The Reincarnationist

Chapter 59

New York City-Wednesday, 2:00 a.m.

“I feel so helpless,” Gabriella said to Josh as they walked out of the terminal. “Everything is out of my control. I can’t even help you with this next part.”

The car service she’d called from New Haven was waiting for her by the curb. The driver took her overnight bag, placed it in the trunk and opened the door for her. She held on to it, looking so worn out, Josh thought, the only thing that was keeping her standing was the car’s support.

“Will you call me tomorrow? As soon as you know something?” she asked with a tremor in her voice.

“I hate that you’re going home to an empty house. I wish you’d called your father and asked him to come back from his conference.”

“Why? So he could sit and worry with me?” She was hesitating, not quite ready to get in the car, waiting for something.

Josh took her hand. Her confident stance and the courageous glint he’d seen in her eyes when he’d first met her at the dig in Rome were gone.

How could a figment, a fragment of a woman he didn’t know, matter to him as much as this woman might? As much as she already did? Flesh and blood versus a concept of destiny? He was a fool.

“I’ll be up there as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be all right. You don’t need to-”

“No. I don’t need to. We’re past words like that, Gabriella.”

She blinked back tears, found some hidden reserve of strength and stood up straighter.

Josh was relieved. He needed to know she’d be okay, that she could take care of herself until he could get back to her, because it was urgent that he find Rachel and take a journey with her now-one that didn’t involve cars or planes but that might take him much farther away.

Thursday, 10:05 a.m.

Josh walked up the stone steps toward the Metropolitan Museum’s main doors, where Rachel was waiting for him in her uncle’s office. She looked anxious; she was smoking a cigarette and had deep circles under her eyes.

She greeted him impatiently.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when he saw her.

“I didn’t tell you over the phone,” she said, sipping from a cup of steaming coffee. “I am definitely being followed, and I-”

Josh stopped listening. He wondered if Rachel’s tail had been following him and Gabriella, too, if there was another connection to all this that he’d missed.

“No,” she said. “No one could have followed you. How would they know you out of the tens of thousands of people who come to the museum every day?”

How had she had known what he was thinking?

She always knew. You two were like that.

The answer came from Percy, across the years. Josh shook his head, trying to shake loose the voice.

“What is it?” Rachel asked.

“Nothing.”

“I’m sure it’s my uncle, but I don’t know why. He’s being so obsessive about my flashbacks. Instead of being worried about me, he’s pressuring me to explore them, to go to a hypnotherapist. He’s even found someone he wants me to see…and I will if you won’t help me. But I want you to do it. I trust you. That’s another crazy thing…that I trust you. I don’t really know you. But if you won’t help…I have to do something, especially now…”

“Especially now? Did something else happen?”

“Yes, but it’s very confusing. I can’t figure it out, but it’s important… Someone died, Josh.”

“Who?”

She paused. He waited. She looked into his face, fastened her dark blue liquid eyes on his.

“I think I did. I think I died.”