Chapter Ten

Later, Athena would recall their sojourn in California as a blurred series of scenes and conversations. With the Skoroses providing the opportunities, the next four nights and three days passed eventfully. The first evening, Athena and Chris met the family patriarch and matriarch and tried not to show how overwhelmed they felt by the family’s trappings of wealth. Her father had provided them with an upper middle-class upbringing and lifestyle, but the Skoros family showed her what real wealth was. More than a rented townhouse condo in Alexandria or an old, family townhouse in a venerable neighborhood of Kensington, London, the Skoroses had acreage and a mansion that would rival the Duke of Marlborough’s country estate. Well, not quite. Athena soon learned that all the golden and tree-dotted hills surrounding the Skoros mansion did not belong to the family, only fifty or so acres. All the rest were part of a state preserve.

Lorena Skoros was petite, her short, curly hair kept dark brown and stylish, as were her clothes, befitting a woman a little younger than seventy years of age. Her dark eyes, like her younger sons’, were lively and penetrating. Athena got the impression that she never missed a thing. She was especially warm and cordial with Athena, a possible reason made clear by Alex the next day as they were sightseeing in Napa Valley among the wineries. He was playing guide around the Castello di Amoroso, the newly built castle and headquarters of a popular winery. Meanwhile, he expanded on his family’s dynamics.

“Mom’s prescient, a prognosticator, or as she calls it, an old-fashioned seeress. She said she had a dream that Kas would someday marry a tall blonde and have children, at least one daughter who would carry on the psychic gift. Well, I never argue with Mom but Kas challenges her predictions all the time. He said in so many words that he’d never marry a blonde, no matter what she looked like. Blondes weren’t his type, blah, blah, blah. No one’s going to influence him. Free will and all that. Mom just smiled and said, ‘You’ll see’.”

While her mother didn’t look surprised, Athena was stunned. All she could murmur was, “No wonder he avoids me like the plague.”

Alex laughed and said that he wondered if she’d picked up on that.

“He’s avoiding all tall blondes, so don’t take it personally.”

“He’s not my type, either,” she retorted smoothly. “He’s too rough looking. You can tell him that for me.”

Alex laughed, a boyish kind of laugh that reminded her of playgrounds and ice cream cones.

“Papu, he’s the brains of the family business, but now that George has taken over as CEO and Leon’s COO, he’s not involved in the day-to-day operations. With Mom’s guidance, Papu plans where the next big project is going to go. We do the rest. He appointed me CFO, thanks to my major in accounting and economics, so I work the numbers and set up the financing.”

The two older sons, George and Leon, would join them on Thanksgiving Day and bring their families with them. The younger generation of Skoroses was all involved with Skoros Enterprises, and all of them shared the work, responsibilities, and the financial gains.

“What does Kas do? Besides being a deputy sheriff?” Athena looked at the tapestries hanging in the medieval-looking dining hall, trying not to appear too interested in the Skoros’ family business. She’d never met a family of multi-millionaires before.

“He’s on call with the sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team, but it’s voluntary and part-time. His job with the family business? He’s a hands-on kind of guy and former military police, so his day job is liaison with the architects, contractors, and construction crews. He doesn’t take bull from anybody and knows how to juggle details. After a shopping center or commercial building is built, he supervises the site managers for Leon.”

The entire family impressed Athena. Philip Skoros, the eighty-year-old patriarch of the family, was taller than his wife, and chubby. Although, when he hugged Athena, she could feel his firmness as if there was more muscle than fat behind his rotund belly and barrel chest. He was American-born but loved to hold to Greek traditions and food. Their first evening at the Skoros estate—the evening before their Napa wineries tour—the dinner meal wafted the scent of garlicky dishes like hummus and pita bread, tzatziki sauce and lamb kabobs, and tabouli and rice pilaf. There were two cooks and two servers who kept the dishes coming over a three-hour period. By the time a tray of baklava was brought out and sent around the large dining table, Athena’s throat had clamped shut, and Chris looked like he was going to barf up half his meal.

While Alex kept a continuous and entertaining stream of conversation going all day Tuesday, as they wine-tasted among the vines and then had lunch at Castillo Amoroso, he wrapped up his summary of the Skoros family. He then shocked Athena by bringing up the topic she had studiously avoided mentioning.

“You don’t have to feel squeamish about my mother’s dreams,” he said good-naturedly. “Even though she’s been accurate about ninety percent of the time. We take her precognitive dreams in a philosophical way. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

The three of them were having lunch in the vintner’s castle, built in 1985, as a replica of a parador the owner had stayed in while traveling in Spain. Chris had run off with Kas into the mountains to ski. Although the weather had turned warm and sunny that week, the month before had seen at least six inches of snow drop in the Sierras, and avid skiers were taking advantage of the cold nights and snowmaking machines to get an early start on the season.

Athena glanced at her mother, who was gazing at something across the large banquet hall. Well, there was no way to broach the topic but to plunge into it.

“Alex, what do you and Kas think about your mother’s dream? The one about you and your brother?”

“Oh, the one she told Anna about,” he said, attracting the older woman’s attention. “Don’t feel upset about it. Kas doesn’t usually take any of Mom’s predictions seriously, but this one, he is. He’s making sure we don’t fulfill Mom’s prophetic dream. She hasn’t told Papu, for fear it’d give him a heart attack, which it probably would. The old man has gotten frail these past couple of years, and he’s a lot like Kas, worries about everything, every detail. She told us, though, so we could avoid fate, as she calls it. How’s that even possible? Avoiding fate? Me, I don’t worry about it. I live in the moment, or at least try to.”

Alex took a sip of his syrah and shrugged. “Here it goes. She saw one of us dying in a car crash, but I was driving, and Kas was the only other person in the car with me. Well, naturally, that creeped us out at first, and we questioned her. Was she sure I’m the one driving? Do I hit another car or does the other car hit us? Do I lose control, that kind of thing? She was kinda vague on the details. Her dreams come in a flash, from God-knows-where. Some other dimension, she says. None of us have the Sight, y’know. She says it’s just handed down in the female line and she’s had no daughters. So here we are, with a mother”—he paused and looked first at Anna, then Athena—“as you well know how it feels, Athena. With a mother who has these powers of Sight and Prophecy and none of us guys can see beyond what we’re doing this very minute. It’s strange, but we’re used to it.”

Athena saw her mother nod in understanding. “Yes, I can imagine how my husband and son feel about me and Athena.”

Hating her freakiness, Athena’s stomach roiled. It was like hating the color or texture of your hair. What could you do about it? Ignore the freakiness? Or embrace it?

“So, this prophetic dream of your mother’s? Do you believe you can keep it from happening? The car crash and…everything?” she asked bluntly. Alex stared back at her as if weighing for a moment how he was going to reply. She hoped he would choose total honesty, for she hadn’t much use for people who sugarcoated reality.

“Kas believes we can. So that’s good enough for me.” He gave a short laugh. “Just like he can avoid falling for blondes.”

Anna smiled at Alex and toasted him with her glass of wine. “Here’s to tolerant, open-minded husbands and sons. God bless them. And here’s to cheating fate. Our powers aren’t etched in stone and God knows, we’re anything but infallible.”

Joining in, Athena raised her glass of wine and tapped the other two. “Yes, that’s so true, Mum, we aren’t. But I doubt we’ll find open-minded men outside the Skoros family. They’re in a unique position, don’t you think? They’ve grown up with a mother who shares our powers. Same with Chris and Father. They’re the only other men I know who don’t let it bother them. At least, not all of the time. Which is probably why I’ll never get married. Finding men who don’t mind me reading their minds is impossible.”

Alex studied her for a moment. “You mustn’t give up on the male gender. Others might find your powers, and your mother’s and my mother’s abilities, absolutely awesome. Intriguing and wonderful.”

“Only if you’re a cop and need help solving a crime.” Athena looked pointedly at her mother. She hadn’t had the chance to share with her mother her experience working with Detectives Palomino and Ochoa, and how she’d felt afterwards.

Her mother placed a hand over hers. “I know all about what happened. The detective called and brought me up-to-date. He hoped I wasn’t upset about your getting involved, but he was desperate to try anything. He was very impressed with you, ’Thena. They had no record of their Person of Interest even having a brother, or what the man’s family background had been like. The younger brother had been listed as having died at age sixteen in the fire that killed their parents. Now, they believe he’s alive and living under an alias. Anyway, you helped them enormously, figlia mia. They haven’t located the younger brother and the older one insists he died, but they’re working on it, the detective says.”

When Alex looked over at them, puzzled, her mother elaborated on the case she’d been helping the Metropolitan D.C. homicide detectives with. He turned to Athena, respect and awe mirrored in his dark eyes.

“You’re helping the cops, too?”

She squirmed a little in her chair. The memory of the images that she received after touching those jackets made her lose her appetite. She winced and pushed her plate away.

“Well, I don’t think I want to keep doing it. I saw a part of life that freaks me out. I never want to see that again.”

She suddenly realized how hypocritical her stance was. Wasn’t the horror she saw that day, part of life, too? Wasn’t it too late to deny her own awareness of the dark, violent side of human nature?

Her mother’s intense stare caught her attention. She hoped the older woman understood her squeamishness, so when her mother smiled, Athena thought that maybe she did.

“I’m happy you haven’t had to experience firsthand the ugliness of humanity,” Anna said softly, gently. “But if you are willing to continue helping, know that your art and all the beauty you can create will sustain you through the darkness. Your art will give you a wonderful escape.”

Athena hadn’t considered that before, that her love of art and painting would be a refuge from the troubles and horrors of life. And she realized something else just then, too. Her mother was warning her about something. Warning her that because of her unique clairvoyant powers, Athena would not be able to avoid those very horrors of life. Maybe she had a role to play that she could no longer avoid.

No, that’s a role I never want to play again.

Alex’s eyes lit up as the server approached with their dishes. “Ah, that reminds me. I thought your portrait of Kas was, well, awesome. Mom loved it, too.”

“Yes, she told me last night. Kas said nothing about the painting. What did he really think of it? Please, I can take the truth.”

Alex screwed up his face, which had Athena guessing already. She scowled and snapped her napkin over her lap in an impatient gesture.

“Oh, don’t tell me. He thought I made him look too handsome, too clean-shaven and soft. Not macho enough.”

“You’ll have to ask him yourself. I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun.” Alex could barely disguise the impish delight behind his grin. The man was irrepressible and charming, but occasionally exasperating. Still, Athena liked him.

However, given such an oblique response from Alex, Athena had nothing more to say. She dug into her shrimp salad and shrugged. Oh well, can’t please everyone.

Of course, Kas didn’t like it. I’m a blonde.

****

Wednesday was another unseasonably warm day, so both Alex took Chris and Athena on the lake in the family’s ski boat. Kas would’ve come, according to Alex, but he had an early morning call. The sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team was needed in the mountains to track down three skiers who had wandered off one of the trails just before closing time the day before. The Team suspected the three had gotten lost and couldn’t find their way back. They probably had spent the night on a forested slope and were scared to death. Or one or more of them was hurt, and they’d decided to stick together. Good thing the temperature hadn’t fallen below fifty degrees Fahrenheit, although in the mountains it had sunk to close to freezing.

At any rate, at six that morning, according to Chris, Kas had thrown on his one-piece Vortex suit and snow-hiking boots, grabbed his equipment, and headed up to the Team’s rendezvous site at Boreal Ridge. He’d had no idea when he’d be back. Instead, Alex allowed Kas’s black-and-tan German shepherd, Spartacus, into the ski boat for the thrill ride.

The wind whipped in their faces as Alex skippered them around the lake, slowing down to mosey into coves and small inlets, created by the American River’s south and east forks. For several minutes, Athena had her arm slung around the dog, relishing his furry coat and savoring his enjoyment of the ride. When they hit a few wake bumps from other boats, she cinched her arm more tightly around the dog so he wouldn’t get tossed off the stern. Spartacus turned his pointed head in her direction, and Athena could swear he actually laughed. The sound that escaped the dog’s throat was like a girl’s high-pitched yawn. Athena smiled and hugged the dog’s neck.

Images flashed through her mind: Kas’s various experiences with Spartacus, their long walks together on the property, the human’s tenderness as he fed and cared for his pet, the dog’s deep, emotional bond to his two-legged friend. By the time they returned to the Skoros dock, Athena felt like she knew a side of Kas she’d not yet seen. The dog kept to her side on the half-mile trail to the house as if he’d sensed something special about her.

Thursday morning, while the kitchen staff scurried about, she helped her mother and Lorena set the dining room table. With Alex’s help, they’d extended the table to accommodate sixteen, and placed china and crystal glasses and goblets according to Lorena’s direction. A bedraggled Kas joined them briefly to look in on the arrangements. He’d slept late apparently, having put in a full day the previous day with the Search and Rescue Team. As he leaned against the French doors and drank coffee, he capsulized the rescue situation.

“We were in the sheriff’s helo and found the skiers on the backside of one of the lower mountains at Squaw Valley. When they heard us, two of them ran out from the tree cover and flagged us. We lowered to about forty feet and realized one of the skiers was hurt. Another deputy and I harnessed up, zipped down our line with a gurney, and strapped up the injured skier and ran the line back up so the two on the helo could grab him. They winched up the remaining two skiers who were suffering from hypothermia and got them wrapped up in special blankets. Pete and I had to wait on the mountain while the helo offloaded at the Squaw Valley first-aid station. An ambulance took the three to the Truckee hospital. We set our flares to guide the helo back to us, because the helo pilot is new, and in all the excitement we weren’t sure he’d set his coordinates. Anyway, we had to put in a stint at the Truckee hospital, and then later at our Boreal field site to fill out paperwork. Finally, I was back on Interstate Eighty for the drive back home.”

Chris stared. “Wow! Awesome!”

Kas’s cheeks colored. “These guys were lucky. Not all our rescues end up like that. Wait until they get the county’s bill.”

Why hadn’t he joined them for dinner last night, his mother asked? Still jumping inside from the adrenaline high, Kas had met some friends at a watering hole in nearby Auburn. At that point in his story, he glanced over at Athena, then looked down at his coffee.

He was with a girl.

Why that should’ve mattered, she didn’t know. But when Kas suggested a turn about the lake on the Jet Ski to Chris and Alex, she thought quickly. She wanted to go with him.

“Sorry, bro,” interjected Alex. “I promised Chris I’d take him down to the American River for a couple hours of fishing.” He turned to his mother, palms up and out. “Don’t worry, Mom, we’ll be back by two or three at the latest. I’ll do the bar, make cocktails for everyone.”

Lorena pointed her finger and waggled it. “Cocktails at four, Alex. Everyone’s dressing up a bit, so don’t make the poor boy late.”

Athena turned to Kas and blurted out, “I’d love to go Jet Skiing!”

Despite Kas’s dark, fulminating look, Athena added excitedly, not waiting for his refusal, “I’ll go up and get my bathing suit on.”

Although she’d been Jet-Skiing once before, she couldn’t hide her excitement. Not even from herself. She ran up the spiral staircase.

She was finally going to get some alone time with Mr. Mountain Man.