The Fortune Teller(36)

Without turning around again, she grabbed her things and hurried to the exit. But right as she was leaving, she couldn’t resist the urge to look one more time.

The man’s seat was empty.





Eight of Swords

Semele hit the street running, besieged by questions.

Had he been following her since Switzerland? Did he know where she lived? And how the hell had Ionna known?

Semele felt more than a little crazy, but Ionna had warned her. There was no way she could deny it.

Glancing over her shoulder, she scanned the street. She saw no evidence of the man. But still, she was afraid to go home. She fished her phone out and hit the second name at the top of her favorites. Calling Bren was out of the question.

Cabe answered on the last ring before the call went to voice mail. “Hey, stranger.”

“Hey. Can I come over now?”

“Sure. Everything okay?” he asked.

Semele took a breath and tried to keep the tremor from her voice. “Stressful day.” That was putting it mildly. “I’ll explain later.”

“I’ve got my award-winning pasta going. Come on over.”

“Great, see you in a bit.” She hung up.

Cabe lived about a fifteen-minute walk from her place in Brooklyn. She would go to his apartment and then figure out what to do. They’d been planning to catch up since she’d gotten back, and they would have already set a dinner date if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with Ionna’s manuscript.

*

Semele rang the bell to Cabe’s building, out of breath from her demented-looking power walk down the street. She glanced up and down the block again, clutching the bottle of cabernet she had bought at the liquor store around the corner like a weapon. Cabe buzzed her in and she ducked inside, relieved to be behind a locked door. She made her way to his apartment at the end of the hall, where the smell of garlic greeted her.

Cabe swung his door open and she held out the bottle of wine. “For the chef.”

“Graci! Buongiorno, buongiorno…,” he said in a flurry and disappeared into the kitchen. “Step into my house,” he called out with a bad Italian accent.

Semele took off her shoes in the tiny entryway and squeezed past Cabe’s ten-speed. The chain on the bike scratched her leg as she brushed past. She looked at the run in her stockings and grimaced.

“I hate your bike.” She padded the five steps into the closet-sized kitchen. “Smells amazing.”

Cabe poured her a glass from the bottle he had already opened. “Cheers.” They clinked glasses and he continued stirring the bubbling Bolognese.

“Ooh, this one’s nice,” she said, tasting it again. “Oliver?” His brother, Oliver, was a sommelier in the Hamptons and always sent Cabe a case of his current favorite for his birthday. Semele took another sip and nibbled on a piece of aged Gouda he had put out on a board.

Slowly, the trauma of the past hour began to loosen its grip. For now she was safe. She could worry about the man later—right now, she wanted to pretend her life was normal. She was hungry and the wine and cheese tasted delicious. She took another sip, moving the velvety red across her tongue. Cabe had made one of her favorite salads, an arugula, candied-walnut confection with feta and aged balsamic.

“Were you already cooking all this before I called?” She asked. He had quite the gourmet spread going.

Cabe shot her a pointed look. “Raina may stop by.”

Semele’s jaw dropped in horror. Raina was coming here? “Tonight? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What, you can’t eat together?”

“I’d prefer not to!”

Cabe stopped cooking. “You know, I’ve been trying to be cool about this little aversion you’ve got toward her, but really, what has she done to deserve your judgment? You barely know her. It’s so unlike you.”

Semele hesitated. In all honesty, she couldn’t answer that. She knew her reaction to Raina wasn’t rational. She struggled to come up with an answer. “Have you seen her handwriting?”

The first time she got an expense report with Raina’s comments, Semele had been absolutely perplexed. Raina’s handwriting was flat-out ugly and bore all the marks of an introvert with serious emotional baggage. Her letters were unbalanced and sprouting all over the place, like a yard with too many weeds.

“So what, Miss Quantico, it’s a little messy. Ever analyze your own handwriting?”

He had said it half-jokingly, but it still stung. Of course she had analyzed her own handwriting. Every day she saw what her pen revealed naked on the page. The large inner loops on the right-hand side of her circle letters all but announced the secrets she was hiding; the figure eights lacing her writing showed an abnormally strong fluidity of thought; and her backward crossed T-bars highlighted the critical nature she had toward herself. Only an expert graphologist would be able to tell.

She tried to dial her emotions down. Cabe did too and softened his tone. “Just give her a chance. Please, for me. She really is different when you get to know her.”

Semele doubted that but held her tongue. She’d had Raina pegged by the end of her first week at Kairos—fake. Over a year later, her opinion hadn’t changed. Raina would tear Cabe to shreds. That he couldn’t see it was mind-boggling.

“What about you and Bren the Pen?” Cabe asked, changing tack. “He called me, you know.”