“About to die.”
Her breath caught. “No, please,” she begged, desperate.
“Did you dream about your father before he died? Call him without knowing why? You’ve had dreams all your life. Make no mistake, future events cast their shadows.”
“Please don’t hurt her.” She began to cry. This man would kill her mother if he had to. She was certain.
“That’s not up to me. I’m afraid talent such as yours requires extraordinary proof.”
“You don’t need proof.”
“Oh, the proof is not for me, Semele. It’s for the world. Right now I have you under a microscope. But soon I’ll be sharing you with my colleagues. There are many scientists back at the institute in Moscow who will be so fascinated to know that Nettie survived the war after her escape from Makaryev and that her granddaughter is alive. Nettie’s case study is infamous. But it will be nothing compared to yours. Your life is about to change, dear girl.”
Click.He hung up.
Semele looked to Theo helplessly. “He wants to experiment on me like they did to my grandmother.” She put her hands on her head and sobbed. She didn’t care that she was standing on a street corner in Paris having a complete meltdown. “I can’t do this—oh my God.”
“Semele,” Theo said firmly, taking her hands. “Look at me. He’s trying to get in to your head. Don’t let him. You’re going to find your mother. Believe that.”
Semele fought the hysteria threatening to overwhelm her.
“Go over everything he said,” Theo suggested.
She could barely recount the call. Evanoff had stolen Nettie’s life, and now this man wanted hers. Her terror threatened to suffocate her until finally something inside her pushed back, a survival instinct, a will to live, and it turned her fear into anger. The spark that was lit at Cabe’s bedside fanned into a flame. She would not let this man harm her mother.
The pearls grew warm in her hand. “He left this under a seashell for a reason,” she said. Then she realized. “It’s the shell that holds the message. The shell.”
She and Theo looked at each other and said the answer at the same time.
“Simza.”
Two of Cups
Within hours Semele and Theo were en route to Admont, Austria, the place Simza had stayed every winter and the only place during her lifetime where she could be found on thelungo drom,“the road with no destination.”
Semele looked out the plane’s window, unable to fathom that the madman who had killed her father and Cabe now had her mother. She didn’t know if she could survive losing all of them.
She thought back to the day before her father died. She really had called him on a whim, just to say hi. Right before they hung up he had said, “There’s something important your mother and I want to tell you when you take the train up next week.”
She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but looking back she knew he had meant to tell her the truth about her adoption. He and her mother had gone to their favorite neighborhood restaurant the night before, a little Italian joint, and discussed it at length; her mother had cried as they walked home hand in hand. Semele had no idea how she knew all this, but she did. She could see the moments strung together like a movie of someone else’s life.
“What are you thinking?” Theo asked her, taking her hand.
“Just thinking about my father.” She looked over to him, not sure how she could explain.
“Was he the one who encouraged you to work in antiquities?” he asked.
Semele gave him a sad smile, knowing he was trying to distract her. “I was fascinated by handwriting as a teenager. I used to study it as a hobby. For a while I thought about becoming a professional graphologist after college.” She shook her head at the idea. “I used to give all my friends handwriting analyses.”
“I’ll have to show you mine,” he offered and kissed her hand.
“That’s not even negotiable.” She couldn’t wait to analyze his handwriting, to see which way his words slanted, how sharp the angles were, how hard he pressed to impose his will on the page. Every little idiosyncrasy had meaning.
“So that led you to manuscripts?” His finger absently stroked her palm in a soothing motion.
She nodded, staring at their joined hands. “I’d request volumes of antique letters from Beinecke to study the penmanship, but over time, I became more interested in the letters themselves.” This had prompted her interest in paleography, the study of ancient writing and manuscripts. Slowly, she began to find her niche. “My father was the one who suggested I learn Greek my freshman year in college.”
“Funny, that…” Theo murmured, shaking his head.
