For a lot of years, I was just too much of a fucking coward. Or I don’t know, maybe I like to tell myself even grifters have some conscience. But then, even after learning that, it wasn’t the outright murder Jude confessed to me. I wasn’t ready to kill Jude Serino until he threatened you.”
“Me? Why would he—”
“I ran out of ghost gifts, sweetheart. You saw it yourself. Except for a piece of blue construction paper, they’re gone.”
“And a last lottery ticket win.”
“Yes. That too, for whatever it brings. The prediction your father wrote on the notepaper from the funeral home in Surrey.”
“Zeke, what are you confessing to me?”
“Years ago, I accidentally told Jude Serino about you.”
“About my gift?”
“No,” he said calmly. “Just that you exist. That I’d been in love with you the same way Jude had been in love with a wom
an named Tilda. She died.” Zeke snickered, a sound of self-loathing. “I was just never good enough.”
Aubrey guessed he was glad for the dim light; it kept them from having to look each other in the eye.
“But Jude . . . the man does his research. He’s thorough. He knew about your gift.”
“He knew.”
“And that’s not all.”
“What else?”
“Jude believed your gift works like your father’s gift. That you possessed the ability to make predictions about the future.” His jaw slacked, then shut. “When Jude assumed that, I told him it wasn’t true. That your gift didn’t work that way. But now . . .”
Aubrey inched back. “I hope you’re not going to say irony’s a bitch.” Her hand flitted angrily between them. “I’m hardly sitting around penning predictions. So far, any ability to project future events isn’t quite like my father’s, not as intense or vivid. Even so—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Zeke raised his arm, lowering it in a defeated motion. “Jude was too deep into his own scam, the one he’d been running for years off your father’s predictions. When I proved I couldn’t come up with another winning bet, Jude wasn’t about to give up. Not with what was hanging over his head. Not when he thought he knew how to keep the game running, the winning predictions coming.”
“And?”
“And so when he threatened you, sweetheart, you have to understand—I couldn’t let that happen. For years, I wanted him dead, and finally . . .”
“Finally what?”
“Finally, I—”
“Aubrey!” Levi’s voice shot like a bullet through the backyard. She lurched up from the bench, stumbling to her feet. “Are you out here? Pete—Pete just called!”
She didn’t look back at Zeke as she ran full charge toward the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Aubrey came through the back door, demanding information on her charge into the kitchen. “What did he say? Where is he? Is he all right?”
Levi pointed. “Charley and Yvette are here.” They hurried into the dining room.
“For God’s sake, are you going to answer me?”
Foretold (A Ghost Gifts Novel Book 2) Page 33
