“We’re to be married. There can be no secrets between us. Which is why I must speak with you now. It concerns your brother.”
“Yes?”
“When was the last time you saw Piero?”
“We had an argument three days ago. He’s been avoiding me since then. My mother says he hasn’t been home. He’s with Naddo, I suppose.”
“He is with Naddo. But I’m afraid they’re no longer in Florence.”
“Where did they go?”
“I do not know. No one does, and that is a very good thing.”
“Why?” Beatrice asked cautiously, not certain she wanted to hear the truth.
Adam turned to her. His icy fingers gripped her bare hands. “They were going to be arrested, Beatrice. The city’s leaders know about their relationship. Piero fled Florence with Naddo. He asked me to say goodbye to you.”
A stabbing pain made Beatrice jerk a hand free and clutch her stomach. “You spoke to him?” she managed to ask.
“I went to see him. I wanted to end the animosity between us. He agreed, and he shared his secret with me.”
“But how will they survive?” Beatrice moaned.
“They have everything they need,” the young man assured his fiancée. “I gave them more money than they can spend in a year. Your brother is very resourceful, and Naddo will always ensure that he says the right thing.”
Beatrice watched the murky waters flow away from the city toward the sea. She knew she would never see her brother again.
“The men who have done this to my brother must pay,” she said. “I want you to make them suffer.”
“They will,” he told her. “And very soon indeed.”
“THAT WASN’T WHAT I wanted to see!” Haven blurted out before she was fully awake. “It’s what you wanted to show me. You’re trying to make me doubt myself! I already know Adam and Beatrice were engaged. I’ve known from the very beginning. I need to see Naddo, not Adam!”
Phoebe peeled off her mask. “Tell me about your vision.”
“Adam told Beatrice that her brother and Naddo had fled the city.”
“You’re right,” Phoebe agreed flatly. “That doesn’t sound like the vision you need to have.”
“I’m sick of all this!” Haven raged. “You obviously don’t care whether I find Naddo or not. What is it that you want me to see, Phoebe?”
“If I knew, I would tell you,” Phoebe responded. “Beatrice never explained why she decided not to sell her soul.”
A snippet from a recent dream began playing in Haven’s head. A small blonde girl screaming at Beatrice. A child who masqueraded as the daughter of a servant. “Wait a second. You were there too, weren’t you, Phoebe? In Florence. I’ve dreamed about you. You were just a little girl back then.”
Phoebe regarded Haven with something close to respect. “Yes. I was there, as were my sisters. We were the ones who led the magos to Beatrice. All you had to do was follow our instructions, and humankind would have been free of him. But you betrayed us. The magos gave you everything you wanted, and you refused to listen to our warnings. But then something happened. Your brother disappeared with his lover. We don’t know exactly what took place in the days that followed Piero’s death, but we do know that you witnessed something that turned you against the magos. Whatever it was, you need to see it again.”
“Why?” Haven demanded. “I’ve already agreed to help you.”
The respect on Phoebe’s face was replaced by a look of distaste. “We’ve been seeking your assistance for centuries, Haven. You never made it easy for us. You would betray us again in a heartbeat if we gave you the chance.”
Haven’s face began to burn. She couldn’t let Phoebe see she was right. “I can prove that I’m willing to help. You need a new place to put Adam. Well, I’ve found one. It’s in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.”
“I wish that were an option, but we can’t kill the magos.”
“That’s not what I mean. Adam used to keep six bodies in that mansion near the Ouroboros Society. My bodies. Now he’s decided to lay them to rest. He had a mausoleum constructed in Green-Wood Cemetery. It’s built into the side of a hill, not far from a lake. It wouldn’t take much to convince him to give me a tour of the place. And while we were there, you could lock him inside.”
Phoebe considered the proposition. “I will send Chandra and Cleo to look for your tomb in the morning,” she said. “Tonight I shall attend the Society’s gathering. Like you, I am only prepared to believe what I see with my own two eyes. You tell me the magos is convinced of your love? If you have completed the task we set, I will know.”
“Spy on me all you like, Phoebe. Show me whatever horrible thing you want me to see. But I’m not going to help you imprison Adam until I have the vision that will help me find Beau.”
“Yes, you and your friend have made that perfectly clear. Now tell me: How do you know the girl you brought here today?”
“I grew up with her,” Haven said. “She went to school with me and Beau.”
“She sees the future, doesn’t she?”
“You should ask Leah yourself,” Haven said.
“I’m asking you, Haven.”
“And I’m not saying anything.”
“These games must stop!” The water tower shook with the force of Phoebe’s fury. “If Leah is the one, you’ve been brought together for a reason. This is a development that I never anticipated.”
“Like I said, Phoebe, you’ll just have to ask Leah.”
Phoebe rose and opened the tower door. “So let’s find her,” she snarled.
Inside the council room, Leah was still wearing her winter coat. The chamber was scorching hot, but the girl hadn’t broken a sweat. Haven suddenly remembered seeing ten-year-old Leah climb off a school bus in the middle of a snowstorm wearing only a T-shirt and skirt. And one summer, she’d arrived at the Snope City public pool in a woolly sweater that would have fit a grown man. A gang of swim-suited boys had gathered to harass the strange girl. Beau stepped in to defend her, and a fight ensued. But Leah just sat in the sun, paying less attention to the scuffle than she had to the weather.
Haven thought back to the night Adam had left his coat behind when they went for a walk. The way Phoebe bore the swelter inside the water tower. They didn’t feel heat or cold the way others did. Now Haven understood why the Horae took Leah so seriously. She couldn’t be fully human. She had to be one of them.
“You see what you wanted to see?” Leah asked Haven.
“No, not yet,” Haven said, looking at the girl through new eyes.
“Then I guess we’ll be on our way,” Leah told Phoebe. “It sure was nice to meet y’all.”
“Wait!” Phoebe barked, then softened her tone. “Wait. Please.”
“Yeah?” Leah inquired.
“Do you have any idea who you are?” the old woman asked.
“Who?” Leah asked, though she didn’t seem to care.
“In each generation, there is a single woman who can see the future. Others may glimpse it from time to time, but there’s only one person able to give true prophecy. She comes to us in times of great trouble. For the past two millennia, we have called her the snake goddess.”
“Well, if there’s only one person who can see the future, I guess that would have to be me,” Leah said with a shrug. “But I’m no goddess. My abilities are a gift from the Lord.”
“What have you seen?” Phoebe demanded, her suspicion confirmed. “Something brought you here. What is it?”
Vera stepped forward. “We will do whatever you ask of us. But please tell us why your visions have led you here.”
“I’ll think about it and get back to ya’ll,” Leah told the Horae.
“When?” Phoebe asked.
“As soon as I’ve decided whether you really need to know. We’ll see you when it’s time for Haven’s next vision.”
No one dared stop them as they walked out of the house.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Leah,” said the girl as she shook hands with the older woman.
“A pleasure to meet you, Leah,” Frances said. “Please come in and make yourself at home in the living room. If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a quick chat with Haven.”
Frances’s eyes narrowed as Leah slipped down the hall.
“How do you know about the other night?” Haven asked, though it was the last thing she wanted to discuss. Beau was hurt. She hadn’t uncovered a single clue that might save him. And in a few short hours, she would be making her official debut as Adam Rosier’s girlfriend.
“Who do you think smuggled Iain into the hotel see you? He told me what he saw.”
“I can explain—” Haven started to say.
“And I’m just dying to hear what excuse you’ve cooked up.”
“But I can’t explain now, Frances. Just believe me when I tell you that it’s not what you think.”
“Oh, really? So you’re saying you didn’t kiss some man in the lobby of the Gramercy Gardens Hotel?”
Haven could feel her frustration growing. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to save Beau, Frances,” she said, though she knew that wasn’t strictly true. “Is Iain here? Can you tell him I’d like to talk to him? It’s important. Something’s happened to Beau.”
“Here?” Frances snorted. “No, Iain’s not here. I have no idea where he is, but if I were you, I’d warn that guy you were kissing to watch his back. Who is he, anyway?”
“Just a friend.”
“Yeah, I know all about friends,” Frances said. “My last ex-husband had quite a few of them. It’s just sad. I would give anything to have someone who looked at me the way Iain looks at you—like you’re the only other person in the universe.”
The sudden stab of guilt caught Haven unprepared. It was tempting to dismiss Frances’s words, but this time the hopeless romantic was right. Haven was Iain’s whole universe. But Haven’s universe now had a population of two. “I’m sorry, Frances. I never meant to disappoint you.”
“Don’t worry about me. Worry about Iain. Now who’s this girl you’ve brought to my house?”
“Her name is Leah Frizzell,” Haven said. “She’s an old friend of mine from Tennessee, and she needs a place to stay.”
“Is she . . . is she homeless?” The last word was whispered.
“She’s a physics major at Duke. She just dresses like she’s homeless.”
Frances looked around the entryway. “Did she bring a suitcase?”
“No,” Haven said. “She came up here in a hurry and slept in Union Square last night.” It wasn’t the best thing to tell Frances. “Look, if you’re worried, Iain could vouch for her too.”
“I’m not worried,” Frances said just as a large crash came from the living room.
Haven and Frances rushed to find Leah on the floor in front of the large window that looked out over the apartment’s terrace, her hands covering her eyes. Her fall had knocked a silver tea tray off a side table. Puddles of milk and half-brewed Earl Grey tea were seeping into an Oriental rug.
“Leah! What happened?” Haven yelped.
The girl slowly slid her hands from her eyes. Her face was as white as the milk on the floor. Haven had never seen Leah Frizzell frightened before. The girl’s terror was infectious.
“The bird,” she sputtered, pointing out the window. “Is it gone? I can’t look.”
Frances hurried over to peer outside. “I don’t see any birds,” she said.
“Is there anything . . .” Leah grimaced. “Is there anything out there on the terrace?”
“Like what?” Frances asked, watching the girl with a wary expression.
“You’d know what I’m talking about if it was still out there. I must have had a vision just now.”
“A vision?” Frances demanded.
“I saw a bird swoop down out of the sky. It was big, some sort of bird of prey. Like one of those hawks you see in the mountains. It had something in its mouth. Something green and rotten. It dropped it on the balcony outside the window. At first I thought it was a dead snake, but it wasn’t the right shape. So I looked closer, and I saw it was a hand. A lady’s hand.”
“A hand!” Frances exclaimed. The look she gave Haven said she was more scared of Leah than the scene the girl had just described.
“Then the bird came back. It landed beside the hand, and it started . . .”
Frances pulled Haven aside. “We need to call this girl an ambulance. She’s having some kind of hallucination. Do you think she’s on drugs?”
“Leah’s not high,” Haven said reluctantly. “She’s just seen the future.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Adam had come to collect her from the Gramercy Gardens Hotel. Haven paused by the elevator bank, smoothed her dress, and tried to calm her frazzled nerves. Only twenty minutes earlier, she’d leaped out of a taxi and sprinted up to her room. What she had expected to be a brief pit stop at Andorra apartments had ended up lasting too long. Haven had been forced to slip out, leaving too many of Frances Whitman’s questions unanswered.
Now she was watching Adam from a distance as he checked his reflection in a mirror in the hotel lobby. He straightened his bow tie and plucked imaginary lint from the sleeve of his tuxedo. He looked anxious, she thought, like any young man picking up a girl for a date. Haven waited for a wave of anxiety to pass before she commanded her feet to lead her across the lobby. Adam spun around to greet her, his black eyes gleaming. He didn’t speak, but his expression said everything.
“Hello, Adam.” Haven was wearing the red dress that had turned heads in the restaurant back in Florence. But tonight no one looked at her. It was as though they’d all been instructed to see nothing. As soon as she was close enough, Adam reached for her hand and delivered a soft kiss to her knuckles. The blood beneath Haven’s skin turned to ice. The sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
“I didn’t know if I would have the pleasure of your company tonight,” Adam said with the somber, reassuring manner of an undertaker. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s been a rather unfortunate turn of events.”
“I saw the photo.” The statement sounded flat. She still hadn’t cried.
Adam seemed to sense the despair buried deep inside her. “Commissioner Williams has assigned every officer the city can spare to the manhunt. I promised to triple his reward if Beau is located in the next twenty-four hours.”
“I knew you would take care of things,” Haven said, her voice growing hoarse. “I knew I wouldn’t need to ask.”
“I was worried when I didn’t hear from you, Haven. I can’t imagine how you must have felt when you saw that image.”
Tears filled Haven’s eyes for the first time that day. Most were for Beau, but a few fell for herself. “I felt helpless. I just wish there was something that I could do. I spent all day searching my few memories for clues. The man who hurt Beau is somewhere inside my own head, but I can’t find him no matter how hard I look.”
“I will find him for you,” Adam pledged.
“When you do, I don’t just want him arrested.” Haven paused to study Adam’s response, but his face showed no sign of disapproval. “I have twenty Society points. I want to hire someone to hurt him the way he hurt Beau.”
“There’s no need for you to use your points,” Adam responded, his meaning clear.
“Yes, there is. I want to be responsible. I want his blood on my hands, not yours.”
“Then I shall make a few calls on your behalf. Beau’s assailant will pay dearly for what he’s done.”
The words conjured the last scene in Florence that Haven had witnessed. She wiped her eyes. “You said something similar a long time ago. I had a vision of one of my past
lives this afternoon. I saw the two of us together in another life. You and me.”
Adam stiffened, as if bracing himself for bad news. “I hope you weren’t frightened by what you saw. The past . . .”
Haven took his hand again and squeezed it gently. “I trusted you then, and I trust you now. And as soon as we save Beau, maybe I won’t need to think about the past anymore.” Did she really mean it? she wondered.
“I promise that day will come soon,” Adam said, using Haven’s hand to pull her even closer. “I will take care of everything.” She could feel his cool breath on the nape of her neck. His skin smelled of delicate white flowers that grow in the shade. They were all Haven had ever remembered of her very first life on the island of Crete.
Haven carefully eased him back. “There’s one more favor I’d like to ask.”
“Anything,” Adam said. “From this moment on, you shall have anything you desire.”
“After we find Beau, will you show me the mausoleum you built? I would like a chance to say goodbye to the past once and for all.”
Adam blinked. “I think that would be a splendid idea. I’ll take you there whenever you’re ready. Just give me the word.”
“Thank you, Adam.” Haven forced her lips into a brave smile. “Now, I believe there’s a party waiting for us?”
“Are you certain you’re feeling well enough? After today’s events, I would not be offended—”
“To be honest, I could use the distraction,” Haven assured him.
Adam nodded. “Then it shall be my pleasure to provide it.”
ACROSS THE PARK from the hotel, the windows of the Ouroboros Society were blazing. A line of black town cars crawled along Gramercy Park South, each braking in front of the mansion’s steps to disgorge its fashionable passengers. As Haven and Adam strolled alongside the wrought-iron gate, the lights of a passing car briefly lit one corner of the park. Adam showed no sign that he’d seen the figure huddled by the trunk of a sycamore tree. But Haven was certain that the woman she’d glimpsed had been Padma Singh. When she tried to peer through the darkness, the specter melted into the shadows.
All You Desire Page 27