The Fortune Teller(80)

His admission stunned her into silence. There it was. He knew.

“I can’t do that,” she said and hung up.

Theo gave her a questioning look.

“Kairos is involved with the theft.” She drew her hand to her mouth, shaking with adrenaline. Mikhail had just confirmed his guilt.





Ten of Swords

A white sheet was draped over Cabe’s body, leaving his face uncovered. He looked like an empty shell, the room around him just as barren. All the beeping monitors and machines had been wheeled away, replaced by silence and a family devastated in their grief.

Cabe’s mother, Cora, saw Semele hovering in the doorway and jumped up to embrace her. “Oh, Semele.”

Semele felt a dam break within her as she hugged Cora back. Cabe’s father began to sob and Oliver had to leave the room. Cora pulled away to grab tissues. “I can’t believe he’s gone.” She dabbed her eyes.

Semele couldn’t tear her eyes away from Cabe. Her tears ran unchecked. She didn’t hear when Cabe’s parents told her they were stepping outside to give her a moment, and she didn’t hear the door shut behind them.

She sat down in the chair beside his bed and put her head in her hands. The pain inside her unlocked with such force that she began to break apart.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry” was all she could say to her friend. The grief—she felt as though she would drown in it, and the word Doreen had whispered in her reading came back to haunt her.

Despair. This was despair. Semele closed her eyes, unable to accept the reality around her. How could she not have foreseen this? Cabe had died because of her. With that thought, a feeling of fury consumed her. She would find who did this. Whatever it took, she would find them.

*

Oliver waited in the hallway, talking quietly on the phone. “Yes, I understand. Whatever you can do.” He hung up, rubbing his eyes, and turned to Semele when she joined him. “That was the police. They’re done interviewing witnesses. No leads.”

Semele tried to process everything. She needed to talk to Theo before going to the police. Mikhail’s words were still reverberating in her mind.

“Tell them to interview everyone at Kairos,” she said. “There was a high-level theft there a few days ago. Cabe had just left work—”

She stopped talking.

A vase of rare striped roses in brilliant gold and scarlet loomed from the nurses’ station at the end of the hall. The flowers looked just like the ones Rinalto gave Viviana at the ball.

What were they doing there?

Semele walked down the hallway in a daze. Oliver didn’t notice her leave; he was already calling the police back.

The flowers looked strange in these surroundings, like an artifact from another time and place.

A page from Ionna’s manuscript had just sprung to life.

“Excuse me. Who are these for?” she asked the nurse behind the desk.

It was the same nurse who was on duty right before Semele left this morning. “Your friend,” the woman said gently. “I was going to give them to his parents.” The phone rang and she turned to answer it.

While the nurse had her back to her, Semele snatched the card from the flowers and hurried off.

As she walked away, she opened the envelope.

The card contained two words, written in bold black marker:

Well done.

Underneath the message was a phone number. The handwriting bombarded her with its angry back-slant and hard angles. A man had written this, a very disturbed man. Semele knew the message was meant for her.

On the verge of hysteria, she put the card in her purse and headed to the lobby, where Theo was waiting. She found him sitting in the far corner. He read the panic on her face and stood up.

“Sem?” Bren had just walked through the doors and was heading toward her. He saw Theo approaching and looked from Theo to Semele.

“Bren, this is Theo Bossard, a client of mine.” She hurried to make introductions, still reeling over Cabe’s death and in a frenzy about the note. She needed to leave. Now.

Bren gave Theo a measured look. “And I’m Bren, an ex-boyfriend.”

A rush of anger hit her and she lowered her voice. “Really? You’re going to pull this now? Now?” Cabe was gone and she didn’t have it in her to deal with this. She stormed toward the doors.

Bren looked taken aback and followed her. “What? You’re just leaving?”

She whipped around. “I’m dealing with an emergency.”

“Something more important than your best friend dying?”

Semele stepped back as if he had struck her.

“Sem, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t.” She held up her hand to stop the apology. “I’m dealing with something you can’t understand. Go help Oliver. I’ll be back when I can.”

She was holding a note from the killer. He had the cards and the manuscript. Now he wanted her to call him.

“Sem, wait!” Bren called out.

Semele didn’t turn around. She got into Theo’s car with Theo one step behind her.

When the doors closed, she showed Theo the note. He agreed she should call the number from the hotel.

Semele stared at the handwriting the whole drive there. The writing told her what she already knew. This was the mastermind, the monster behind it all, and now he was coming after her.