“I don’t think so.”
Pete’s coughing intensified, so jarring it shook his entire body. But as a foamy trail of blood trickled from his nose and the same spouted out his mouth, Aubrey yelled Levi’s name again. He bolted for the door, calling for help as their son’s body went rigid and the heart monitor hit a flatline skid.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The next ten days passed, and Aubrey waded through a blizzard of emotion. During that time, she and Levi asked questions, wanting to know precisely what had happened to their son. Piper answered some; Dan Watney took action when it came to others. Their joint investigation resulted in this: Jude Serino had purposely steered clear of the actual kidnapping, directing things from afar. Not from the Serengeti, where he was supposed to have been, but an off-site location in Nova Scotia. In the end, the CEO of Serino Enterprises could not thwart justice. Levi had relayed the most recent news early that morning: Dan and his team had located Jude. He’d been arrested without incident and was being returned to the States for prosecution, including the suspected murder of Zeke Dublin. Among Jude’s possessions was Zeke’s .22-caliber pistol. Adding to closure was a detailed inventory compiled from Jude’s waterfront property. Before belonging to Jude, the house had served as a model home for the upscale community, perhaps at one time putting Suzanne Serino at the scene. It seemed even more likely when rolls of green tape were found in the garage.
The overall news was huge, but Aubrey could do little more than listen. She barely absorbed the information, her complete attention on Pete. Skilled medical personnel had saved him, shocking Pete’s failing heart back to life. Yet amid the panic and chaos, Aubrey did not feel like she’d witnessed a resuscitation. It read more like an electrifying demand for Pete to stay in the here and now—his weakened body had obeyed on the second round of shocks. The thought solidified when Pete’s attending physicians could not come up with a medical reason his heart would have stopped beating.
Once their son was stable, she and Levi went on to absorb a myriad of puzzling lab reports. They took in the results but offered no plausible explanation. Appearing clueless seemed like the most reasonable response, at least when it came to probing medical eyes.
Dr. Eason, the ER physician who treated Pete, was understandably baffled. Aside from the propofol, which she wholly expected to find, Pete also tested positive for influenza, a malady to which she attributed the bloody, foamy excretions. However, the knowledgeable doctor could not recall seeing a case quite like it in her tenure. She was further confounded by high levels of sodium and traces of other chemicals not immediately identifiable in Pete’s bloodstream.
As Pete slowly recovered, he was unable to provide clarifying information. In fact, he recalled almost nothing after his captors cornered him at gunpoint behind the abandoned rubber factory. When asked about the fresh bruises, an agitated Pete only replied, “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it,” and turned his head the other way.
While his recollections were foggy and lab results curious, Pete had made a full physical recovery. Once the medical team deemed him stable, he was scheduled for release. Aubrey prepared to head for the hospital, where she expected to meet up with Levi. During their last conversation outside Pete’s hospital room, Levi indicated that he and their son would return to the condo. At the time, a disappointed Aubrey hadn’t the wherewithal to argue.
Just as she reached for her purse and keys, a car pulled into the driveway. She peeked around the dining room curtain. Her heart leaped ahead as she sprinted onto the front porch. Levi was already out of his car, assisting Pete on the passenger side.
“I’m okay, Pa. I got it.”
Levi let go of his son’s arm and opened the back door of the vehicle, retrieving a gym bag. Together, they walked toward the porch.
“I was just . . .” Aubrey pointed toward her car, parked in front of Levi’s. “I thought we were meeting at the hospital.”
“Change of plan.” Levi shadowed his son as they made a slow rise up, Pete having to grasp the handrail for support. Aubrey stepped forward, but he held out his free hand, warding her off. She fought every raging instinct and kept her distance. Instead, she held open the screen door. Pete’s gaze met with hers as he walked by, Aubrey’s stare tangling with eyes that looked so like her own.
Once inside, Pete hesitated, lingering near the leather chair that was Levi’s.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Yesterday, your father and I discussed . . .”
“Pete,” Levi said. “Why don’t you sit down?”
The boy nodded vaguely and eased himself onto the sofa.
“When I called before, I was already at the hospital. I’ve done a lot of thinking since this all happened, more so since Pete and I talked last night.”
“You saw Pete again last night?”
“He called, asked me to come back to the hospital. Do you want to tell your mother what we talked about—the things you didn’t share with Dr. Eason?”
A tender snicker rose from Pete. “Not unless I wanted to end up on their psych ward.”
Aubrey heard the hint of the deeper voice, the same one they’d encountered at the hospital. Aside from Pete’s peaked color, which would not wane, Aubrey thought he had both lost weight and grown several inches since his ordeal. That or there was something older about her son, a change she could not put her finger on.
“I wanted to talk to Pa first because . . .” He shrugged. “I think I needed to test it out on logic before . . . well, the illogical.” Pete ran his blue-gray gaze over his mother. “No offense.”
She shrugged.
“There’s something you need to know—about me.”
Gravity forced Aubrey into Levi’s chair. It was the “about me” part. Aubrey recognized the tone. It was one she might use in rare instances when she explained her own psychic gift. “Go on, Pete. I’m listening.”
Levi sat too, easing into a chair across from their son.
“My dreams, if that’s what you want to call them. I have a better idea of what they’re about. Like I told the doctors, I don’t really remember anything after those guys came at me behind the old factory. I don’t remember the house or the room I was in. Pa said it was in Maine.”
“That’s right. But it’s not surprising you don’t remember. Dr. Eason said there was enough propofol in your system—”
Pete held up a shaky hand. “The reason I don’t remember anything, Mom, is because I think I was somewhere else.”
Aubrey closed her eyes and shook her head. Her own speculation was one thing, validation from Pete was something else. She looked at her son—her troubled and gifted son—as Levi spoke.
“Your dreams,” he said. “Isn’t it possible that you were just wildly absorbed in them because of all the drugs?”
“They’re not dreams. I don’t think they ever were. I was somewhere else, Pa.”
“Where?” Aubrey asked.
“A bunch of places . . . Europe, but a long time ago. And Coney Island—”
“Coney—”
“Island.” Pete ran a hand through his thick dark hair. “Then a place called Camp Upton. It’s on Long Island, a town called Yaphank.”
“You’ve never been to Long . . .” Aubrey paused, perhaps experiencing some of the disbelief she’d been subject to over the years. “Not in this life, anyway.”
“The drugs . . . whatever they gave me, it allowed me a . . . portal to the things we think I dream. I was there, Mom. I knew people and they knew me. Over the years, in all my dreams, it’s like I was behind a piece of glass or a shadow I couldn’t see around. But this time, while I was so out of it, I was right there—with a girl and in a war.”
“A war?” she repeated.
“A battle. Somewhere called Belleau Wood.”
Then, together, mother and son said, “It’s in France.”
Pete blinked at her; Aubrey sat erect in the chair. Then she gave in to the inevitable. “Hang on for a minute, Pete
. I’ll be right back.” Quickly as she could, Aubrey scrambled up the stairs and past her unmade bed. She made a beeline for the window seat. Snatching the war medal off the seat, she raced back downstairs. It was all still a crazy, scattered mess, but the medal felt like the first tangible bit of help she could offer her son. Levi’s curious gaze met hers as Aubrey gripped the faded ribbon between two fingers. She came around the back of the sofa, holding it up. “Do you recognize this, Pete?”
Pete’s hand came forward and stopped. He was hesitant about touching the medal, the same way Aubrey often feared touching new ghost gifts. You couldn’t be sure where they’d been or what they brought.
“Before we found you, I found this medal in one of the drawers in the window seat. Your, um . . . your past . . . your visions, it all started to add up for me.”
Levi took the medal from Aubrey, turning it over, examining the other side. While she’d told Levi about her suspicions and the medal, they hadn’t taken the conversation any further, not in the frenzy of Pete’s near-death experience. Now he stared at the coppery medallion.
“My initials, they’re on the back. Aren’t they?” Pete said.
Levi nodded, a hard swallow rolling through his throat. “You, um . . . do you know where this came from, why you have it?”
“I earned it.”
Levi and Aubrey stared at their son.
“In respect for meritorious duty and service to country . . .” Pete ran his hands through his hair again, this time grabbing knotted fistfuls at the crown, his body visibly trembling as he lowered his arms. “That’s what they said to me when they pinned it on me, after the Battle of Belleau Wood . . . after I got sick . . . after Esme . . .” Pete shot to his feet, a spark of life he did not possess when dragging himself into the living room. In any other conversation—wearing a Thrasher T-shirt and worn jeans, the unlaced Doc Martens—Aubrey would have labeled his clothes as typical. Now they looked as if a stranger wore them.
“Wait. Let’s slow this down, take it one piece at a time,” she said. “We all agree you have a gift, Pete. I think part of it might be like mine.”
“I think it might.”
The willing admission surprised Aubrey. She didn’t say any more, guessing Pete was referring to his Zeke sighting. Like she’d told him, one piece at a time. “But what you’re suggesting . . .”
“From the things Pete conveyed to me last night, combined with his dreams . . . his visions over the years.” Levi’s voice stayed steady, pragmatic. “If I had to use gut instinct, which I am, it sounds like Pete’s gift is tied to . . .” Aubrey watched as he visibly traded disbelief for conviction. “Reincarnation.”
Aubrey inched back, blinking into Levi’s staid expression. Her gaze traveled the living room, gliding over her box of ghost gifts, placed near the hearth, and on to her father’s letter box, returned to the credenza near the dining room table. She thought of Charley and how her gift, while less powerful, connected the living to the dead. The Ellis family gift did appear to intensify with each generation, and enough facts were in evidence to drive Levi’s theory.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. Is it possible Pete could have lived another life and, because of his gift, carried the memories into this one?”
“You’re not hearing me, Mom. They’re not memories. I was there.” His voice grew louder, sounding more like his father’s. “In France . . . in someplace called Camp Upton . . . there’s a girl . . . Esme. I can’t leave her there. I can’t leave her, because I . . .” He stopped, his breath visibly strained.
Aubrey shook her head, wanting to reply: “You don’t even like girls . . . yet . . .” But this boy in front of her, intense emotions crowded his face—feelings that did not add up to her less-than-teenage son. “Pete, who is Esme?”
“She’s . . .” He shook his head and closed his eyes. Aubrey saw it: Pete reaching for words to convey sentiment he could not grasp. Emotion that could not belong to a boy his age. Instead, he pointed to the medal, still in his father’s hand. “I don’t have to read the back, because I had it pinned on me then—I mean now!” A growl rose from his throat. Pete slapped his hands to the fireplace mantel and kept his back to his parents.
“Okay,” Levi said, rising. “I think that’s enough for now. We’re not going to conclude anything in one conversation.”
Aubrey stood as well and moved toward her son, who spun around from his stronghold on the fireplace mantel. “Do . . . do you believe me, or do you think I’m crazy? I need to know.”
“Pete,” Levi said. “I don’t think it’s a question of believing you. I think it’s more about unraveling what it all means. That’s going to take time.”
“And for now? What happens right now? What’s my life going to be like if it’s all true?”
“Pete, calm down,” Aubrey said. “Like your father said, we need time to explore the possibilities. My gift. It took years for me to get to here. Listen to me.”
He made forced eye contact.
“When I was your age, I was terrified. Charley did the very best she could. But with my father gone for so long, my gift so intense, understanding it took time. To be honest . . .” She glanced at Levi. “It took your father for me to come full circle. Whatever your gift is, Pete, it’s exactly what Pa just said: we’re not going to answer all the questions in the next five minutes, probably not even five years.”
“Which brings me to the other thing,” Levi said. “The reason we’re here.”
“What’s that?” Aubrey focused on Pete, who stood with his arms folded. He was nearly as tall as her. She shook her head vaguely. When had this happened?
“It’s what Pete and I concluded before we left the hospital. We’ll do a better job of figuring out his gift, handling it, if we’re together.”
Through the pain of what her son had endured, maybe what was yet to come, hope sparked. She whipped her head toward Levi.
“You were right, Aubrey. Trying to ignore or control Pete’s environment isn’t the answer. He needs you. I need you.”
“We want to come home.” The emotion whirling around Pete shifted, and glimmers of her son emerged. “Can we, Mom, come home? I . . . I’m sorry about the way I’ve behaved; the way I treated you. I . . . I need you to help me. It can’t just be Pa; it has to be both of you. You’re the only one who really has a chance of understanding this.”
Aubrey’s fingertips fluttered over her lips, her throat tightening. She wanted to rush forward, claim her son. She didn’t. There was something surrounding Pete stopping her. Maybe not physically, but an aura indicating that this was not the same boy who had left her house months ago. She quietly replied, “Of course you can come home, Pete.”
“I’m coming back worse, not better. I don’t know how to do this or what to do with it. All I keep thinking is what if I’d told the doctors about what’s in my head, the things I know. They would have shot me up with something else, dragged me off to the floor with all the other crazies. Just like . . .”
“My father . . . your grandfather.”
Pete nodded, the flat of his fingers slapping at a tear, the way a boy might. Aubrey’s heart broke a little. She didn’t want this for her son. She didn’t know how to stop it. She could only say what he needed to hear.
“That won’t happen, Pete.”
“We won’t let it,” Levi insisted.
“But the visions, they’re so clear,” Pete said. “I can smell gunfire . . . artillery. I smell blood and dirt . . .” He swallowed hard. “And death. I know exactly how much death stinks, the rot . . . the body parts that fall off, or they cut off.”
Aubrey and Levi exchanged an alarmed glance.
“Every time I close my eyes, I see open fields and tiny bunks. Then, other times, there’s a Ferris wheel.” He shook his head. “It’s not your Ferris wheel, Mom. It’s a giant place—there’s a sign.” Pete’s pale brow tightened. “A tiny room with a dirt floor. An Indian boy who wears city clothes, he lives there.” Through
his confusion and pain, he smiled. “But the girl. There’s also the most beautiful girl . . .” Pete’s expression grew murkier than his words. “I’m damned if I go back . . . I’m damned if I don’t.”
Aubrey wanted to press, ask Pete more about an Indian boy and especially Esme—who she was and why she was so important. Instead, she rushed forward and held on to her son. “One day at a time, Pete. We’ll sort it out together. All your memories and the things that are happening to you right now.”
He held on tight. “Promise me, Mom. Promise. Part of me doesn’t want to go back . . . I . . . I’m scared. Scared about what will happen if I do.”
Levi’s phone rang. “It’s the hospital. I’ll, um . . . I’ll get this out on the front porch.”
Aubrey’s grip didn’t ease, and she knew that the last time they’d stood in this position, Pete’s head had tucked under her chin. Now it wasn’t close; he nearly surpassed her nose. Even so, the sudden height differential was not the thing that disturbed her most. “Pete,” she said, not looking him in the eye, but counting on physical closeness. “Who . . . who is Esme? All of your past has become so vivid . . . detailed. Why are you so scared? I get the feeling it has more to do with Esme than any war.”
His fingers nearly clawed at her back.
“Tell me. It’s okay. Whatever it is, I’ll understand.”
“I . . . I, um . . . she’s everything. Most of it is . . . good. I don’t know how to say it. But it’s the part that makes me want to go back.”
Aubrey guessed whatever emotions her son was feeling, they were meant for a much older Pete. She stepped back from the tight hug. With separation came the melancholy notion that someday she would take second place as the woman in her son’s life. For now, she grappled for middle ground. “And are you so afraid because you don’t want to leave us for her?”
“No. It’s not that . . . I don’t think.” He swiped a hand at his wet face. “Like I said, most of what I know about Esme . . . it’s good. It’s like . . .” He nudged a shoulder in the direction his father had gone. “It reminds me of you and Pa, before things got bad and he left. And then some of it . . .”
Foretold (A Ghost Gifts Novel Book 2) Page 39
