Foretold (A Ghost Gifts Novel Book 2)

by Laura Spinella

  “Belleau Wood . . .” She yanked open the third drawer, snatching up the journals that noted Pete’s dreams and random phrases he uttered. She flipped through, page after page. Then it began. For nearly two years, until Pete left to live with Levi, her son had said words she’d transcribed as “Blue Wood.” Palm up, Aubrey stared at the World War I memento in her left hand, touching the words on the page with her right index finger. “That’s what Pete was saying, Belleau Wood.” Aubrey put down the notebook and closed her fingers around the medal.

  Like a ghost gift, it radiated heat, but it was more than this as the coppery, aged keepsake began to elicit a vibration. Pete felt closer now than since the moment he’d gone missing. Aubrey concentrated harder, feeling like she somehow held a piece of Pete’s past in her hand. Frustration mounted; she couldn’t make it connect to the present situation and what might have become of her son.

  With the medal still in hand, she looked in her own drawer—the notebook drawer. Typically, Aubrey “keepsakes” resided in her box of ghost gifts. But not everything. At the bottom of the drawer was a gold velvet pouch with a black silk drawstring. “Of course.” In front of her was the thing she’d searched for all night—a physical connection to Zeke. She placed the medal on the window seat and opened the pouch. Into her hand spilled a necklace with a teardrop pearl. She held it up to dappled sunlight, where it spun with fascination, not unlike Zeke. She remembered what he told her years ago: “Look at the necklace and think of me.”

  She did.

  The scent of wandering and lure flooded the room like a wall of lilacs, full bloom. She could feel Zeke invade her life, not so different from all those years ago. “Zeke!” Aubrey leaped to her feet while holding tight to the necklace. His voice reverberated through her body and the surrounding space.

  “You’ve found a piece of Pete’s past. But it’s not the puzzle piece you need, sweetheart. Not right now. Rummaging through those drawers, you’re getting colder . . . not warmer. Come back to them later.”

  It was standard Zeke talk, his words almost a riddle. Aubrey heard footsteps, but they were wholly human: Levi thundering up the stairs. She held her hand up as he appeared in the doorway. Levi gripped the frame and stayed on the hallway side; he needed no further clarification to know Zeke had turned up.

  “Please,” she said. “Just tell me what you know about Pete. Where is he?” While Zeke’s presence was strong, Levi was a natural threat. She turned toward the window. Aubrey could feel the flannel fabric, smell the singular scent of Zeke’s skin. Coffee, so much coffee. The bitter, lingering taste of cigarettes clashing with the scent of the outdoors. Little electrical pulses forever tangled with her life burst through Aubrey and connected to Zeke. He’d come to finish what he’d promised, to help her. “Zeke?” She turned back to Levi. He remained silent and at a distance, an attempt to be a lesser presence than the man he was. Nothing moved, nothing the human eye could detect. Zeke stood behind Aubrey, the ghostly touch of his hands penetrating her shoulders, traveling through her body.

  The connection they shared had found its purpose. With a gentle nudge, Zeke prodded her toward the dresser. Before moving, Aubrey closed her eyes and tipped her head, feeling the touch of his. Zeke whispered: “The answer’s in there. Like father, like daughter . . . you’ve known where to find Pete since you were five. You wrote it down yourself.”

  No other message filtered in, but a massive pull of energy was evident, and Aubrey’s eyes drew wide as her father’s letter box glided steadily across the cherry dresser. She’d never seen anything like it, but she’d never encountered a spirit so connected to both her and the other side. Like the grifter he was, Zeke used every bit of his soul—whether man or ghost—to sustain survival. And now he was doing the same for Pete’s.

  The letter box moved like a fingertip pushed it. It was only inches, but as soon as it stopped, Zeke’s presence began to wane. Aubrey felt it—as clearly as she could hear his voice, taste coffee and cigarettes, smell the outdoors, sense the feel of worn flannel. His presence transformed from a heavy shroud to a thin, gauzy curtain to naked, empty air. “Zeke?” Aubrey’s voice shook, the force of her old friend, first love, spiraling into the distance, into a sense of loss.

  Levi charged forward. It was as if he and Zeke traded both places and heartbeats. His hands were around Aubrey’s shoulders now, firm and present, just like they’d been for the past dozen years.

  “What did he tell you?” Levi’s voice hushed through the silence. “What does he know about Pete that we don’t?”

  A trace of laughter gurgled from Aubrey—nerves and astonishment; she brushed at a tear. “Zeke said I’ve had the answer to where Pete is since I was five. How can that be? My father, until recently, he’s the one who—”

  “Had the gift of predicting the future.”

  Levi moved his hands from her shoulders to around her body. Her hands clasped over his. They stood like one person, staring at the letter box. “But is that what my father did—literally?” She broke from their unified hold and turned, making hard eye contact. “Think about it. Peter Ellis never really predicted the future.”

  “He wrote down information given to him.” Levi looked past Aubrey’s shoulder, to the box. “He was a conduit, a transcriber, a note taker.” He stepped to the dresser and retrieved the letter box, delivering it to Aubrey. She opened the lid. Light penetrated clouds, a narrow, streaming line aimed at the letter box. “Aubrey, maybe he wasn’t the only one.”

  Pieces of the past gathered in the present. Her fingertips rose to her mouth as she realized the box contained more than her father’s ghost gifts. “Last night, do you remember me talking about a vague memory? My father and me, we were sitting at a little red table.”

  “You said this letter box was there too. It was the first time you recalled it being anywhere but the top of a closet.”

  She looked from the box to Levi. “But it was there, with us at the table. I’m sure of it.” Aubrey plucked the pieces of green construction paper from the letter box, two of a few ghost gifts that differed. She could almost see the little hairs stand up on the back of Levi’s neck. “Levi, if that’s true, which one of us—my father or me—would have written a forecast about the future on construction paper?”

  “I’m guessing the little girl. The one who already had glue . . . and scissors and crayons in her hand.”

  “I wrote these predictions, Levi. I drew the picture of Santa Claus . . . the stick houses . . . wrote the word ‘Springfield’ in crayon.”

  “And that would mean . . .”

  “I captured the clues that led us to Piper’s missing boys. Not my father. So if that’s true, if I was the one who wrote on the green construction, it probably means I . . .”

  Parental gazes clashed, and they spoke in unison. “Made the blue star!” Levi let go of the letter box, which thudded to the floor, ghost gifts wafting everywhere. Captured in his left hand was a five-pointed paper star. Drawn on it were ocean waves in the foreground, and on one point, a sticklike house with a red roof. A bright yellow sun sat center. The word “SUN” was spelled out. The word was underlined over and over—enough so a hole broke through when Levi handled it once again. It was just like the clue she’d captured regarding Lily North’s whereabouts, drawing a line under the Edsel until the pressure pierced through the paper.

  Aubrey felt as if her heart were beating outside her chest. She couldn’t focus, grasping frantically for a connection between what was on the blue star and what had happened to Pete. She took the paper from Levi and closed her eyes, relying on self-preservation and cold wit. It was a battle—the urge to panic, scream, tear apart at the seams, the frustration and inability to decipher a ghost gift she’d written herself. The only thing that kept turning over in her mind was the advice a couple of ghosts had given: “Zeke . . . even Eli, they both indicated that finding Pete would take both of us. I thought it was metaphorical.”

  “You think it’s literal?”

&
nbsp; “I think it’s both.” She felt the paper slip from her fingers. Aubrey opened her eyes, her mind pounding and panicking. Levi’s fingertips touched the paper. It went against instinct, but Aubrey had the urge to hand it to him, for him to hold it. “Levi, does the drawing mean anything to you?”

  “No. I . . .” Then he was quiet, his stare so intense she thought it might light the paper on fire.

  “Focus,” she said, grappling to convey the mental stream of consciousness she used when connecting elements from this world to the next. “Think beyond what your eyes see. Think how an artist would view a scene and then interpret it onto a canvas.”

  He looked between her and the paper, his brow nearly twisting inside out. “This place. I’ve been here.”

  “You’ve been there?” Aubrey pointed to the drawing her five-year-old self had made decades before. “A sun-filled common stick drawing of a house from when I was five?” She started again, channeling Levi logic. “Break it down, just like you would any story. When . . . why were you there?”

  Short breaths hustled in and out of Levi; Aubrey guessed he was mentally pursuing pieces of the biggest story he’d ever chased. Finally, he looked at Aubrey. “When I was with Dan. The swamp in Maine, the dead John Doe . . .”

  “Zeke.”

  “Zeke,” he said. “I was focused on what was in front of me. But the cove, it’s formed from beryl rock. It has a blue hue. The cove also has edges . . . points . . .”

  “Like a star? Like this piece of paper?”

  “Not from eye level . . . or swamp level, but land definitely jutted out at several angles. It’s this house, Aubrey, there’s one with a red roof. I don’t know who owns it, but—”

  “Oh my God! The sun,” she said, pointing to the arrow on the star. “I meant S-O-N.”

  “That’s why it’s crooked.” Levi smiled. “It doesn’t point to the sun you drew.”

  “It points to the house.”

  “Five Points at Blue Cove. The overall development belongs to the Serinos. It makes sense: if Jude Serino truly believed you possess your father’s gift . . .”

  “And Zeke swore he did.”

  “If he made enough enemies, was responsible for enough gambling losses, which Zeke also told you, Jude wouldn’t come right at you. He’d go for leverage.”

  “He’d take the one thing that would guarantee my cooperation.”

  Aubrey’s fingers flitted across her forehead. “A prediction.” She looked down at the letter box, the ghost gifts that had come to pass scattered at their feet. “And while Jude could have taken Pete anywhere on earth . . .”

  They each held a point of the blue star, an abstract thing on which their world suddenly balanced. “We have a map, thanks to you,” Levi said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It wasn’t long before a caravan of agents was racing up Interstate 95. The team naturally included Piper, who’d accommodated Levi’s request, asking Agent Watney and his team to assist. They assembled and were briefed as one unit on a singular mission.

  Physical evidence had amassed, which included identifying the owner of the red-tin-roof house, perched on a point of blue beryl rock. As Levi predicted, it belonged to Jude Serino, and it was located not far from Dan Watney’s John Doe. It ratcheted up intrigue, and evidence continued to fall in their favor: analysis on the cigar band had determined a partial fingerprint. It belonged to Jude Serino, whose prints were on file due to federal and state regulations regarding casino ownership. While it wasn’t a direct connection to Pete’s abduction, the house did make Jude a suspect in the quest for answers regarding Zeke Dublin’s whereabouts. As for further earthly evidence regarding Pete, Dan’s team struck gold with a traffic light camera about a block away from the defunct rubber factory. Footage revealed a dark van hurriedly exiting the area on the day Pete disappeared, the license plates registered to Serino Enterprises. It was more than enough to provide the entire entourage with probable cause.

  As the procession of vehicles approached a staging area, Aubrey sat nervously in the back seat of a government SUV. Levi sat beside her, his hands knotted so tightly they were pure white. Clutched in her hands was a blue paper star with a drawing of a house, and an even clearer photograph. The photo had been taken hours before by the Coast Guard; it revealed a red-roofed house hidden from roadside passersby. The aerial view validated Levi and Aubrey’s conclusion: the cove, indeed, looked like a five-pointed star—a shape that only could be seen from the heavens.

  As cars came to a halt and doors opened, Aubrey was startled to find Jack Hanlin standing five feet away. Her former interrogator offered a steel-chin nod of respect. Interesting how circumstances could change.

  The team took its final instructions from Piper, and it was Jack who volunteered to wait with Aubrey and Levi. Initially, he was all business, finally saying to her, “I don’t claim to get everything that happened that day, back at the tower. Your, um . . . your communication with Shaun . . . Cairo . . . my canine . . .” Jack paused to listen to radio checkpoint reports. “Know that in the end, your bad day brought me peace—the kind I never thought I’d have again.” He eyeballed Aubrey like he’d done in the basement interrogation room. “We’ll get your son back. It’s what we do. I’m thankful for the opportunity to pay it forward.” He said nothing else, assuming a defensive position several yards in front of Aubrey and Levi.

  It’d taken the collective convincing of the federal team players to keep Aubrey and Levi at bay, about a hundred yards from the house. When the wind gusted, tiny snips of the red roof were visible through a thicket of tall pines. Together, they stood on guard near the SUV. A half mile behind them was local law enforcement, an ambulance—any backup assistance that might be needed. A myriad of thoughts spun through Aubrey’s head. She grabbed on to a comforting one, a long-ago connection that gave her hope, maybe the ability to cope in the moment. “I remember,” she said to Levi, her breath hanging on chilly Maine air.

  “Remember what?”

  “That day.” Aubrey spoke, knowing if the wedge in her throat grew any larger, talking would be impossible. “Sitting at the table with my father; it wasn’t unusual. Maybe that’s why it didn’t stand out. He’d often sit with me. Sometimes he’d just be an adult at craft time with his daughter. But there were other times . . . his head would jolt up; his eyes would go wide . . .”

  “Like he heard a voice?”

  She nodded. “He’d bolt from the chair. You could see his discomfort—or I could, even at five. It was like he was trying to escape whatever he heard. He’d go away from the table. When he came back, he’d have a scrap of paper in his hand, a pen or pencil. Sometimes he’d pick up a crayon. Then he’d start writing furiously. He’d smile at me. ‘It’s like medicine, Aubrey. The quicker I get it down, the faster it’s done. For a little while, it’ll be okay.’” Aubrey focused on the distance, but the memories wouldn’t ease. “Sometimes he’d ask, ‘Did you hear that?’” She shrugged. “I’d say no and show him what I was making or drawing. I never thought anything of it. Most days it was so early, hours before my mother was up. I’d be in my pajamas—wide awake from the conversation I’d had with a specter in my bedroom.

  “The morning I made that blue star . . . my father knew. I remember. He asked why I’d drawn it.” Teary eyes blinked at Levi. “I said, ‘Because she told me to . . .’” Aubrey’s jaw slacked; her next thought lit a dark corner of her mind. “It was a young woman . . . her name was . . . Esmerelda. She said I should keep the star safe until I needed it.”

  “Esmerelda?” Levi frowned. He inched forward and back. It was the nervous pacing of a parent caught between terror and finite space. He squinted in the direction of the house. “I don’t suppose she confided to you how this whole thing turns out?”

  “Unfortunately, the prognostication did not come with a postscript. At least none that I recall. But my father, he took the star from me. I imagine he put it in his letter box for safekeeping.”

  “It’s w
hy he sent it ahead, to Charley, before he and your mother died. He knew. He knew you were making a prognostication, just like him. Aubrey, you understand what this all means, right?”

  “It means I’ve always had a gift like my father’s.” She pointed toward a house that they could see better in a stick drawing than through the trees. “I guess it just didn’t make itself known until I needed it most.”

  “Exactly. And that part of his gift . . . your gift, it may very well get us our son back. So for all the turmoil it’s caused . . .”

  “It might end up being the most incredible gift ever.”

  “I’ll go one prediction further. I don’t believe it will ever do to you what it did to your father. You’re too in control. You’ve proven it. Do you believe that?”

  “For myself . . . yes.” Forty-six years of immersion—while Aubrey could not account for every avenue of her gift, she did see herself as the more dominant force. “Assuming we get Pete—”

  “When we get Pete back.”

  “When,” she said, counting hard on Levi’s own tenacious will. “I’m not worried about me, how this rebooted piece of my gift will affect my future. Not anymore. It’s the unknowns in Pete’s life.”

  “We’ll handle them.” He squeezed her hand. “Just like old Eli said—together.”

  The waiting and natural sounds—distant ocean moving and seagulls squawking from above—seemed to offer an opening. “Levi, early this morning, I was looking through the storage bins beneath the window seat. I found a World War I medal. I need . . . I think I should tell you about it, and how I believe it ties to Pete’s dreams.”

  Minutes moved at a glacial pace, and Aubrey was unable to hold her position any longer. Moments before that, she’d heard a fast exchange between Jack Hanlin and another agent, something about going radio silent until they’d breached the target. “Copy that” had been his only response.