“All you have to do is tell me the truth, son,” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I didn’t tell her nothing. Honest, Anthony.” The voice was young and panicked, and it sounded like Sam.
I froze and prayed no one would walk into the bathroom.
“What exactly did she ask you?”
“Nothing, I swear. I only talked to her for a couple of minutes. But Butchy said she asked him a bunch of questions about her husband. Like, if he was at Slice with another woman and how often he came by. Stuff like that.”
“Anything else?” Anthony asked.
“I… No, I don’t think so,” Sam stuttered.
I clamped a hand over my mouth. Holy crap. They’re talking about me.
Anthony’s voice went down a notch in volume, and I pressed my ear closer to the grate. “Okay, you can leave now. But if she starts flapping her gums again, let me know right away. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” he whispered feebly.
What did Anthony not want me to find out? My stomach twisted. Had he killed Dylan and maybe Eric too? The bathroom door opened suddenly, and I jumped up, my head bashing into the sink. “Ouch!” I fell backward against the tiles and stared up into my cousin’s bewildered face.
Gabby gave a bark of laughter and placed her hands on her hips. “How many times have I told you not to play on the floor in public bathrooms, Tess?”
I put a finger to my lips. “Shut the door!”
She gave me a puzzled look but did as I asked. When it had closed, I rose to my feet and straightened my slacks. “Anthony was in the bathroom next to us. I think he was threatening the delivery kid.”
Gabby’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you freaking serious? But why?”
I opened the door a tiny crack and saw Anthony walking alone, back in the direction of the viewing room. As we emerged from the bathroom, I glanced down the hallway in the other direction. Through the glass-paneled door, I spotted Sam letting himself out onto the back porch. He had a cigarette and lighter in his hands.
“Go back to the viewing room,” I said in a low voice. “I want to try to get Sam alone.” He might not talk to me, but it was worth a shot. “Anthony and Vince can’t see me. Keep your eyes on them and make sure they don’t come out until I text you that I’m finished.”
She wrinkled her brow. “What am I supposed to do to keep them in there? Take my clothes off?”
“It would certainly lighten the mood,” I quipped, then hurried down the carpeted hallway. I pushed the door open and saw Sam striding along the side of the building, disappearing around the corner of the wraparound porch. Shoot. I hoped he wasn’t leaving. Two women were sitting on a wooden bench talking, despite the forty-degree temperature. When I passed them and turned the corner, Sam was leaning over the railing, staring out at the parking lot. I was about to approach him when Izzy exited the front door. Fearing they’d spot me, I quickly retreated and peeked around the corner to watch.
My mouth dropped open as I watched Izzy cozy up alongside Sam. She snaked her arm around him and nuzzled her lips against his ear. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but Sam’s face turned red and he nodded. She planted a kiss on his cheek, stroked his arm, and walked toward her car in the parking lot, with Sam staring after her.
Izzy and Sam? Sam and Izzy? What the heck could Izzy want from a pizza delivery guy who was barely old enough to shave? Whatever she wanted, it couldn’t be good. Sam seemed like a decent kid, and I needed to warn him about the Italian princess. But first, I had some questions for him to answer.
He must have heard my footsteps approach, because he whirled around. When he caught sight of me, his blue eyes widened, and the freckles stood out on his face. Sam tossed the lit cigarette over the railing into one of the shrubs as he raced down the steps.
“Wait, Sam!” I pleaded and ran after him. “Please.”
Sam turned around, but he wasn’t looking at me. He stared at the front door of the funeral home uneasily, and I wondered what he was nervous about.
“Please go away.” His voice cracked.
“What is Anthony hiding? Does he know who killed my husband?” I placed a hand on his arm. He was going to tell Anthony I’d tried to get information out of him, but at this point, I no longer cared. I was desperate for answers.
The sheer look of panic in his eyes was replaced by cold, bitter anger. He shook my arm off and gave me a shove backward. I was so surprised by the action that I nearly fell.
“Go away, Mrs. Esposito.” Sam’s voice was menacing. “Leave before you wind up like your husband.”
In shock, I watched as Sam ran toward his car. Within seconds, he peeled out of the parking lot, tires smoking.
Sixteen
After the wake, Gabby asked if I wanted to stop for food, but neither of us was hungry. As we drove home, I told her all about the note I’d found in the file cabinet. “I’m becoming more and more convinced that someone at Slice is responsible for Dylan’s death.”
“For what it’s worth, I believe you. I have to admit, I never thought you’d find anything at Slice. Boy, were Gino and I wrong. Can we go sleuthing again tomorrow?” she asked hopefully as she turned into my driveway.
“Not trying to humor me anymore?”
Her expression sobered. “That was never my intention and you know it.”
“Yeah, I do.” I reached over to squeeze her hand. “Hey, why not? I don’t care what Gino says, I think you’re a much better sleuthing partner than Ethel Mertz.”
“Damn straight,” she said and pulled me into a hug. “Try not to let this get you down, Tess. Maybe Dylan’s note wasn’t what it seemed.”
I had no answer for that. Nothing about Dylan was as it seemed anymore. “I’ll call you in the morning,” I said and let myself out of her car.
Luigi met me at the front door, and I picked him up, hugging him tightly against my chest. “Did you miss me?” He let out a little squeak and meowed, which I interpreted as Feed me, human.
I set Luigi on the floor, filled his food dish, and gave him fresh water. While he ate, I went into the bedroom, took a deep breath, and opened the left side of the closet. I stared at the hangers that still held all Dylan’s clothes. Since his death, I had not touched one single item. It had been too painful, but I couldn’t pretend anymore. He was gone, and it would do no good to keep his things here, like some type of shrine. Besides, all the items did was serve as a sad reminder now—of the man I never really knew. I buried my head into one of his sport jackets and caught the faintest whiff of the cologne he’d worn—a fresh, aquatic smell. Tears threatened, but I blinked them away.
Before I could change my mind, I grabbed several hangers of clothing off the rod and placed them on our bed. I folded slacks, shirts, and blazers carefully. A memory of Dylan standing next to the ironing board in the kitchen with only a dress shirt and underwear on made me laugh. He’d always been much better at pressing clothes than me.
There were a few plastic storage boxes under the bed that I pulled out and started to line with his clothes. Next came the shoes—Dylan’s three pairs of running sneakers, the New York Giants slippers I’d bought him last Christmas, six pairs of dress shoes and loafers in assorted colors that he’d worn for work, and a pair of leather sandals. I’d run everything over to Goodwill later this week. There were a few mementos from his youth on the floor of the closet—a catcher’s mitt, pictures of his parents, his high school yearbook, and some other items that pained me to see. Those I stored in a separate box in the closet.
After this job was completed, I went into our spare bedroom and opened Dylan’s desk, searching for the watch I’d spotted last night to add to my inventory. Scooping it from the drawer, I glanced around to see if there were any knickknacks I’d forgotten, scanning the bedroom and floor. That was when I noticed the plastic case containing his Ortiz baseb
all lying haphazardly on the floor.
“How strange,” I murmured. I reached down to grab the baseball and placed it back on top of the desk. Maybe Luigi had jumped up on the surface and managed to knock the case off. Suddenly, the papers in the drawer seemed more cluttered than I’d remembered, but maybe I had done that. I picked them up and straightened them, hesitant to throw away any documents that had to do with his personal clients. There may be a certain period of time I needed to keep them, so I’d have to check with a CPA or the IRS first.
I sat down in the chair and thumbed idly through Dylan’s Rolodex. Procrastination was my friend tonight. I didn’t want to listen to Dylan’s voicemail messages and was trying to put the task off for as long as I could. My heart almost stopped when I came across the name Bobby Pietro under the Ps. I sat back in the seat, looking at the number with its 212 area code in awe. So Dylan had known Vince’s partner, and most likely Vince, too, before he came to Harvest Park. Was Dylan the one who had turned them in?
Feeling chilled, I went to my bedroom with the Rolodex card and my cell phone. Luigi jumped up and joined me on the bed, settling on Dylan’s pillow. Despite the late hour, I dialed Bobby’s number. A female voice came on the line. The number you have reached is no longer in service at this time. That wasn’t exactly a surprise if Bobby was doing time in prison like Gino had said.
I continued to sit there in the semidarkness, staring down at the phone. The time had come. Up until the other day, I never would have dreamed of checking Dylan’s messages. We had no secrets from each other—or so I’d thought. But Gino was right. There could be clues as to who had rigged Dylan’s car or if he’d been involved in some other type of illegal scam.
My fingers shook as I dialed the cell number and waited. We’d picked out our iPhones together last year and had decided to use each other’s birthdates as passwords. Dylan could easily have checked my phone anytime he wanted to, but I knew he hadn’t. There was no reason to. We’d loved and trusted each other.
When his voice came on the line asking me to leave a message, it left me breathless. Tears flooded my eyes and ran down my cheeks. I hadn’t been prepared for the wave of hurt and raw emotion that hearing his voice would cause. After the beep sounded, I clicked off and then dialed the number again.
“Hi, this is Dylan Esposito. Please leave your name and number at the tone, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.”
Dylan wasn’t dead after all—it couldn’t have happened. His voice was too real. I listened over and over, crying silently until I had no tears left. Finally, I stopped to wipe my eyes with a tissue and then forced myself to punch in the password while he was still talking. My heart was overwhelmed with sadness as I waited.
You have eight messages.
A shiver ran down my spine. Was I ready to face this? No, but I couldn’t turn back now. My brain was flooded with too many unanswered questions. Why would Dylan steal from his employer? Why had he lied? If he loved me, how could he deliberately deceive me?
With bated breath, I waited. The messages went in order, from newest to oldest. The first one was an angry male voice that I didn’t recognize. It was dated two days after the accident. There was no phone number attached.
“Esposito, it’s Sobato. Where the hell is my order? Call me right away.” I waited to hear more, but he didn’t leave a number. Where had I heard that name before? At Slice? Was he a customer of Anthony’s I’d made a pizza for? Since when did people refer to their taxes as an order?
The next message was a hang-up, and then another from a client who was afraid she was being audited and sounded panicked.
The next three messages were from yours truly, the day Dylan had died. “Where are you? The lasagna’s been out of the oven for an hour, and it’s ruined!” I didn’t know at the time that he was already dead. Then: “Hey, are you on your way home yet?” And the first one I’d sent him that day: “Hey, babe, I didn’t have time to make bread. Can you pick up a loaf?”
I shut my eyes in horror as I listened to my voice through the messages. I’d gone from tender to downright annoyed at my husband. Even though Dylan likely hadn’t heard the final one, it still tortured me to know it was out there. I had been off work that day and decided to make lasagna and spent most of the afternoon experimenting with a new type of vodka crème sauce that I had eventually decided might be too zesty for the lasagna. Too late I’d realized I didn’t have enough time to make bread from scratch, so I’d called Dylan and asked him to pick up a loaf from Sweet Treats. I’d already prepared the ingredients for the garlicky, buttery flavored topping. It was more than worth the trouble to watch Dylan’s face light up after he’d come home and smelled it cooking, even though he’d started limiting himself to only one piece.
Shortly after I’d left the last message that day, Gino had come to my door to give me the news, and I’d crumpled in his arms. The next afternoon I’d finally remembered the lasagna, still on top of the stove, stone cold and hard as a rock. I’d tossed it and the stainless-steel pan into the trash together, wanting to forget.
The next to last message was from a woman. Her deep voice was cool and formal. “Hi, Dylan, it’s Dr. Logan.”
I wrinkled my brow as I listened. The woman’s name was unfamiliar. She was not Dylan’s general practitioner.
Dr. Logan hesitated for a brief second. “I was wondering why you never showed up for your appointment yesterday. I do have time to see you this afternoon. Please don’t wait on this. Your life could depend on it.” She recited her number and then clicked off.
Surprisingly, I didn’t cry. I’d been expecting almost any scenario under the sun—news that he’d had an affair, another embezzlement scheme, or someone threatening his life. Everything except that Dylan might’ve been sick.
Spots danced before my eyes, and I inhaled sharply. For a few minutes, I sat there, frozen in time, the phone still pressed to my ear. I barely even heard the last message, which had been from Justin, three days before Dylan’s death. “Hey. What’s the deal with you? I’ve left you, like, ten messages this week. Why haven’t you called me back? It’s my day off, so meet me at Java Time for a coffee on your lunch hour. We need to talk.”
After listening to the automated woman’s voice repeat “To replay messages, press one” about fifty times, I clicked off and continued to stare into space, the doctor’s words echoing in my head.
Your life could depend upon it.
I dialed his cell phone number again, this time cutting off Dylan’s voice as his automated message started to play. I advanced through each message until I found Dr. Logan’s. I listened for her phone number and jotted it down. If I called now, I’d probably get an answering service, so I’d try in the morning. She might not tell me anything, but I was going to do my damnedest to find out.
I turned out the light and snuggled under the comforter but already knew I wouldn’t sleep. If Dylan had been sick, this would explain a lot of things, such as why he’d seemed so preoccupied, his forgetfulness, maybe even why he’d distanced himself from Justin and the gym. With me, he had been more loving, tender, and caring than ever.
What hurt the most was the knowledge that he hadn’t shared the news with me. For goodness’ sake, I was his wife. Hadn’t we promised to love each other in sickness and in health and always be true to one another?
I stared into the dark, listening to Luigi’s motorized purrs beside me. Although there was only blackness in front of me, everything had grown abundantly clear in my mind.
“I’m going to find out who did this to you,” I whispered, sensing him near. “If it’s the last thing that I do.”
Seventeen
After another restless night, I finally rolled out of bed at eight o’clock. I sat in the window seat with my steaming mug of coffee and stared down at a new text on my phone that had come in from Justin at about five this morning.
Just
got in. Long night. Had an apartment building go up in flames. Hope you’re doing better today. Working? If not, how about I take my favorite cook out to dinner so she can have a night off for a change?
I smiled as I read the words. He was so good to me. We’d gone out for lunch a couple of times by ourselves in the past when Dylan had been out of town. We were friends, and there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with accepting a dinner invitation from him, so why did this feel like more? I cared for Justin but couldn’t think about him in a romantic way right now. Justin shouldn’t be wasting time with me when he should be out dating some beautiful woman who could make him happy and give him the attention he deserved. But the idea of him with another gorgeous blond like Natalie caused a sharp pain in my chest. This was silly. My mother didn’t know everything. Justin was only trying to comfort a friend. Eventually, he would find a girlfriend and stop coming over here as much. The thought saddened me, but I had no right to feel that way. Justin deserved a life of his own and another chance at love. God knows he’d been gypped the first time.
My fingers flew over the keyboard. Yes, working today. Will text you when I get home.
I took a shower, ate a bowl of cereal, and tidied up the living room while I planned out my strategy for the day. I hoped to talk to Sam after the way we’d left things yesterday at the funeral home. Maybe Vince would open up to me as well. It wouldn’t be easy, but perhaps he’d be willing if I sounded sympathetic to his situation.
When I finally pulled up to Slice a little before noon, the parking lot was empty except for Izzy’s convertible and an unfamiliar red Porsche parked next to the dumpster. Upon entering the kitchen, I heard voices coming from Anthony’s office. The door was open a crack, and after hanging up my coat, I walked by it slowly, hoping to see who he was talking to. To my surprise, I spotted Izzy in the chair behind the desk, sitting on an unknown man’s lap. She was busy running her fingers through his hair while his hands roamed freely over her body. My stomach churned at the sight. Gross. This must be the filthy rich fiancé I’d heard about. At least, I hoped so.
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