Strangers She Knows

by Christina Dodd

  Good. Max was going to explain the situation to Rae.

  “We have to go to Italy to visit the relatives and this is the only time they can all get together.” He sounded patient.

  Kellen stared in surprise at Max. He had not only lied, he’d thought out his lie ahead of time. He was serious about not letting anyone know where they were going. But he hadn’t thought out how to handle their daughter… Or maybe he had, in his own ham-handed way.

  “I don’t care about relatives! I want to stay here and go to camp! Girl Scout camp. Weather camp. Robotics camp.” Rae’s voice hit a high note that had Max viewing her in alarm. “I want to stay here and have fun. With my friends!”

  “If you go to camp, you won’t be here having fun with your friends.” Max’s logic was impeccable.

  Kellen clapped her hand to her forehead.

  Max glanced at her as if confused. “Please. If you have something to say, say it.”

  Stop talking. She shook her head, frantic to make him stop talking, frantic at herself for being unable to take command of her voice.

  He took her head shake as a sign she didn’t want to speak, and turned back to Rae. “You’ll have the chance to see your friends, I hope really soon, but we’ve got to do this as a family.”

  Great, Max. Throw some blame on me. Even if she could speak, Kellen wouldn’t have said that out loud. Kellen had come into Rae’s life when the child was almost seven. Before that, Max and his mother, Verona Di Luca, had raised her. Now, three years later, because of the time Kellen had spent in the hospital and in physical therapy, she still hadn’t assumed the complete role as Rae’s mother.

  In a voice rife with tragedy, Rae declared, “You don’t love me anymore.”

  Max rose and started toward Rae. “Of course we love you.”

  Rae shot Kellen an accusing look. “I notice Mother has nothing to say.” She pointed a finger at Max. “Don’t come near me!” She stomped her foot, whirled and ran up the stairs, wailing loud, dramatic tears.

  Max stared after their usually cheerful, loving daughter. “What the hell?” He turned to Kellen and spread his fingers. “What the hell?”

  Breathe. Relax. Breathe.

  Verona stepped into the doorway.

  VERONA DI LUCA:

  FEMALE, 67YO, 5'10", 130LBS, HANDSOME RATHER THAN BEAUTIFUL. A MATRIARCH OF THE DI LUCA FAMILY, MOTHER TO MAX AND HIS SISTER IRENE, GRANDMOTHER TO ANNABELLA AND TO RAE. AMERICAN WITH ROOTS DUG DEEP INTO ITALIAN TRADITION. IMPRESSIVE AND AUTHORITATIVE.

  “Here we go,” Verona said.

  “Here we go—where?” Max asked.

  “Puberty has begun.”

  “Puberty?” Max almost shouted. “She’s only ten.” He turned to Kellen. “She’s only ten, right?”

  Kellen nodded—and breathed.

  “She’ll be eleven next year,” Verona said. “Don’t you remember your sister at eleven?”

  Max froze, transfixed with alarm.

  Verona said to Kellen, “She was exactly like that. A lovely child one moment, the next a temperamental, shrieking virago.”

  In desperation, Max said, “But Rae is so mature. So calm. So capable. So kind. So—”

  “So flooded with hormones.” Verona was enjoying herself. “When she was motherless, she was forced to mature early. Did you think you would never pay for all that maturity? Now she has a mother, everyone is well—” she nodded at Kellen “—and she can regress. She’ll be by turns rude, cruel, secretive—”

  “Were you like that, Kellen?” Max asked.

  Kellen shrugged her shoulders. Yes, the exercises had helped, the constriction had eased, but she still didn’t trust herself to speak.

  “I certainly was.” Verona smiled like the wicked queen in Sleeping Beauty. “Ah, Maximilian, how I will enjoy this.”

  “Maybe not close up,” Kellen whispered. She could speak. Not loudly, but she could speak.

  Max pointed up the stairs, then pointed at Kellen. “And you want to tell that demon the truth of what’s happening?”

  He did have a point.

  Verona was a smart woman; she caught his comment and pounced on it. “What is happening?”

  “Mom, you heard about last night’s crime in Cape Charade’s mortuary.” Max wasn’t asking a question.

  Verona sobered. “Of course. So awful. Is it…that woman who…?”

  “There can be no doubt.” Max rose, went to his mother’s side, and put his arm around her. “Kellen and I are taking Rae now, today, and going away.”

  “Now?” Verona sounded as incredulous as Kellen felt.

  “There’s no time to waste,” Max said.

  “Rae was screaming because she has to leave during the last week of school?” Verona looked up as if truly comprehending Rae’s tantrum. “She’s going to miss all the fun!”

  “Mom, this woman, this Mara Philippi, is a psychopath, a serial killer.” Max’s voice got stronger, then quieter. “She cuts off people’s hands when they disappoint or betray her.”

  Verona breathed deeply, as if she was fighting an asthma attack brought on by shock and fear. “What about Luna? Rae won’t leave without Luna.”

  “I’m sending Luna on ahead to our eventual destination with our cook.”

  Kellen’s eyes grew wide. They had a cook?

  “You have a cook?” Verona echoed Kellen’s thoughts.

  “Olympia Paolergio.”

  “Olympia Paolergio? From the village? From Cape Charade?” Verona sounded incredulous. “She’s not even one of our staff!”

  “Kellen can’t cook. She can’t handle a knife or use fire. I can cook, but no one wants to eat what I prepare. Rae’s too young to do more than grate cheese and pour milk—and she grates her fingers and slops milk all over the kitchen. Olympia has agreed to go with us, do light cleaning and prepare our meals.” Max patted Kellen’s shoulder as if comforting her.

  And why? Kellen didn’t remember an Olympia Paolergio. Who was this woman?

  Verona gave her a clue. “Long ago, Olympia worked here and she can be…”

  “Difficult? I know,” Max said. “But she also…”

  “…will do much for money.” Verona’s brown eyes grew sharp behind her glasses. “My God, Max, how much are you paying her?”

  “Enough to get her to agree to the terms. To sign a contract.”

  “A hefty amount, then.”

  “As long as she sticks it out.”

  “She will.” Verona rubbed her fingertips together. Money.

  He leaned into his mother’s gaze. “You have to go, too.”

  “What? Now?” Verona strode toward him, grasped his shoulders. “We’ve got a week of school left. I’m the teacher!”

  “I’ve called in a substitute.” Max really had made all the arrangements. “With Mara Philippi in the neighborhood, we can’t take a chance of her using any of us in a hostage situation.”

  “I’m just the grandmother!”

  Kellen knew what to say, and at last, she had the breath to say it. “You’re a matriarch of the Di Luca family. If Mara took you, she would bring us all to our knees.”

  Verona stared at her daughter-in-law. They had not always gotten along. They still sometimes rubbed each other raw. But Kellen never doubted Verona’s loyalty to the woman who had given her a much beloved granddaughter. Verona nodded. “I understand.” She turned to Max. “Next week, I was going to visit your sister and Annabella—”

  He answered, “You should go visit the family in Italy right now.”

  “It will cost a fortune to change the tickets.” The Di Luca family had money, but they had never forgotten their thrifty Italian peasant background.

  “I’ve already done it,” Max said. “I’ve arranged for Irene and Annabella to meet you there. Go pack. You’re leaving tonight.”

 
; My God. Max was really scared, and that made Kellen really scared.

  Verona was a sensible woman. She understood fear. “Law enforcement?”

  “I’ll clue them in…but not yet.” Max wasn’t happy about his decision, but he had no doubts. “I want to move swiftly and without notice, and while I have the greatest respect for law enforcement, they’re not known for quick, seamless action. For now, we’ll handle this ourselves.”

  “I have a friend who served with me in the military,” Kellen said. “Diana. She’s a mercenary now. Do you want me to contact her?”

  Max nodded slowly. “That’s a good idea. If we asked her to track Mara, we could cut this hunt short.”

  Kellen smiled. She loved having the cool friends.

  Verona was not comforted. In a trembling voice, she asked, “Max…what about Rae and Kellen?”

  “I’ll keep them safe,” he said.

  “We’ll keep you safe, too.” Kellen needed to make that promise to them as much as she did to herself.

  He transferred his attention to her. “I’ll be with you, and we have each other’s backs.”

  Kellen relaxed. He knew the right thing to say to give her back her warrior pride. “I would kill for you,” she promised.

  “I know.”

  Verona said tartly, “Make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

  5

  Max piloted the helicopter, a Robinson R44 Raven II, his hands sure on the controls. The morning sun shone behind them. The Pacific Ocean off the California coast stretched on and on, the swells glittering in the sunlight. As they left it behind and headed over the water, the blades chopped at the sky, tossing bits of blue like confetti…

  Maybe that was Kellen’s brain having a fanciful moment.

  “Where are we?” Rae’s cantankerous voice sounded in Kellen’s headphones. “This isn’t Italy.”

  Kellen exchanged wide-eyed glances with Max.

  He pointed at the controls as if to indicate he was busy and didn’t have the time to explain this to their daughter.

  “Coward,” Kellen said, and turned to Rae huddled into the back seat, wrapped in her bedtime quilted blanket. “We’re going to Isla Paraíso off the California coast.”

  “California? You said—”

  “Actually, it was your father who said we were going to Italy.” Kellen cheerfully threw him under the bus. “We’re coming here for some private time together as a family.”

  “We’ve been around the world to end up in California?” Rae used the word California the way the Old Testament used the phrase Sodom and Gomorrah.

  “We did take the long way around,” Kellen acknowledged. As they traveled away from Yearning Sands Resort, they left clues that would draw Mara after them. Then when they turned back to the States, they traveled with as much stealth as possible, using private transportation that whisked them from point to point quickly and quietly.

  The Di Luca family’s money and connections had their advantages.

  “Are we there yet?” Rae asked so sharply, Kellen heard the echo of Verona in her tone.

  “Yes! There it is!” Max pointed.

  A smudge on the ocean became a golden shadow that swiftly took shape.

  Isla Paraíso: a wedge-shaped island covered in golden grasses that rippled in the eternal west wind. The wide end of the wedge lay to the east, where a series of pocket beaches glowed with soft sands and gentle waves. From there the island rose, a strong slope ascending to the west side where high cliffs dropped into the aggressive ocean. The surf there ripped and roared in constant fury, trying to bring down the rock that dared challenge it.

  Rae scooted forward as far as her seat belt would let her to gaze out the window.

  Max dipped down as they got closer and took a wide circuit that offered a bird’s-eye view. “The geologists tell us that this massive hunk of rock separated from the coast and drifted out to sea.” His voice was warm and instructive. “But they don’t know why.”

  Listening to him, Kellen smiled and relaxed. He was such a nerd. He knew a lot about the things he loved, and he loved geology, loved the earth’s movements and earthquakes and volcanoes that had created his family’s Mediterranean homeland and America’s West Coast.

  He began a wide circle around the island. “See there? The caves dug into the cliffs, facing west? Those are the World War II military installations that watched for a Japanese invasion. The military burrowed into the cliffs with dynamite and concrete. Some of the caves have collapsed, but I’ve heard some are still there and you can still go down and sit in the watch rooms and scan for submarines and planes.”

  “Wasn’t World War II like a thousand years ago?” Rae asked.

  “A thousand years ago, like when Grandma was born,” Max said with a straight face.

  “Max,” Kellen said.

  “That’s what I thought.” Rae believed him.

  “Max!” Kellen said.

  He grinned at her, then faced forward again.

  As the helicopter flew over a stand of redwoods, a herd of deer fled the sanctuary of the branches and galloped through the grasses.

  Their beauty made Kellen’s breath catch.

  Max said, “The environmentalists want the Di Lucas to turn this island into a wildlife sanctuary. Isla Paraíso is twenty-four square miles of unique plants, birds and mammals. There are species on the island that exist nowhere else in the world. Every year we have an intern come from UC San Diego to catalog the birds, animals and marine life.” He hovered above a cluster of rocks near one of the eastern beaches. “He camps there, in Paradise Cove. It puts him close to his work and it’s protected from the worst of the winds.”

  “I assume he’s got a tent to keep off the rains?” Kellen asked.

  “Yes, but it’s California in the summer. It doesn’t rain very often. That’s one of the main challenges.” Max followed the coast north. “There’s no water on the island, no wells or springs. The main house and the caretaker’s cottage both have cisterns that collect rainfall, and filtration systems that make it drinkable. Usually the winter brings enough water to fill those cisterns, but in the drought years we’ve had to bring water over from the coast. The island drops right off into the ocean. There’s no harbor. The water around it is deep. Hiring someone who can maneuver in close enough to offload anything is a challenge. You can imagine what it all costs.”

  Actually, Kellen couldn’t imagine a number that high.

  Max continued, “Turning this into a resort, even one that specializes in guests who care about rare wildlife and birds, is a risky proposition.”

  Rae asked, “Is that why we’re here? To check out the island and make a decision?”

  “That’s one reason,” Max acknowledged. “The Di Luca family believes a wildlife sanctuary is a strong possibility, for practical as well as ecological reasons.”

  “So you didn’t bring me here just to pick on me?” Rae asked.

  Kellen turned and grinned at her. “That’s the other reason.”

  Rae grinned back.

  Ever since her meltdown, Rae had mostly been her usual lovely, funny, charming self. They’d left Yearning Sands Resort and traveled to Bella Terra, California, to the Di Luca Winery in Pennsylvania, to Italy, Morocco, Spain, Mongolia—all in the space of three weeks, assuming Kellen had figured the time zones right—and then zoomed straight to Eureka, California, where they had picked up one of the Di Luca helicopters and flown to the island. Rae had clearly considered that her parents had lost their minds for creating such an agenda, but she’d treated them with warmth. It was as if the surge of hormones had retreated, leaving her sensible again.

  At the same time, Kellen was constantly braced for the next outburst.

  Max confessed he thought Rae had realized how absurd her tantrum was, and wouldn’t repeat it.

  Kellen did not s
nort. Not out loud. But privately she thought Max was the master of wishful thinking.

  “We’ll hang you by your thumbs every evening,” Max promised.

  “Daddy, stop it!” Rae said with humor.

  “The caretakers live there.” He dipped down again, toward the bottom end of the island, toward a cottage built sometime after World War II.

  Its small size wasn’t an illusion of distance; it was tiny, one or two bedrooms, with a porch that faced east, a garden plot, a greenhouse and wide live oaks in the side yard. A woman came out of the house and looked up, shading her eyes.

  Max waved.

  She didn’t wave back, but continued to watch them.

  “That’s Jamie Conkle. She and her husband live here year-round. They watch and let us know when someone tries to drop anchor and cause trouble.”

  In the rush of travel and worry, Kellen hadn’t thought about it. “I suppose you do need caretakers.”

  “Jamie Conkle is a brilliant gardener. Since the Conkles moved here, she has made them self-sufficient in their food supply. With her greenhouse and her garden and her fledgling orchard, she now grows all her own fruits and vegetables. And raises chickens. She’s got crab pots and fishing lines, so they’ve got everything they need. Because of her providing us with food and Olympia’s cooking, we’re able to stay on the island and be self-sufficient, too.”

  “Awesome. I’ll go down and meet her!” Rae’s eyes were shining.

  Max grimaced. “Um…maybe not.”

  Rae sat up straight and indignant. “Why not?”

  He glanced back at her. “It’s no reflection on you. I’ve visited the island before, and I’ve met Jamie Conkle. She’s…different.”

  “That’s okay. Right?” Rae looked vaguely anxious, a girl verging on adolescence. “You told me it was okay to be different.”

  “It is okay, but she’s different—and difficult. She doesn’t do well in conversation. She doesn’t entertain other people’s opinions. She likes to be right. She can be razor sharp, and we should respect her desire to be alone. Right?”

  “I guess.” The constantly social Rae sounded uncertain.

  The beach to the east was a long sweep of pale sand and frothing waves, and on the sand was a narrow, eight-foot-long white shape. From above, Kellen couldn’t figure out what it was…