Finn scrubbed his hand across his lips to hide a knowing smile.
“Gross!” Foster’s face pinched. “Not that.”
“Finn needs my help, too. Plus, I have to get something else to wear if I’m going to be here for the rest of my life. I have some cash left over from what you gave me yesterday, and I won’t be gone long. It’s guys shopping, not girls.”
“I’ll have your man back ASAP,” Finn called from the foyer.
“But—” Foster’s thoughts were an unorganized whirlwind of snarky retorts. There were so many shitty stereotypes and assumptions happening that she didn’t know where to begin. Not to mention the fact that they needed to find out what the hell was going on. Cora did all of this to keep them safe. Figuring out who the other people were, what those four crazies were up to, and whether or not Doctor Rick was as nuts as Cora thought he might be was the least they could do.
“He’s not my man” was all Foster could manage as the front door slammed shut.
Without Tate there to distract, no, scratch that, annoy her, Foster deflated into her chair, resting her forehead on her hands. “I don’t know if I can do this, Cora. I don’t know if I can do this by myself.” Tears slid off her nose, spotting the powder blue place mat. “What good are these stupid freak powers if I’m sad and lonely and without you? I need you. If you were here, we could figure out how to do it together, but you’re not here and I’m all alone. I need help, and I just…” Her throat ached with sobs. “I just want to go home.”
Warm air tickled her cheek and twirled through the waves of hair resting on her shoulders. Sniffling, Foster lifted her head. She and Tate hadn’t opened any windows, and he’d closed the door when he left. But he hadn’t locked it. Foster wiped her cheeks dry as she trudged to the front door to latch the deadbolt. Did he not understand the kind of danger they were in?
The refreshing breeze returned, reaching around her with such a soothing, comforting embrace that she couldn’t help but relax.
With it, each gentle gust carried the deep, velvety scent of chicory and coffee. “Cora?” Foster’s voice broke, her eyes once again swelling with tears. Gentle ribbons of wind nudged against her back as playful gusts caressed her arms, offering the familiar scent as they drew her forward.
Cora.
The rich, dark aroma of Cora’s favorite coffee enveloped her as she followed the ghostly threads of scent down the hall. Fingers of air cupped her cheeks, and Foster closed her eyes as she thought of Cora and how the stocky woman swished and sang around the kitchen every morning as she made a pot of the only coffee she ever drank. She’d discovered it at Café Du Monde while on their family vacation in New Orleans and had it shipped to her every month since. Foster inhaled deeply, remembering that trip when they were still a family. She could almost hear the syrupy sweet notes dripping from saxophones, could almost taste the pillowy dough of plump, warm beignets, and could almost feel Cora and Doctor Rick’s hands in hers.
Rustling papers drew Foster from her memories and from the aroma of chicory and coffee and home.
“Cora?” She tentatively stepped into the office, every cell in her body humming with the hope that her Cora would be around the corner. A gust pushed open one of the folders Foster had piled on Cora’s desk, blowing its contents onto the floor. Foster gripped the doorjamb as a mini cyclone of papers spun in the middle of the room.
Oh, my little strawberry baby girl. I’ll never be too far from you.
Foster’s heart squeezed as Cora’s words brushed against her ears on a gust of chicory.
We can do this together.
The papers settled in a mess on the floor. All but one. A wrinkled, coffee-stained piece fluttered just in front of Foster, resting at her feet.
“Cora,” she choked out, plucking the page off the hardwood. “I’m sorry.”
The breeze returned, drying the tears from her cheeks, and pressing warm against her aching chest.
“I love you,” Foster whispered as the scents of chicory and home melted into the air and disappeared.
Foster willed herself to stop crying and her hands to cease trembling as she blinked through the remaining tears at the wrinkled page. “Doctor Rick’s handwriting.” Foster traced the first line of numbers and letters with her finger. “And Cora’s.”
In her sweeping cursive, Cora had drawn circles and arrows and written annotations around Doctor Rick’s notes.
Foster blindly shuffled to Cora’s chair, almost tripping over one of the boxes she’d had Tate haul out of the Batcave.
“One A,” Foster read aloud, following Cora’s arrow to her first comment. “Air.” Breath fled Foster’s lungs as she read the date written next to it. “August twenty-fifth.” Her hands shook so hard she had to set down the paper. “My birthday.”
11
FOSTER
“Okay, August twenty-fifth. My birthday and Tate’s birthday, but what do eighteen fifty and eighteen twenty-one have to do with anything? What am I missing? What am I missing?” She sat back, tapping the end of the pen against her chin. “Maybe it’s math. Maybe if I add up the four numbers, it’ll…” she trailed off, dropping her head into her hands. “It’ll what, Foster? Equal some number that’ll magically answer all of your questions? No,” she sighed. “It’ll just lead you right back to where you are now—hungry and frustrated. But I can fix one of those things, and maybe that will help. Maybe getting something to eat will refuel my brain as Tate’s dad would’ve said.” She massaged the nape of her neck. “First I hear Cora and now I can’t stop talking to myself. God,” she groaned, her slippered feet shuffling out of the office on her way to the kitchen, “I’m some kind of crazy ghost-whispering freak.”