Foreteller Page 5

  Since Marcie had a summer internship in the Philadelphia mayor’s office, Kyra was left to entertain herself during the day. Her first three forays into the city hardly felt like entertainment, though, as she ventured to the fateful Spring Garden Bridge from which her father had jumped. On the first day, she laid flowers beneath it while mumbling a few awkward words in honor of a man whose face she could barely conjure. On the second day, she left a picture of her mother and herself. It showed Susan in her early thirties, and Kyra at age two. Susan, a part-time caterer, had wrapped her hand over Kyra’s tiny one while the two of them whisked together a chocolate batter, a significant portion of which had found its way to Kyra’s lips. At the moment of the picture, Susan had been looking at her daughter with a smile so warm and earnest that Kyra found it hard to believe it had been extinguished from the world, and that it had masked a troubled mind. She wondered if her father, Matthew Collette, had spontaneously snapped the photo, or if he’d intentionally waited for that particular, shining moment from his wife.

  On her third visit to the bridge, Kyra had grown comfortable with the burgeoning connection to her father, so she brought a blanket, made herself comfortable, and had a long, imaginary chat with him. She caught him up on her childhood being raised by Magda, on her first boyfriend in tenth grade, and of her plans to spend a lifetime playing outside and digging in the dirt. Toward the end, her voice dwindled to a whisper as she fought blossoming tears. “Thanks for listening, Dad. Just one more thing. It’s hard, but one day, I hope to understand your choices. Maybe I’ll even be able to accept them. Until then, I pray you are at peace.”

  With cars rushing overhead, and the loud dam nearby, it was hardly a place for quiet reflection and heartfelt sentiment, but the three-day tribute satisfied Kyra in a way she hadn’t felt was possible before. She gathered her blanket and walked away from the bridge.

  The next morning, a sunny Tuesday, she headed out for a walk and took in everything from South Street’s huge variety of shops to previously unexplored areas of Fairmount Park. As she traversed the Schuylkill River’s freshly mown banks, crew teams from the local colleges and high schools zipped up and down the river, light as water bugs. People jogged and picnicked on the green grass while young couples came as close to making love as they dared in a public place. An overwhelming peace that had escaped her for years settled over her, and she experienced a strong sense of belonging.

  “Marcie,” she said that night to her friend, “I’m not going back to Georgetown.”

  “Yeah, right,” Marcie said, distracted by the drying, red nail polish that had strayed onto a cuticle.

  “I’m serious. I’m going to transfer. To Kraft College, here in Philly.”

  “Ohmigod. Why? The guys at Kraft are like so ugg. And the parties—lame-o!”

  “Aside from those important factors,” Kyra said, “they have a great science program and it will get me away from Cesar—”

  “Yeah. He’s turned into like total stalker material. You should get a restraining order or something.”

  “He used to be such a good guy,” Kyra said, her voiced tinged with sadness. “But transferring schools will send an even stronger message than a restraining order, and Philadelphia just feels right to me. I can’t explain it.”

  “You know, Cesar’s so smart, he might find you here and transfer. I think he’s like that obsessed.”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Kyra said.

  They went out that night to celebrate the decision, and the next morning found Kyra with a very unwelcome hangover. She decided to jog through it, hoping the increased blood flow would force her body to metabolize the shots of liquor Marcie had kept ordering.

  Thirty minutes into the run, Kyra’s natural color returned and she veered left toward the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Although she’d never seen the old movie, Rocky, she loved the theme song and knew that the hero ran up the steps of the museum to it. She raced up, her adrenaline building, but at the halfway point, someone called out to her, “Hey, Zoey! Wait up!”

  Kyra glanced back to see a striking, college-age guy taking two steps at a time like a gazelle, the lean muscles in his legs bulging in all the right places. He was looking right at her, but since Kyra didn’t answer to Zoey, she continued running. Her competitive spirit increased with each heartbeat as it pumped blood to her legs. She picked up the pace, determined not to let the cute guy catch her, just in case he considered it a race.

  “Zoey! Hey! Wait up!”

  Kyra didn’t wait. Besides, this case of mistaken identity was kind of fun, and she thought the name Zoey somehow fit her. She reached the top, winded but proud. Leaning on her knees to lower her pulse, she let her long, wavy ponytail cover her face. The sound of the handsome stranger pounding up the last few steps reached her ears, and then a warm hand rubbed her back.

  “Why didn’t you wait?” he said. “We could have done it together.”

  Kyra flung back her thick hair to reveal an unfamiliar face to the stranger. He didn’t remove his hand, she noticed, letting it linger on an inch of revealed skin where her shirt didn’t quite meet her shorts.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said with a smile that reinforced her decision to stay in town. “I thought you were my buddy’s sister, Zoey. She runs here a lot.”

  “No problem. It’s nice to meet a local.”

  “You new in town?”

  “About as new as you can get.” She extended her hand. “I’m, uh, well, let’s just say I’m not your pal, Zoey.”

  “A coy one. I like that.” His glasslike eyes twinkled at the thought of a challenge. He shook her hand. “I’m Jake Medeiros, and I’ll know your name soon enough. There’s nothing I can’t find out.”

  Kyra transferred to Kraft College of Philadelphia the next week—legally changing her name from Kyra Collette to Zoey Kincaid. The name would have no meaning whatsoever to Cesar Descutner, her former stalker, and she figured she’d be safe here.

  #

  The plane touched down, jolting Zoey from her reminiscences. When she looked out the window, she could tell by the early bloom of the dogwoods that she was in Virginia. She grabbed her small suitcase from the overhead compartment, exited the airport, and got a cab immediately. Thirty minutes later, she received a second jolt—into a state of confusion—when the cabbie pulled up to Hooper, Schmidt and Caldone, and she saw a familiar face—Jake’s.

  He was leaning casually, like a posed model, against his beat-up car. When he spotted her through the cab window, he waved, his eyebrows shooting high and his lips grinning like a naughty schoolboy, as if asking permission for his presence.

  Zoey paid the driver and practically leaped out of the car.

  “Jake, what are you—”

  “I don’t want you going through this alone.”

  She wanted to jump for joy, but knew he only meant the opening of the safe deposit box, not the pregnancy. Did he even realize his words could be applied to so much more? He hugged her, and her acceptance of his warm embrace hid her thoughts, for now.

  She pulled back and smiled. “Hey, something occurred to me on the way down here. I’ve never met the real Zoey.”

  “You’re the real Zoey,” he said, an impish grin lighting up his face.

  “No, I mean the one you mistook me for, when we first met on the museum steps.”

  “She doesn’t exist. I made her up.”

  Zoey smacked him, hard, in the arm. “What?”

  Jake rubbed his arm, but maintained a smile. “What does it matter? Still took me five years to get a date with you.”

  “I had a doctorate to earn. No time for horny reporters.”

  “Besides, the Zoey trick worked, right? Better than just screaming out, ‘I think you’re hot. Wanna run the stairs together?’”

  All these years, Zoey had never thought to question the innocent sincerity of their initial meeting. Had she been duped from the get-go, choosing a new name based on a lie? She gazed at him now. He looked so self-as
sured, but she wondered what else she didn’t know about Jake Medeiros.

  “Good flight?” he asked.

  “Yes, smooth and on time. How’d you beat me here?”

  “I tried to call you this morning, but you didn’t answer.”

  She checked her phone and saw a missed call and a voice mail at 8:05 that morning. “I must have been in the shower. Never checked my phone again in the frenzy of getting to the airport.”

  “Figured you already left, so I jumped in my car and headed south.”

  “Well, thanks for coming,” she said. “Are we… okay?”

  A hint of pain shot through his expression, perhaps at the memory of his behavior the night before. “Yeah, sure, we’ll be fine.”

  She questioned if we included the baby, but decided she could only handle one life crisis per hour. “Can we talk about it over dinner?” she said. “I have an open ticket for the return flight.”

  “Sure, let’s do that.”

  “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me after you left last night.”

  Jake looked immediately panicked. Given the stories he covered daily, Zoey realized he was assuming the worst—a robbery, an explosion, a stray bullet finding her behind a closed window. She clarified quickly. “Two cops came by.”

  The words hardly calmed him. “Jesus. What the hell happened?”

  She gave him the details he so desperately craved. She covered the rape and the recent arrest of Corbin Black. Wherever she was vague, he peppered her with questions, and by the end, he simply looked sad. He gripped the sides of her arms with his hands and held on tightly, blinking back something close to tears, though she’d rarely seen him cry. “I hate that I wasn’t there for you,” he said.

  “Thanks. It was kind of a rough night.”

  Jake turned away and popped his trunk to put her small suitcase in. She’d packed for a two-night stay just in case something went wrong with today’s meeting. He was about to close the trunk when Zoey spotted a palm-sized, wrapped package inside.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  Jake looked like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar—and another one in his mouth. “Uh, this is awkward. It’s supposed to be your birthday present, but with what you just told me about the attack on your mom and all… let’s just save it for another day, okay?”

  “Jake, come on. You know I’ve got to know.”

  “Trust me, let’s wait.”

  “Well now it’s just weird.”

  He sighed and handed over the package. “Do what you will.”

  Despite his warnings, Zoey tossed the white ribbon in the trunk and ripped through the pink wrapping paper to reveal a gray box. She lifted the lid and slowly pulled out an old cameo locket, looking questioningly at Jake, wondering why he’d been so worried. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

  As she went to pry open the compartment, Jake reached out and covered her hand. “I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds. I just thought it might be something you’d want to have.”

  Zoey felt her heart skip a beat, but not in a romantic way. With slightly trembling fingers, she opened the locket to reveal a tiny picture of a smiling, young man with a thin face. It looked like a high school graduation photo.

  “Look at the other side,” he said.

  She squinted to read the tiny words and numbers on the small picture on the left side: Matthew Collette was all she could make out. “My father?” she said, touching the picture on the right.

  “It’s his high school graduation photo and a picture of his military dog tags on the left.”

  “Oh my God. Where did you—”

  “It belonged to his mother, who I guess you never met. When she passed, it went to a niece of hers, and eventually to a pawn shop. I knew you didn’t have any photos of him, and…” He shrugged.

  “But how did you—”

  Jake laughed, cutting her off. “Persistence is an amazing tool.”

  Zoey wasn’t sure how to feel about the new addition to her jewelry collection, especially given the questions now surrounding her parentage, but she clasped it tightly anyway.

  “This must pack an emotional punch to the gut,” Jake said. “Just put it away somewhere. Maybe never look at it again if you don’t want to. But I thought you should have it, rather than some stranger.”

  She hugged him. “Thank you. It’s really weird how you keep digging up jewelry lately.” She returned the locket to its box and stowed it in her purse.

  “Hey,” Jake said, “don’t you have an appointment?” He pointed to the high-rise behind them. “Hooper, Schmidt and Caldone. The keepers of your mother’s secret. You gonna be okay?”

  Zoey took a deep, rattling breath, only then appreciating the degree of apprehension she felt over the impending revelation, be it cockroach, marble, or a message freighted with meaning. “Odds are it’s something positive, right?” she said with forced cheeriness.

  “Absolutely,” Jake said. “Although the urgency of the deadline is curious.”

  “Maybe if I get married by next week, I inherit a couple million.”

  Jake flashed an uncomfortable smile, a kink in the armor of his sweet façade.

  So, Zoey thought, the pregnancy wasn’t the only topic being glossed over. Neither of them had mentioned the engagement, either. A vise gripped her heart. Had she mistakenly assumed that Jake’s appearance here, with gift in tow, signaled a new beginning, when maybe it was the beginning of the end? Could his presence be nothing more than the morbid, unquenchable curiosity of a reporter?

  Zoey forced the maddening wheels in her head to stop turning. She glanced at the ring firmly ensconced on her finger, reassured herself, and took Jake’s offered hand. He led her toward the building that was dominated by huge, aluminum-framed windows on each of its thirty-plus stories. From her low vantage point, the gigantic, black letters that formed the names of the three partners at the top of the building were easily readable, but Zoey imagined that up close, each individual letter must stand fifteen feet tall. They would be indecipherable even as a letter, let alone the name of the law firm that stood poised to reveal a quarter-century-old secret.

  Chapter 11

  Jake and Zoey took the plush seats offered to them by the lean, white-haired Alexander Schmidt, Senior Partner. While his narrow face and pleasant demeanor offered nothing but kindness, he emanated an air of power wrought from presumably successful battles in the courtroom.

  “I’m afraid my secretary can be too efficient at times,” he explained. “I had alerted her to the date of your impending letter delivery six months ago, and she simply took care of it. I failed to tell her that I wanted to be personally involved.”

  “I appreciate you coming in on a Saturday,” Zoey said.

  Mr. Schmidt glanced at Jake with a half-wink, indicating respect from one shyster to another. “I got a call from a shaky associate this morning. Apparently, we hired someone who responds well to pressure.”

  Jake had clearly manipulated some poor junior associate into giving him Mr. Schmidt’s contact information and had scored this meeting today.

  Mr. Schmidt grew somber as he turned his attention to Zoey. “I owe a great deal to your mother, Zoey. She saved my sister’s life.”

  Zoey flinched. In her 29 years, almost no one but Grandma Magda and Aunt Eva had mentioned her mother familiarly, and they’d only done so reluctantly. Now, the past was reaching out to her in a positive way and she felt uncomfortable with it.

  “Did you know my mother, Mr. Schmidt?”

  “Not directly, no. My sister befriended your mother in a history lover’s group. We’re big on that stuff here in Virginia, and my sister fancied herself somewhat of an expert on Thomas Jefferson, the James River, and the Civil War.”

  “I didn’t know my mother liked history,” Zoey said. A pang of regret resonated through her voice; Susan Collette might have enjoyed knowing that her daughter actually discovered history.

  Mr. Schmidt cont
inued. “I guess your mother and my sister took trips together to Monticello and Ash Lawn, and they tried to stop the demolition of historic homes, that sort of thing. Even got a few places listed on the registers. Anyway, when they first met, my sister shook hands with your mother, and your mother sensed something. I don’t know how, and I never asked, but I give thanks to this day.”

  Zoey and Jake glanced at each other and shared a mutual look of cynicism.

  “Sensed something?” Zoey asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Your mother sensed that my sister had cancer of the esophagus.”

  Zoey’s startled gasp brought a respectful hush to the room. Jake reached out and took her hand, then spoke like a logical reporter. “Mr. Schmidt, you mean your sister had already been diagnosed with cancer, and Zoey’s mom picked up on some clues?”

  “No, not at all. My sister had no idea she was ill. In fact, she dismissed Mrs. Collette’s assertion completely. At first. But two weeks later, she developed a nagging cough. Her usual doctor was away, so she saw a new doctor who wrote it off to allergies.”

  Jake frowned. “But your sister persevered?”

  “Not exactly. You see, Zoey’s mother had provided a small detail about the doctor—in advance—and that did the trick.”

  “What detail?” Zoey asked.

  “She told my sister that a doctor with a distinct mole above his left brow would apologize for not ordering the X-ray which might have caught her cancer in time. Sure enough, the new doctor my sister saw that day had a mole. My sister decided not to wait until later when that doctor might be apologizing to her. She insisted they perform a laryngoscopy and a biopsy, if necessary. They caught the cancer in its earliest stages, and my only sister—my dearest friend—lived to be 75. She died just two years ago.”

  Zoey thought of a hundred questions and a hundred explanations, but couldn’t verbalize any of them. Jake spared her. “An incredible story,” he said with a note of skepticism punctuating his words.

  “I agree,” Mr. Schmidt said before turning back to Zoey. “Unfortunately, your mother had a stroke about six months later and died shortly thereafter. My sister was never able to repay her the way she wanted to.”