Folding what will surely be the final note from da Vinci, I store it back in the chest pocket on my jacket. I steal one final glance at the lake and the unspoiled nature that surrounds it, approach the hill, and begin the steep climb back up to its ancient summit.
Epilogue
New York, New York
Two Weeks Later
“How come we don’t go out for cheeseburgers?” Ava says while piling her freshly grilled cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onion, relish, mayonnaise, mustard, and almost one half of an entire bottle of Heinz 57 (she needs the other half for her fries). “The Times Square Hard Rock Café makes like a totally radical cheeseburger.”
I set my plate down on the small island counter that separates my galley kitchen from the living room-slash-dining room-slash-writer’s studio. Picking up the ketchup bottle, I squeeze a reasonable amount onto my burger. When I’m satisfied the burger is perfect, I pick off a piece and toss it to my pit bull, Lu, who is asleep on the floor. Not one to sleep through free food, even a small morsel, she lifts her head, snatches the burger right up.
“Thanks for that, Chase man,” I hear her say in my head. “Missed you while you were away.”
“Anytime, Lu,” I answer in my head. “I’ve missed you, too.”
I’ve still got the ketchup bottle gripped in my hand.
“Hey, don’t use all the good stuff,” Ava says.
I look her in the eye, then look at the red sauce that covers her cheeseburger. “You’re kidding, right?”
This evening, the mature-for-her ten years is wearing a Russian sailor shirt, the sleeves of which extend only part of the way down her forearms. With her mom and stepdad’s permission, she’s had her long brown hair highlighted with subtle streaks of green and red, which makes her look more ‘hip’ or culturally relevant or just plain cool. Or so I’m told. But then, I don’t exactly have my finger on the pop cultural pulse of the world. The rest of her outfit is comprised of blue jeans purchased with rips and tears in the legs (when I was a kid, we earned those rips and tears the hard way), and a pair of red-wine colored Doc Martens combat boots.
She steals the Heinz 57 from my hands and squeezes out a stream onto her french-fries.
“Did you know I could skip the cheeseburger and fries and just eat ketchup?” she says.
“It’s good to compliment your meal with a little meat and potatoes,” I say. “But, not too much. You don’t want to drown out the taste of the ketchup.”
Then, realizing I forgot our drinks, I head back into the kitchen for a bottle of beer for me, and a bottle of spring water for her. Placing Ava’s water before her, I twist off the cap on my beer, steal a generous swig, setting the bottle back down on the island beside my burger. That’s when I catch my daughter eyeing the cold beer.
She wraps her hand around it, lifts it up.
“You mind if I take a sip?” she asks. “Some of my friends already drink beer.”
Something electric shoots through my body. The image of Ava, twenty-nine years from now, lying in a hospital bed in a coma due to excessive alcohol and drug abuse.
“If only someone had told her when she was young to stay away from the first drink, perhaps she would have learned to cope without alcohol in her life. She would have been able to move on after the death of her husband and child without booze and drugs as a crutch.”
I snatch the beer out of her hand.
Her eyes go wide, her bottom lip trembles just enough to tell me she might start to cry.
“God, Dad, I was only kidding around.”
I set the beer back down, take her in my arms, hold her tightly.
“Listen, kid, I didn’t mean to startle you like that. You’re not getting mixed up in anything, I hope.”
“No, Dad. Some of my friends steal beer from their parent’s refrigerators. It’s no big deal.”
I release her, look her in the eye.
“But it is a big deal,” I tell her. “Some people shouldn’t drink alcohol at all, and everyone else must treat it with great respect. Or else … it can kill you, and destroy the lives of the people who love you.”
“All I wanted was a sip, Dad.”
“That’s all it takes. That’s how it starts.”
I grab the beer, dump it out in the sink. In the fridge I retrieve a bottle of water for myself, set it down. Sitting myself back on my stool, I pick up my burger two-fisted.
“I’m going to tell you a story about someone who used to be very close to me, but who ruined her life with alcohol and drugs.”
While we eat cheeseburgers and fries on a calm, cool night in New York City, I relay to my daughter her own tragic story to come, and, in doing so, make it a tragic fiction that most definitely will not come to pass …
… God willing.
I’m banking on this: That Leonardo da Vinci was right.
The future is yours …
… And the future is mine to create, and that our divine creators were wrong when they insisted we can’t change it. Because the future is like a canvas, if you don’t like what you see, you can start over and paint something new on top of what doesn’t work. Leonardo da Vinci used to do the same thing with his canvases all the time.
I’ve been given a gift by a master who saw the future. The gift of knowledge … of knowing precisely how my daughter’s life would turn out if I wasn’t there for her, to show her the way, to make a difference. And, in turn, Ava—whether she’s aware of it or not—has been granted a second chance at living her life. A second chance at doing it right the first time around. If that makes any sense.
When I’ve finished talking, we devour the rest of our burgers. Even though her plate is practically covered in red, Ava pours more ketchup on what’s left of her fries. The bottle spits air.
“We’re out of Heinz 57, Dad,” she says.
“Guess you’re going to have to live without it for a little while.”
“But I’m addicted to the stuff. My life without ketchup. Just doesn’t seem worth living, now does it?”
The life my beautiful daughter is living …
It’s my greatest work of art.
THE END
If you enjoyed this Chase Baker Thriller you will also enjoy The Shroud Key (A Chase Baker Thriller No. 1) and Chase Baker and the Golden Condor (A Chase Baker Thriller No. 2).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Winner of both the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than 20 novels including THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT WEEPS, EVERYTHING BURNS, and ORCHARD GROVE. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri’s work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Recently, Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri’s, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the Best Books of 2014. A freelance photo-journalist and the author of the popular “lit blog,” The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, and many more. He lives in New York and Florence, Italy.
For more go to www.VincentZandri.com
Vincent Zandri © copyright 2016
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Bear Media 2016
4 Orchard Grove, Albany, NY 12204
http://www.vincentzandri.com
Cover design by Elder Lemon Art
Author Photo by Jessica Painter
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Published in the United States of America
Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 6) Page 15
