Foreteller Page 13

“Her contrasts amused me.” Bernadette smiled hard enough to crinkle her eyes. “If a topic bored her, she wouldn’t waste space in her mind retaining it. She knew everything about cooking and politics and history—maybe it acted as a counterbalance to her dealings with the future—but she couldn’t tell you what type of flowers grew in her own garden or what type of birds nested in her front yard. Flowers were flowers. Birds were birds. Trees were trees. She couldn’t tell a honeysuckle from a holly, or a sparrow from a finch. And she hated all things frivolous.” Bernadette laughed. “Once, she needed an outfit for a semi-formal evening out with Matthew. He told her to wear something for an upscale cocktail party. Well, she was at a total loss, so she ran to a popular store on the busiest street in town and bought a rather involved outfit straight off the mannequin. Everyone knew what she’d done because that mannequin had been on display for over a month. Somewhere, I have pictures of her in that outfit, posing just like the mannequin!”

  “What about my father? You must have known him pretty well. What was he like?”

  “Matthew. Ah well, not everyone can be perfect. And we never think anyone is good enough for our best friend, do we?”

  Zoey sensed the first hint of hedging from Bernadette. “You didn’t approve, I gather?”

  “A difficult man to know, at least for me, and that’s saying something. He had close friends from the military, though. I think they knew a different, happier Matthew than I did, and they shared that bond that only men in battle can. They used to go out drinking, wearing their dog tags, singing slurred military songs, and calling each other by nicknames from their boot camp days.”

  “What was Matthew’s?”

  “Oh gosh, danged if I can remember. I’m a tad dyslexic, so words don’t stick with me like images do. Something to do with a curse word. A play on a curse word, maybe? At least that’s how I remember it.”

  Zoey grinned. “Did it start with Mother?”

  Bernadette giggled. “I don’t know. Ask my dad. He’s pretty gifted with the colorful language.”

  “So my father left the service early, right?”

  “Not by choice. He was nuts about the military. But Vietnam offered favors to no one and he was injured early on from a grenade. Quite a hero. Saved three lives, if I recall, but I never did know the details.”

  Zoey frowned, disgusted with herself for not knowing any of this. And why hadn’t Grandma Magda ever mentioned it?

  “But anybody who knew Susan and Matthew could assure you of one thing,” Bernadette said.

  “That he loved her?” Zoey asked hopefully.

  “Utterly and completely. Worshipped her. Who could blame him? While he hardly spoke around new folks, Susan could charm an entire room with an anecdote, and that was after cooking an amazing meal for them. She was a rare bird. But he made a fine audience for her. And where he excelled—with painting and songwriting and poetry—Susan was helpless. They filled each other’s gaps, in a sense.”

  “Then why didn’t you think him good enough for her?”

  Bernadette sighed, seeming to travel back in time in order to put a precise finger on her discontent with Matthew. “I guess I felt that if Susan ever left him, or if something happened to her, which of course it did, that Matthew might cease to exist as his own person.”

  “Which, of course, he did,” Zoey echoed, not realizing how callous the comment sounded until it was too late.

  “I don’t think any of us should become so enamored of another that we lose our own identities.”

  Zoey wondered if Bernadette might secretly be tapping into Zoey’s relationship with Jake. Had Zoey lost herself?

  “Obviously, the rape was the first nail in the coffin,” Bernadette said. “Susan told me that for months afterwards, Matthew would disappear around eight in the evening. Same time the attack had occurred.”

  “Because he would get so upset?”

  “No. Because he was out trying to find the rapist. At least we thought so.”

  Zoey gasped, unable to imagine the frustration and defenselessness her father must have felt, so all-consuming that it had driven him out on a vigilante hunt every night. What would he have done if he’d found the culprit?

  “And of course, the stroke was the final straw,” Bernadette said. “Salt in the wound for him.”

  “But the stroke had nothing to do with the rape.”

  Bernadette stopped mid-stride and looked askance at her guest, her jaw tense, her face distraught. She grabbed Zoey by both arms as if to stabilize her.

  “My dear, the rape caused the stroke. Didn’t you know?”

  Zoey stood motionless, holding her breath without realizing it. Nausea threatened to overcome her. She had no idea how long she remained that way, with ideas and consequences flailing about in her head, but Bernadette finally forced her along the trail with a tug on the arm.

  “I’m so sorry,” Bernadette said. “I thought the medical reports would have been with Magda’s things.”

  In a monotone, Zoey said, “Magda claimed that a small house fire when I was young destroyed all the documents that rightfully belonged to me. My guess is that Magda hid my mother’s entire life from me—and much of it might have been contained in those boxes.” Zoey turned to Bernadette, the pleading look in her eyes both desperate and longing. “Please, Bernadette, I need details. Including the fact that this rapist essentially killed my mother.”

  Chapter 23

  Richmond, Virginia

  “Paperwork doesn’t cut it as an excuse, Lasseter. I should have been out of this rat hole the moment the charges were dropped.” Corbin Black didn’t want his lawyer to miss one iota of the hostility in his voice, so he pressed his mouth close to the grimy phone, letting droplets of his spittle coat the device. “You might need to be knocked down a notch or two, lawyer.”

  At least this phone offered more privacy than the one near the holding cell, but that hardly outweighed the negatives of being booked to a regular cell. Black got chills when he thought about the lice check, the hosedown, and the full body cavity search he’d endured. Who did they think they were with their probing fingers and almighty attitude? Heck, he hadn’t done anything worse than what those uniformed pigs probably did on a regular basis.

  Before he’d entered the hosing room, a big, burly cop with fish on his breath had pulled him close and muttered through coffee-stained teeth, “You’re just meat to us, boy. Now strip.”

  They’d lingered in their inspection—Black knew they had—leaving his skinny body naked and exposed for as long as possible. And now to find out from his fat turd of a lawyer that the charges against him had been dropped already, maybe even before the cavity inspection.

  “The best I can do is tomorrow,” Virgil Lasseter said with the air of a man numb to client threats. “Then you’re free and clear—unless some demons surface from your past. Last chance to confess.”

  Black scratched at his scar. It stung when he got stressed. “Just get me out of here. I’ll worry about my past. And if you want your final payment, bring me that name and address I asked for. I want to be sure I never need your services again.”

  Chapter 24

  Lynchburg, Virginia

  Bernadette got up to clear the dishes from their lunch of cheeseburgers and greasy fries. She’d surprised Zoey again by not being a tofu-scarfing vegan. They’d talked for over two hours while the storm hinted at its imminence, with winds that bowed Bernadette’s top-heavy pines.

  According to Bernadette, who’d worked as a nurse before embracing the psychic life full-time, the rapist’s strike to Susan Collette’s head had caused significant trauma to two major blood vessels, which had supposedly been repaired. But with the toll of pregnancy, followed by the demands of caring for an infant, Susan had skipped the recommended follow-up EEG’s that might have caught the slow tear forming in the lining of one of the blood vessels. The tear eventually caused the vessel to close, resulting in Susan’s first stroke. The fatal stroke had followed two months
later.

  A pang of guilt ricocheted inside of Zoey. She wondered if the strength and intensity of the final foretelling had triggered the second, fatal stroke.

  Bernadette set a plate of homemade brownies on the table, all the while watching Zoey process the idea that the rapist was responsible for her mother’s death—and Matthew’s, too, essentially.

  “He’s here in Virginia, you know,” Zoey said. “The rapist. He’s in a prison in Richmond.”

  “What?” Bernadette’s eyes turned to wide circles. “How would you know that?”

  “Something about a recent case linked him to the report my mother filed. I don’t know all the details yet, but the police came to my apartment in Philadelphia. They took my DNA.”

  “Your DNA?”

  “My existence can help prove the rape of my mother.”

  Bernadette’s face held nothing back. “I’m so sorry. I always suspected, but your mother never said a word.”

  “They’re holding him now on attempted rape in another case. It sure makes you long for Dirty Harry, doesn’t it?”

  Bernadette lit up. “Your mother loved those movies. Did you know that?”

  Zoey’s lips straightened into a horizontal line and her eyes darkened. “I remember Magda turning one of those movies off when I was in middle school. One of the sequels. Told me a movie like that would ruin my mind or make me violent or something. She was probably more worried I was turning into my mother.”

  Bernadette shrugged with a don’t sweat the small stuff attitude. “Magda had serious issues, but I suppose she could have done worse than to produce a lovely young lady like you.”

  “I’m going to see him,” Zoey said.

  Bernadette seemed caught off guard for the first time. “The rapist? Oh no you don’t. That’s a match to gasoline. Nothing good can come of it.”

  As much as Zoey appreciated Bernadette stepping into the role Susan would surely have played, her mind was made up. “I have no choice.”

  “The last thing you need is for this man to know anything about you,” Bernadette insisted. “As of now, he doesn’t even know you exist. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “He doesn’t have to know who I am.”

  “What purpose could it serve?”

  “Wouldn’t you want to confront him?”

  “He’s nothing more than a sperm donor, Zoey. And certainly not a father.”

  Zoey’s gaze grew intense, filled with a venom and hatred she rarely experienced. “He’s my mother’s murderer! The one who destroyed her life. And my life, and my dad’s.” Zoey stood up and paced the kitchen, punctuating her rant with the slam of a fist against the counter. “You know what, Bernadette, why didn’t she see that one coming? Of all the things my mom could predict, why didn’t she see that creep entering the scene and ruining her life?”

  Bernadette’s voice took on the tone of a Catholic schoolmistress disciplining a student who dared question a cherished belief. “Because, Zoey, foretellers can never see their own deaths, or the deaths of their future incarnations.”

  “What do you mean? What does that have to do with anything?”

  Bernadette remained calm. “Just add it to your growing base of knowledge. I sense your cynicism, believe me. I’m no stranger to its poisonous tentacles.”

  “I’m sorry, but this is all so—”

  “Apology accepted. May I ask a question about the foretelling your mother left you?”

  “Yes.”

  Bernadette hesitated a moment, as if deciding how to word her question. She mashed brownie crumbs with her finger as she spoke. “Does the foretelling involve something potentially tragic happening to you directly?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the near future?”

  “It’s possible,” Zoey said, her voice tremulous.

  Bernadette looked up and held Zoey’s eyes with her own, as if to garner all she could from Zoey’s reaction. “Does the foretelling cut off or go dark at the end, so to speak?”

  Zoey’s startled reaction gave Bernadette all the answer she needed.

  The first crash of thunder reverberated through the house. Zoey found it all a little too theatrical and crossed her arms in defiance of the mood Bernadette seemed to be setting. “What are you getting at?”

  Bernadette altered her expression to one of lightness, then stood up to clear the plates. As she loaded the dishwasher, she spoke over her shoulder. “Since you enjoy the scientific aspects of life so much, you would do well to speak with your Aunt Eva.”

  “Aunt Eva?” Zoey spoke unguardedly now, her mind running on overloaded circuits. “Please. I know every one of her drunken rants by heart. I don’t need a replay.”

  “You prefer logical, scientific explanations. Eva can at least offer you a biologically based one. Me, I don’t need it. I accept people’s gifts for what they are and as they present themselves.”

  “Last I heard from Aunt Eva, she lived in—”

  “She’s still there. The Watkins Senior Center on Route 22 in Louisa. Sober, by the way, but not altogether in control of her faculties.”

  Another shot of guilt. Zoey had given up on Aunt Eva’s sobriety and sanity long ago.

  Bernadette closed the dishwasher and leaned back against the counter as she reflected. “I didn’t appreciate Eva’s treatment of your mother, but remember, she was as much a victim of Magda as Susan was. And poor Eva, she didn’t know what to do with what she had. That’s why she drowned it in alcohol.”

  “Drowned what? Her dementia?”

  “No, my dear, her gift. Eva and Susan were both there the day of the leak.”

  “The leak? What leak?”

  “I’ll let Eva explain. It’s where the biology comes in.”

  “But what did Eva have? What did she drown?”

  “The gift of foretelling, of course.”

  Chapter 25

  By the time the worst of the storm passed, Zoey had driven halfway to the Watkins Senior Center in Louisa. Though she tried, she found it difficult to imagine a sober Aunt Eva, or an Aunt Eva with a foretelling ability. Harder still to picture the woman without a huge chip on her shoulder. Then again, sobriety didn’t necessarily remove bitterness.

  As Zoey passed through a tiny town with about three square blocks of commercial development, she spotted an unexpected library between a deli and a children’s museum. On impulse, she swung her car to the right and nabbed an available parking spot. Might as well kill two birds with one stone—get something to drink, and find some answers.

  As she stepped from her car, the sight of a looming cell phone tower reminded her to check her phone, which had been unusually quiet all day due to intermittent service. She had one missed call from the 215 Philadelphia area code, but no message. Maybe Jake, calling from one of his newspaper’s satellite offices to apologize or explain. A lot to ask of one phone call, but Zoey longed for it anyway. The call had come in over two hours ago, while she was with Bernadette.

  Had she done the right thing with Bernadette? At the end of their meeting, after Bernadette’s odd, insightful questions, Zoey had offered to let her keep a copy of the letter from Dora Santorini. They made the copy in Bernadette’s surprisingly well-equipped office. When Bernadette declared that she wanted to read and analyze the foretelling free from external interference, Zoey had taken the hint and hit the road.

  She purchased a cola slushie at the deli and hoped the local librarians wouldn’t mind a slurping patron at one of their computers. Ten minutes and several gulps later, she found the information she needed to enable an intelligent discussion with Aunt Eva: three different articles on the Golden Chemical Plant leak, one of which was a retrospective a year after the tragedy. From what Zoey could infer, Golden Chemical Corporation, located near her mother’s hometown in North Carolina, had done a masterful public relations job of spinning the leak into a minor occurrence, thus minimizing the perception of public danger. Rumors about the leak’s effects took on a life of their own, but Golden w
ent so far as to imply that anyone using the leak as an excuse for their child’s autism, cancer, ability to predict the weather, or any other number of freakish behaviors, was merely trying to bilk the system. Golden donated heavily to environmental causes after that, and it must have cost them dearly to pay off researchers, lawyers, and statisticians who uniformly presented an airtight case for the company’s innocence. It all happened before the days of billion-dollar class action lawsuits that no self-respecting lawyer would have let slip by today.

  Zoey clicked on a few related searches. Six months after the leak, Golden had quietly closed the plant where the breach had occurred—plenty of time for the public to have lost interest in a civil case. The company then discontinued their experiments on the potent mix of chemicals that had contaminated her mother’s town’s water supply for three weeks. Ironically, Golden had been researching stroke treatment drugs, perhaps explaining the chemicals’ unintended effects on the brain.

  Zoey printed the articles, tucked them into her purse, and decided to check her email since her laptop was sitting in the car with about 2% battery capacity. She dreaded the dozens or perhaps hundreds of messages that would be filling her in-box. After five minutes of deleting offers for penis enlargement creams, vaginal enhancement surgeries, and cheap medicines from Canada, she joked to herself that the first could lead to the need for the second, until both parties needed the third. She then returned ten messages from college students who were volunteering to work on an expedition she was leading in Brazil in four months. Her replies were cryptic by necessity, as she hadn’t planned to be pregnant, or under the imminent threat of death, when she set up the trip.

  The twenty-two remaining messages could be dealt with later. She moved the mouse to close her in-box when the word “Kyra” caught her eye in the subject line of the second-to-last email. In full, the subject line read, “Are You Kyra Collette?”