The Reincarnationist

Chapter 66

Downstairs, they quickly got into the town car that Rachel had come in and kept waiting so they could leave right away, in case Harrison tried to followed them or harassed them.

“Where to, miss?” the driver asked. “Home?”

She looked at Josh. “Where should we drop you?”

In his left pocket was the box of mints. In his right pocket, the stones pressed against his thigh, teasing him. Shoals had seen him put something in his pocket, but he hadn’t focused on which pocket. Josh had bluffed, and it had worked. That’s the thing about sleight-of-hand that Malachai had taught him. You know there’s a trick happening, but you are rarely looking in the right place to catch it. He wanted to tell Malachai what a good teacher he’d been.

He had to rent a car and get up to New Haven, but first he needed to pick up his photographic equipment. Josh wanted to light the stones so that every mark was perfectly clear and distinct before they e-mailed the pictures to Rollins. He also needed to wrap up the stones carefully before he drove up to see Gabriella; they were too precious to be rolling around in his pocket.

“I’m going to the foundation, but let me drop you off first. Where are you going?”

“I guess back to my uncle’s.”

“Is there somewhere else you can go? I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Not yet.”

A veil of worry clouded her eyes. “You don’t think my uncle would-”

“I don’t know, and that’s why I want you to go someplace that is completely neutral. Just for a few days, until we can make sure.”

“I thought this was about me and Harrison, Esme and Blackie.”

“It was-it is-but…isn’t there someplace else you can go, just for a few days? I promise I’ll help you figure all this out as soon as I can. In the meantime, you have to stay safe.”

“It’s not possible that my uncle has anything to do with this. He’s not a violent man.”

“I’m sure you’re right, but I don’t want you to take any chances. You’re safe now, Rachel. I want you to stay safe.”

She gave the driver the address of her closest friend and turned back to Josh. “If I am safe it’s because of you. Harrison pulled a gun on you. Over a painting. How could I have been attracted to him?”

“You’re not the first person to be seduced by power.”

She smiled ruefully, “No, I’m not. Esme was, too. That’s why I need to figure all this out. So it doesn’t happen again.”

When the car pulled up in front of Rachel’s friend’s apartment on York Avenue and Eighty-Eighth Street, she leaned forward, threw her arms around Josh and hugged him.

“You’re in danger, aren’t you?” she asked.

“No, this isn’t about me.”

“But you’re the one taking all the chances. Please, be careful. Okay? I just found you.”

Fifteen minutes later, Josh opened the door to the foundation’s basement, which had been turned into a state-of-the-art, temperature-controlled library, and where he stored his equipment. He shut the door behind him and was just going to pull the stones out of his pocket when he saw Malachai standing on a ladder, inspecting a row of books on a high shelf. He turned at the noise. “Thank goodness, Josh, I was so worried,” he said, and climbed down. “Where have you been all day? I expected you to come back or at least call after your plane landed.”

On the large table in the middle of the room, Josh noticed a dozen dusty books were open to various pages. They were all titles from the mid 1800s on different methods of inducing past-life regressions.

“How did it go with Rollins? No, first tell me, how is Gabriella?”

“In terrible shape. And all alone. I wish she’d call her father so he could be with her. But she’s stubborn. I don’t know how she’s holding it together. Panicked about her daughter, working with Rollins, trying to come up with the damn mantra.”

“Are they getting the translations done?”

“Rollins is still stumped on a few markings, but he should meet the deadline.”

Using an index card, Malachai marked the page he had been studying in one of the books and shut it. “Imagine what it would be like if the mantra worked. To be able to remember who you’d been before, not just fragments, but the entire story. To push back the curtains of the present and peer into the past. Have you considered the man who will wind up owning the stones? He’ll be one of the most powerful men on earth, Josh. Damn it, we should have had them here.” His eyes narrowed. “We were so close.”

“Haven’t you ever considered that it’s all just a myth, and that the mantra is nothing but a collection of sounds that doesn’t do a thing?”

“Still not a true believer?”

“I need just one thing in black and white. If I could have just photographed one aura, captured it on film…”

“Finding us here at the foundation, where Percy once lived? Knowing about the tunnel into the park? What about the little girl at the site of the excavation in Rome? Those weren’t proof enough for you? What kind of magic was that, then?”

“The story of the tomb was all over the television and in all the papers. Natalie could have heard people discussing it anywhere. As for the tunnel, I had spent hours in your company before that happened-you could have hypnotized me.”

“Without you noticing? I think not. And have you forgotten that you’re not a good subject? As for Natalie, yes, she could have heard that a woman’s body had been found in the tomb, but how would she have found out her name was Sabina? The same name you came up with. A name no one else had even whispered. Pulled it out of thin air?”

Josh shrugged. “I’m sure I was thinking about her name at some point. Maybe it was ESP. Maybe it’s all been ESP.”

“Or maybe it’s reincarnation. Beryl and I believe we’ve heard proof over and over. Living proof. You, Josh, you’re living proof. But if we had the stones in our hands we’d be able to convince even the nonbelievers.” Malachai’s eyes were shining with the possibilities. “People like me, who’ve never been able to remember, would be able to look back and find the answers to help them go forward.”

Until that moment, Josh had planned on taking the stones out of his pocket, showing them to Malachai and telling him about Rachel remembering Esme’s life and death on the ship. But the hunger in his mentor’s eyes worried him. What if he snatched them away and wouldn’t let Josh have them back? What if he was more desperate than the man who was orchestrating all this madness?

No, wouldn’t anyone do the right thing in those circumstances? What were a handful of emeralds and sapphires in exchange for a child’s life? Even that particular handful of stones. But proving reincarnation had been Malachai’s work for much longer than it had been Josh’s distraction. Knowing for sure would explain his life, but for Malachai it would be vindication of a life devoted to that one subject.

Men are monsters all.

Who’d said that? Percy? Yes, Percy, discussing his uncle Davenport Talmage, the man who had poisoned him and sent his sister to her death. Esme…who died as a result of her uncle’s greed. Rachel had an uncle, too… Was it possible that Alex was just as greedy and more involved in all this than anyone had guessed?

“Have you thought about tomorrow?” Malachai said, interrupting Josh’s conjecturing. “I want to go with you. Follow you and Gabriella. The two of you can’t do this alone. What if something were to go wrong?”