12. Kian
12
KIAN
K ian cleared his throat. "Let's focus on what we know about your mother. The more information you have going in, the better prepared you'll be to get answers from your father. It's best to get everything he knows about her in one go."
Jasmine straightened, looking relieved to shift to practical matters. "Most of what I know is from what Roni has gathered about her. Her original name was Kyra Fazel, and she changed it to Kira Orlova when she married my father in 1989. She came from Iran on a student visa in 1988 but dropped out of university after getting married."
"Do you remember her saying anything about her family?" Syssi asked. "Did she ever mention her mother or father?"
Jasmine shook her head. "I don't remember much. I was very little when she supposedly died." She closed her eyes for a moment. "The best memory I have of her is her singing to me at night. It was in another language, and I always assumed it was Persian, but now I wonder if it might have been Kurdish."
"We can find recordings of both languages," Syssi suggested. "See which one sounds more familiar."
"That's a good idea," Jasmine agreed. "I can do that tonight. I will search for lullabies in both languages."
Kian nodded. "We also know that there is no record of her being declared dead or her being buried anywhere. The divorce papers she sent from Iran looked legit, with all the proper seals and signatures. It could be a sophisticated forgery, or her signature could have been obtained while she was drugged, and then a notary bribed to authenticate it."
Syssi cut off a small piece of cake with her spoon. "Which means she was either alive to sign them or someone went to a lot of trouble to forge them convincingly, which doesn't make sense. Why bother, right?"
"Why indeed?" Jasmine rubbed her chin. "The divorce papers were an act of kindness, freeing my father to remarry. No one other than my mother should have cared enough to go to all that trouble."
That was a good point, one which Kian hadn't considered before. "I guess we will only find out who did it once we find Kyra, but that's one more indication that she's alive."
Jasmine sighed. "I wish that to be true. Regrettably, the jewelry box that she left behind didn't hold any mysteries other than the tarot cards that were hidden in a secret compartment. The rings and the gold chain were just simple jewelry."
William's team had put the box through an X-ray machine instead of taking it apart, but they hadn't found anything hidden in the lining or additional secret compartments. The one where the tarot had been hidden wasn't even that clever. It was just an empty space at the bottom that was revealed once the partitions were pulled out. Kian wasn't even sure that Kyra had intended to hide them.
"The tarot cards themselves might be significant," he said. "They suggest she had some paranormal awareness. You probably inherited it from her."
Jasmine nodded. "That's one more reason I'm so hopeful she's still alive. Syssi was shown my mother when she asked to be shown Khiann. If my mother can also scry like me, but better, then all the puzzle pieces fall into place. She will help us find Khiann."
There was a long moment of silence as they all contemplated her statement.
"That's what I think as well," Syssi said. "I remember you saying something about the tarot deck being special?"
"The deck wasn't unique when it was first printed in the nineties. It was quite popular, but it's no longer printed. I've always wondered if she was trying to tell me something with those cards, but I'm coming to the conclusion that she didn't really leave them for me. I think she left those things behind because she had to leave in a rush or against her will. My father got rid of all of her belongings except for that box, probably thinking that I should have something of hers."
"Did your father ever explain to you why there was no grave?" Syssi asked softly. "No memorial of any kind?"
"He didn't say that there was no grave." Jasmine looked like she was on the verge of tears, which made Kian profoundly uncomfortable. "He just refused to talk about her. He could barely look at me because I reminded him so much of her." She drew a shaky breath. "I used to think that it was just grief and that he must have loved her fiercely, but I'm no longer convinced of that. The emotion I mistook for pain could have been anger. It's also possible that he thought he was protecting me by shielding me from the truth."
Kian leaned back against the couch cushions. "Everything is possible, and speculating is good because it provides us with several avenues of investigation. When you ask your father for answers, you will have a larger arsenal of questions."
"I wonder if he knew that she had special abilities," Syssi said. "You should ask him about it."
"I will." Jasmine pulled out her phone. "I should write it all down and memorize it before heading out to the cabin. I will probably be so stressed that I will forget half of what I intended to ask him."
"I can remind you," Ell-rom said.
"Thanks." She cast him a smile.
"You can allow yourself to hope," Syssi said softly. "The visions were clear. Kyra is alive, she's strong, and she's doing important work."
"But she was also hurt." Jasmine's voice cracked.
"She survived," Syssi said quietly. "She escaped and found her way to the resistance."