Foreteller Read online

  Finally, Zoey thought, the mention of a ring. Maybe Dora would explain it as some sort of engagement or wedding ring on Zoey’s finger. The letter closed quickly, though, without further explanation of the opal ring or any other.

  “I will let you figure it out, Kyra. I am not clever like your mother.”

  Clever like your mother. In all her years, no one had referred to Zoey’s mother as clever. And yet, a new image of Susan Collette had begun to fight for space in Zoey’s mind, one far preferable to the chronic liar that Grandma Magda had painted over the years, or the woman not worthy of mentioning—which Magda had discreetly suggested by doing exactly that.

  “I close this letter now, Kyra. I love you and pray that you will use your mother’s foretelling wisely.”

  “All my love, Dora Santorini.”

  Zoey placed the letter back in its envelope as carefully as if it were dynamite being returned to its casing. A link to her past. The discovery of an alternate version of her mother that contradicted all previous incarnations. Could it be true? If so, Zoey needed to rethink entire decades of her life. Once she left this room, life as she’d known it would no longer exist.

  She replaced the safe deposit box, and gathered her purse, the key to the box, and the letter. Zombie-like, she drifted out of the cold, sterile room with the past and future tucked securely in the plain envelope under her arm, ordinary as could be. But Zoey’s life was now anything but.

  Chapter 17

  When Zoey opened the heavy door that led to the bank lobby, she saw only the security guard and a middle-aged woman conducting business with the French bank teller.

  “About time,” Jake said, startling her. He’d been leafing through a financial magazine while leaning against a wall behind the door. Probably too fidgety and excited to sit.

  “How long was I in there?” she asked.

  “Over an hour,” Jake said with a hint of impatience as he glanced at the teller. “Tried to get snooty-pants over there to check on you, but safe deposit boxes are sacred ground to these people, apparently.”

  “Sorry,” Zoey said.

  “No biggie. So?” he said as he eyed the envelope like a hawk spotting a mouse. “What’d she leave you? Doesn’t look like jewels. Should I assume that envelope is filled with treasury bonds?”

  Oh, no. Why hadn’t she fabricated a story before she came out? No way she could tell Jake the contents were private and leave it at that. In a perfect world, he’d bow his head and say he understood in light of everything she was going through, but unfortunately, that would be the most un-Jake-like thing imaginable. Not only had he driven all the way down here to dig into this mystery, but he lived for the challenge of uncovering a secret. She needed to come up with something fast.

  “What?” Jake chided in response to Zoey’s silence, his eyebrows flicking excitedly. “Even better? A treasure map?”

  Saying anything had to be better than nothing, but Zoey had exactly that—nothing. “It’s all so confusing,” she said, “and boring. I think I even dozed off back there. That’s why it took so long.”

  She waved her arm to usher him toward the exit.

  “Hold on, Zo,” Jake said, sounding affronted by the brush-off. “Let me sort through it with you.”

  “It’s just a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo, Jake. Real estate holdings, a few investments she had, letters from financial advisers and lawyers. All told, I bet it doesn’t amount to more than fifteen thousand dollars.”

  Jake’s reporter instincts ran circles around her answer. She could almost feel him peeling away the layers of her thinly disguised lie.

  “Then why wait until you’re 29? Why all the secrecy with the special-delivery letter and the lawyer and the key and all that?”

  Zoey put her finger to her temple and spun it in a small circle. “Like I’ve told you for years, she had a few chickens missing from the coop.”

  Jake held his tongue, waiting for more. He rested one hand on his hip and cocked his head expectantly.

  Zoey fell for it, even though he’d mentioned the reporter’s trick a hundred times: he who talks first loses. She lost.

  “Especially at the end of her life,” Zoey said. “Remember? Her stroke? She probably set this whole thing up then, thinking it was some great inheritance. It’s kind of sad, really. So please, can we just, uh…”

  Jake gave an audible hmph of understanding but his face indicated that he didn’t buy a word of her story. “So that’s it?” he said. “We’re done here?”

  She nodded, and Jake held out an arm toward the bank exit to indicate Ladies First.

  Zoey took a few tentative steps, but with Jake behind her, a shivery chill worked its way from the top of her spine to the core of her midsection, like a hug from the ice-cold dead. She trembled as he reached around from behind her to push the door open. Finally, with a hurried step to the outdoors, she spun on him.

  “Look, Jake,” she said.

  The expression she caught on his face gave her pause and her train of thought took a detour. He looked like a stranger, like someone she might avoid in a dark parking lot. His detached, edgy manner almost frightened her.

  “Yes… Zoey?”

  She hated the way he added her name on, making it sound pointed and accusing.

  Clutching the envelope more tightly, she spread her fingers over it as if to cover the contents from his prying eyes. “It’s all been too much for me today. And last night. I mean, my God, we haven’t even talked today about the fact that I’m pregnant.”

  “I know.”

  Again, dismissive detachment, as if those were the final words on the subject. Zoey couldn’t live in this limbo state another second, not with foretold death threats hanging over her. She lashed out. “You know, in the last twenty-four hours, I got hit with the news that I might be the product of a rape, and that I might be getting stalked again. Then I’ve had to deal with this safe-deposit thing, which may have turned out to be anti-climactic—”

  “Did it now?”

  So he intended to let his anger over the safe deposit box usurp their discussion of the pregnancy? No way. Zoey might not be able to see the future, but she could predict the next few beats of their conversation. As much as she didn’t want to play the crazy card again, she didn’t see any other choice. She could be where she wanted in a few short moves.

  “My mother specifically requested that I not show this stuff to anyone until I consulted with a lawyer.”

  “Seems to me she would have left it with a lawyer then. Matter of fact, we just came from a lawyer’s office to retrieve this supposed legal mumbo-jumbo, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, well the insane don’t always make the most rational decisions, do they?”

  Jake relented slightly. She saw it when his eyes dropped to the ground for a moment and his confident posture lost one degree of its self-assuredness.

  “So this trip ended up being a bust,” she said. “And whether or not my father was really my father, I guess we’ll find out, but we’ve still got a huge issue on our plate… bit of a looming iceberg that the captain refuses to acknowledge. Care to talk about it… Captain?”

  “You want the truth?”

  “Yes.” Her answer came with a twinge of guilt since her own dealings with truth in the last few minutes had ridden a slippery slope.

  Jake laid it out straight. “I can’t be a good father. I won’t be.”

  Zoey had been so preoccupied with Jake’s silence on the issue that she hadn’t considered the impact his answer might have. Words were his life; he tended to use them sparingly, and those he did use carried significance. His final sentence—I won’t be—could be interpreted two ways; she was certain that subtlety hadn’t escaped him.

  Her right hand trembled in a fight against her own will as she wanted nothing more than to slap him across the face. Jake then thrust his chin out as if daring her to make the move, and the silent standoff lasted several seconds. Jake broke it this time. “We need to talk about this,
but later. There’s more going on here than you know, and I just—”

  “You just what, Jake?” The words shot out through her taut lips. “If you think there’s a decision about this baby, there isn’t. I’ve—”

  “Is that right? You think you know our future?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if anyone does.”

  “This might shock you, Zo, but you don’t know everything about me.”

  Zoey let that comment sink deep within her. “And whose fault would that be, Jake?”

  Her defiant tone left her feeling unsettled, but she held her ground. Perhaps the defensive ferocity belonged to the mother she was destined to become—if she could stay alive.

  “I’ve got some things...” Jake said, letting his voice trail off.

  She stepped closer to him, sensing an opening. “Then tell me.”

  Jake’s inhalations grew stilted, like an outside force was breathing for him against his will. “I don’t even know what…”

  Zoey finished the sentence for him in her head: …what you’re capable of? Is it murder?

  “Listen,” Jake pleaded as he dared to reach a hand over to Zoey’s arm, then seemed relieved that she let it stay there. “This world, it’s so… so cruel. Once you have a kid, it’s like an extension of yourself. You’re putting a part of you out there in the world, but you can’t do anything to protect it. Every time that part gets hurt, or injured, or—”

  “Or what, Jake?”

  Tears fell from his eyes.

  “What is it?” she said.

  He wiped his face harshly with the back of his sleeve. “If you have this baby, you’re putting part of me out there in the world.”

  “I’m putting part of us out there in the world.”

  He glared at her, his wet eyes refracting the light that bounced off the buildings, making their near-hypnotic power even more potent. “You can’t,” he said. “It’s too risky.”

  The impact of his statement hit Zoey like a blow to the head. Jake wasn’t eliminating himself from the picture by abandoning Zoey and the baby. He was implying something more dire—that he couldn’t even allow for the existence of the baby.

  Zoey clutched the envelope to her chest. How could her perception of Jake change so drastically within ten minutes of reading the letter? Fate had suggested the possibility of an alternate Jake and just as quickly, he’d revealed that facet of himself. Had this other side always been present? Had she been blind to it? Or was paranoia twisting her perceptions? She couldn’t deal with this situation right now. She whipped around and raced away from him with a bitter mix of fear and determination. “I need to be alone,” she shouted back at him.

  “Zoey, wait! We need to figure out what we’re going to do.” He ran to catch up with her until he matched her stride for stride.

  “There’s nothing to do, Jake.”

  He grabbed her by the arm and spun her to face him. He seemed to be making an effort to contain himself. With unexpected calm, he said, “Let’s go home. Ride with me. We need rest, and we need to talk.”

  “I’ve got things to take care of here,” Zoey said.

  “What? Legal things? Mumbo-jumbo?” A mocking tone filled his voice.

  “Yes.” She didn’t care how obvious her lies were; she wasn’t about to get in a car with him at the wheel. Yanking her arm free, she ran the remaining block and a half to Jake’s car while he trailed her in silence. She entered the keyless code on his driver-side door, clicked all the doors open, and removed her suitcase from his trunk.

  “What are you going to do now?” Jake said, fed up. “Stand here in the middle of the street like a homeless person?”

  Zoey did feel a little ridiculous, but she refused to let him see it. She extended the handle on her suitcase and wheeled it to the corner. As she peered down the street trying to catch sight of a cab, Jake’s hand covered hers on the handle of the luggage—not in a gentle way.

  “Get in the car,” he commanded.

  “Screw you.”

  “I didn’t drive all the way down here for this,” he said.

  “I didn’t ask you to. You talk about being here for me, but I guess that’s only when it’s convenient for you.”

  He whipped his hand away and stormed back to the car. “I can’t believe you. Handle it like this then.”

  “As opposed to how you’re handling it? Running away and then reappearing when you feel like it, all the while shutting down any possibility for a normal future?”

  The fury in Jake’s body showed in every popping vein and contracted muscle in his arms, head, and neck. His balled fists looked ready to knock down anyone that dared venture in his path. Zoey made a mental note to remember this rage that had seemed to overtake him so easily.

  “Get. In. The. Car.” Every word fought its way out of his mouth and into the strained atmosphere of tension lurking between them.

  Zoey raised her hand toward the street. A cabbie on the intersecting road spotted her and made a quick U-turn to grab the fare.

  “Zoey, you get in that cab and you’ll regret it. I still want a life with you.” The sentiment might have sounded kind except for the subtle emphasis on the last two words. Zoey heard it for what it was—another implication that the baby wasn’t part of the deal. She wheeled around to face him. Her roiling emotions blocked out logical thought as she experienced the blinding anger that surely accompanied all crimes of passion. Her words spat out at him like bullets firing straight from her soul. “I’m a package deal now, Jake! The whole damn shebang! I can’t believe the time I’ve wasted on you.”

  Vaguely aware that her next action held ominous consequences, she watched the fingers of her right hand rip the engagement ring off her left hand. She whipped it at Jake. The satisfaction of the deed fulfilled her, but the clank of the ring as it hit the car windshield snapped her back to the certainty of what she’d just done.

  She gasped. A fear, measurable only in the degrees of tightness that gripped her chest, consumed her as she watched the blue sapphire ricochet off the glass and settle on the edge of the road. The cab pulled up at that moment and a small Asian driver gave a friendly toot as he opened his door and got out to grab her suitcase.

  “Going to the airport, Miss?” he said with a mild accent.

  Zoey jerked her head to him with no idea of her immediate destination. She could barely remember why a cab was there at all. The impact of her ring removal took its toll on her psyche, and she knew only one thing. The ring had to get back on her finger or else the foretelling would carry more weight. And she needed to put it back on while making sense of it all to Jake. She turned back around to look for the ring.

  It was gone. The place where it had landed stood empty. Her terrified eyes drifted up to Jake who held the ring like a threat between his thumb and forefinger, his knuckles turning white with all the resentment raging inside him. He shook his head at her and his nostrils flared. Then he spun on his heels, got in the car, and sped off down the street, his tires squealing.

  “Ready to go, Miss? Airport?”

  Zoey turned blindly toward the cab. She climbed into the back seat through the door held open by the driver. “Amelia, please. I need to go to Amelia.”

  “Airport not in Amelia, Miss.”

  Zoey looked at the envelope clutched in her hand.

  “No, but Dora Santorini is.”

  Chapter 18

  Amelia, Virginia

  The quaint county of Amelia remained one of the few in central Virginia that had fought hard and won to maintain its charm. No superstores overwhelmed its neatly manicured town center. No supertrailers crowded the local school. People still knew each other by name, and even the youngest children knew the histories—good and bad—of each Victorian or A-Frame home. They still stood after a century, having withstood endless coats of paint and more repairs than a NASCAR driver’s fastest fleet.

  The only sure thing that changed was the people. And even then, they were the same people, just older a
nd more experienced. Their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren wandered to far-flung places in the world, but often returned to settle down and raise a family or fade into peaceful retirement.

  One of the families traced its origins to immigrant workers who toiled on a 500-acre dairy farm, tending to crops and cows and combines. After earning their full citizenship, they worked their way to ownership of their own farm in Amelia proper. Eventually, the family welcomed the addition of Dora Santorini, a charming granddaughter born to the second son of the fourth daughter. By the age of fourteen, Dora was enthusiastically earning her own keep through babysitting and house cleaning. By eighteen, far too impatient for additional schooling, she had moved to Richmond, forty minutes and a world away. She knew where the rich people lived and she won them over quickly and easily. Her natural ability to delight children shined through, because nothing in life gave Dora greater pleasure than the smile of a happy child. She served as a nanny for a wealthy, politically-connected family for 15 years. When their children outgrew her—for she never outgrew them—friends and acquaintances of the original employer fought for her services. She’d never had trouble finding work.

  At age 60, after a 35-year marriage, four miscarriages, and constant employment, she buried her husband, a moderately successful pool builder, and took one last assignment as a favor to a previous employer. The position would be for a young mother who’d had a stroke. Dora protested that the tragedy of the situation would be too much for her to bear, but then she made the mistake of meeting the child. Little Kyra Collette had stolen her heart immediately and had maintained permanent residence there ever since. But after the awful foretelling, Dora vowed to never again become attached to a child, save for her own grandnieces and grandnephews, of course, and she’d stuck to it.

  Still spry at 89, except for the arthritis in her knees and hands, she nevertheless lost track of the date now and then. Actually, she didn’t dare admit it, but she sometimes lost track of the month. With her days in a settled routine, she only occasionally needed reminding that she was late to meet a friend for their Tuesday breakfast, or that Friday night meant bridge with her church group. But she needed no reminders last night when she awoke after midnight in a cold sweat from a nightmare. She knew the date exactly, and it filled her with dread: April 27th. Kyra’s 29th birthday.