Page 24 of The Secrets We Keep
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
Was it a sign? Lacy’s final missive to him had also quoted Walt Whitman. It was too much of a coincidence, he thought, to be anything but. Besides, hadn’t he read somewhere that the real meaning of the word coincidence was tied up in synchronicity? He’d also heard once that coincidences weren’t as rare an occurrence as some thought.
Coincidence? Omen? Sign?
Jasper knew he needed to follow a sign that suggested there was something “more immortal even than the stars.”
He brought up Rob’s email, hit reply, and wrote,I’ll come. Just tell me what my next steps are. I can get a week off starting the end of April.
He didn’t know what else to write. So he hit Send. And immediately began gnawing his nails, regretting it. “You’re being a whore, a cheap whore,” he told himself, laughing a little hysterically and not all that amused.
HE WASabout to get up from Stan’s desk when Rob’s reply hit. “Jesus, how did you even have time to read, let alone write a response?” he asked the screen, as though it were a magic mirror, one that could see into Rob’s soul.
Like the invitation, Rob’s reply was short and to the point.
Let me know what dates in April work for you. I’m open all month. No pressing engagements or travel. And it’s great you’ll get here before the summer heat starts to set in—it’s not for the faint-of-heart!
Once I have a firm date (oh, the images that conjures up!), I’ll get your ticket booked.
And Jasper, please don’t feel this obligates you in any way, shape, or form. This is a gift, freely given, that I think will benefit me as much as it does you. So please—no mention of paying me back, in whatever currency you’re thinking.
I have no agenda for this trip—I just want to see you again.
Jasper shut his eyes as a smile crept across his face. He thought, oddly enough, of a line from one of his favorite movies,Rosemary’s Baby. It went something like “This isn’t a dream. This is really happening.”
He wrote back and told Rob that the first week in April would work great.
Why delay?
Chapter 7
ON THEmorning he was scheduled to fly out to Palm Springs International Airport, Jasper awoke from barely remembered dreams, the sound of rain hitting hard against his window. He had this vague, gut-twisting feeling of dread. Sweat dampened the pillow beneath his head.
And for just a second, he thought he could smell Old Spice on his pillowcase.
“What the hell?” He turned and sniffed the in-need-of-washing case deeply. Scents of his hair gel and a little sweat maybe rose up, but Old Spice? He wouldn’t be caught dead dousing himself with that, not only because it was drugstore stuff, smelly water as cheap as they come, but because Old Spice, especially on a pillowcase, reminded Jasper of his father.
When Jasper was a little boy, he’d often slide into his father’s queen-size bed on early weekend mornings when Dad left to go downstairs to make them a typical weekend breakfast—bacon cooked up in the old cast-iron skillet and then eggs fried in the grease. If it was summertime, he’d slice a tomato or two from his garden to accompany the bacon and eggs.
They’d eat while Dad read the paper and Jasper watched him, hoping for a word or two.
Those breakfasts were one of the few happy memories Jasper had of his childhood.
So was the smell of Old Spice on a still-warm pillowcase. For some reason, it made the little boy Jasper feel secure, safe—and those feelings were precious in the Warren household. The warm pillowcase and the scent were like a longed-for embrace.
Now, he couldn’t imagine why he’d awaken on this important morning reminded of the smell of his father on a pillowcase.
Unless it was the dream he was having upon awakening?
Fractured images came to him. Blood on an old plaid couch. A pair of upholstery shears on a dirty floor. A grainy newspaper photo showing a crowd gathered outside Thomas’s Used Furniture on Sixth Avenue in downtown Haddonfield, Illinois, Jasper’s hometown.
That newspaper image chilled him. He knew why. It haunted him to this day. It wasn’t just a story in a small-town rag; it was the destruction of his family.
He sat up, stomach grumbling, head pounding.
Even though he couldn’t remember much more about the dream, hecouldremember what inspired it.
When Jasper was seven years old, his pregnant mother, Mo, short for Maureen, and his baby sister, Sara, were brutally murdered in that used-furniture store one sweltering August afternoon, along with the proprietor, an older man with the comical name of Dick Popp. All three had been stabbed to death with a pair of upholstery shears. The store’s cash register and safe had been emptied. The day had been hot, with temperatures in the nineties and humidity to match. Not many people were out and about, but his mom had been, hoping to find a decent used baby carriage for cheap. People always said she was in “the wrong place at the wrong time” as no one in their little town would have a motive for slaughtering a sweet, young, and pregnant mother and her little girl. It nearly defied belief.