Kate looked at this self-assured woman. Really looked. She did have some characteristics very much like her mom. Not Carmela. Her adoptive mother, Abrie. Her light skin color, her dark blue eyes and perfectly shaped ears. This really was her mom’s mother, the woman in the picture on the horse. “I don’t understand.” She was sure she looked a bit crazy after her quick departure from the house. Still, she lifted her chin high, unwilling to let the headache that assaulted her make her appear weak.
“I’m sorry Abrielle led you to believe we were murderers. We were not and I continue not to be.”
“She didn’t tell me. I found the pictures. Your picture was the first one in the stack. The only one with people who were alive.”
“I think it’s about time I spoke with your mom even if she has no desire to. I need to see those pictures and maybe we can come to an understanding. No wonder she hates me so much.”
“There were names on the backs of some of the pictures. I took pictures of the names.”
“We’ll have to take a look. I’m certain Abrielle won’t talk to me over the phone, so maybe it’s time for a trip to the States. Then again, she did text me and tell me to stay away from you while you were here.” She raised an eyebrow. “Until then, I ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proven guilty, please.”
“She told you to stay away from me?”
“She did, but now at least I have an idea why. Her text, however, made me determined to find you and watch out for you, which I did.”
“I don’t understand,” Kate repeated, looking at her hands and poking her tongue hard into her cheek. She kept swallowing, unable to get any moisture in her mouth. This was not happening.
“I know. Why don’t you hop on this horse and we’ll talk as we go to the gate, and if by the time we get there, you still want to run away, I’ll call you a cab. Shoot, I’ll drive you to the nearest airport myself.”
“You took my phone.” Kate’s body temperature rose and her chest tightened.
“I know.” Her grandmother hopped off her horse. “I didn’t want you doing something foolish, like calling your mother and freaking her out.”
“But, I-I …”
“I’ll give you back your phone as soon as you make the decision to stay or go. Now, hop on Tesorina here. She’s a great horse.”
“I’ve never ridden a horse before.” Kate took a step backward and clasped her hands together.
“No? I would have thought your mom would have at least passed that little nugget onto you.”
“My mom rode horses?” The heat Kate felt had built to a fever pitch. Who was her mom anyway?
“Oh, yes. And she was quite good at it. But, no worries, Tesorina here is as gentle as they come.” Kate did not step toward the horse. “I have a lot to teach you if you’ll let me. Riding a horse is one of the easier things.” Her grandmother demonstrated how to get onto the horse. “I’ll help you if you need it. Use that boulder next to Tesorina to help you up.”
Kate stepped forward—what else could she do?—and followed the directions. She shocked herself by getting on the horse on her first try.
“Excellent.”
Feeling like she’d really done something amazing, Kate smiled, her feelings of frustration and confusion melting away.
“Now,” her grandma said. “I know you feel unsure right now, and Tesorina is pretty good about that kind of thing, but you need to learn to take command of the horse and make it feel like you are confident and in control even when you don’t feel it deep down. Then the horse, any horse, will listen to you.”
She directed Kate how to make the horse move one way or the other. “If Tesorina starts to trot, pull back gently on the reins. If she starts to run, same thing, only slowly increase the strength of the pull until she slows back down. Panic will get you nowhere. That being said, it’s highly unlikely Tesorina will try to take off, I just want you to be prepared if something spooks her.”
Her grandma hopped on top of her own horse.
“Now,” Kate said, as they headed for the ranch gates, “tell me about my mom.” It was hard to imagine her proper mom, Abrie, riding a horse.
“Well, I’m sure at this point you know much more about who she is now than I do, but when she was born, she changed our lives. We wanted to do everything for her. She was so beautiful, and we loved her very much. She made our lives joyful. We lived here and had a wonderful life. Then your grandpa got a wild hair to go to America. He was itching to work on something new. He felt he’d conquered Italy and wanted to conquer a new country.” A shadow seemed to cross her grandmother’s face, but it left as quickly as it’d come. “So we left on our new adventure and it turned out to be harder than he anticipated, and more ruthless than he’d ever dreamed. He worked hard and did what he had to in order to survive.”
“Like killing people?”
“No.” Her tone was firm. “There were some Italian families who were not kind and gentle like your grandfather, but they were prospering and your grandfather got caught up in it all. At first he wanted to change things and did, but not enough. My sons—”
“Wait a minute,” Kate interrupted. “I have uncles?” This was too much. Sensing her distress Tesorina sped up, coming close to a trot. Kate loosened the pressure she’d added to the horse’s sides and their pace began to settle down.
“Of course you have uncles.”
“Do I have any aunts?” A light feeling filled Kate’s chest.
“Unfortunately no, but you do have two uncles.”
“In America?” Tesorina finally slowed back to a walk. Their pace wasn’t much faster than walking, but at least Kate wasn’t doing the walking.
“One stayed in America when I returned. The other is here in Italy. It appeared that your grandpa was making headway with the Italian families, but in reality, he kept hitting setback after setback. Your grandpa, however, was no quitter. Unfortunately, he started taking part in the nonsense that was going on. These people he was working with were his countrymen after all. I didn’t approve, but I loved that man. Your mom also didn’t approve, and wanted me to leave America and go back home to Italy. I wasn’t about to leave your grandpa, though. I stayed until he was killed.”
Kate gasped.
“Yes. He was killed by a competing family. My sweet husband was dead, and I was heartbroken. By that time, your mom had already run away.”
Despite her confusion, Kate suddenly noticed the fresh scents in the air: newly mown grass, the fragrances of various flowers and something else earthy. She took in a deep breath, finally relaxing.
“When I refused to come back here with your mom, she disappeared. Ran away. She was seventeen. Your age. She never contacted us again. Not once. It broke your grandfather’s heart. It broke mine. I found her after your grandfather was killed. By that time, she was happily married and didn’t seem to notice we weren’t a part of her life anymore. Now I understand why she was so eager to leave.”
“Why didn’t you find her earlier?” Kate’s question came more out of curiosity than disgust.
“She made it clear in the note she left us that she didn’t want us to bother her. We had to honor that. I despaired when your grandfather was murdered. Your two uncles took over the business, which was booming and that was probably why they killed him. I couldn’t deal. I came back here. Alone. It took me a couple of years to come out of my depression. Part of the reason I was able to move on was because I’d finally found your mom. Seeing her be so successful and happy made me have the confidence I needed to continue on with my life.”
They rode in silence for a little while, the clopping of the horses’ hooves making a soothing sound on the asphalt.
“What do you want from me?” Kate said, noticing the large iron gate was getting closer and closer. She needed to make her decision about this woman in the next few minutes.
“I want to have a relationship with you.” She smiled at Kate. It was warm and seemed free of pretense.
<
br /> “But, you know I’m adopted, right?” She hated how uncertain she felt.
Her grandmother nodded and they stopped only a few meters from the gate. It surprised Kate that her heart had returned to its normal rhythm.
“Of course I do. Despite that, you are my granddaughter.”
“But my mom left.” Kate rubbed at her forehead.
“Yes. She won’t like me talking to you.” Her grandmother pressed her lips together sternly.
“Are you doing this to get back at her?”
“Oh, no. I’m afraid my reasons are just as selfish, however. From what I’ve seen, you’re an amazing young woman and I’d like to get to know you. I have no desire to hurt your mom.”
“So, if I decided to go right now, you’d let me?” Kate stared at the gate and only then discovered the guard shack and the large man inside it watching them.
“Yes, but I hope you’ll decide to stay.”
Kate considered her grandmother’s words. “What if I want to leave in a few hours?” Kate’s horse chuffed.
“Then you may.”
“If I go back and get my phone and bag and want to leave, I can?” Kate couldn’t keep the uncertainty out of her voice. This woman had kidnapped her. Was it all a ruse just to keep her calm until they could secure her?
“Listen, Kate. You can leave whenever you want to. I’m not keeping you here. You are free to go. Of course, I’ll have to help you leave the country safely if that’s what you choose to do. You certainly can’t stay here without some protection.”
There was something in her grandma’s voice that told Kate she was speaking the truth. “What if I want my friends to come here?”
“They may come. I’d love to meet your friends. Why weren’t they with you?”
“I sent them away because…” Kate stopped, feeling silly for not realizing the truth of what she’d done.
“Because you knew you were in danger?”
Kate nodded, her face blanching as she thought of abandoning Ellie. “And my mom. Can I call my mom?”
“You may. You may not like what she has to say, but yes, you may call her. This is the moment to decide what you want to do for you. You’re old enough to decide by yourself.” She stressed the “yourself”.
“I’ll go back to the house. I need to talk to my friends and my mom.” While determined and even a bit eager to talk to them, she couldn’t help but worry about what they might say or do.
“Wonderful. We’ll have a bit of time to get to know each other on the way back.”
22
At the house, Kate slid off Tesorina’s back with all the grace of a drunk grizzly bear, and brushed off her bum. Her grandma, on the other hand, hopped off as if she rode every day, which she undoubtedly did.
A man came from the side of the house like he’d been waiting for just this very thing and led the horses away. It occurred to Kate for the first time that her grandma was extremely wealthy. In turn, didn’t that make her mom really wealthy? No. She’d left that life. Kate stared at the back of her grandma as they climbed the front steps, her light olive skin, her lean and well cared for physique; until she turned her dark blue eyes on Kate, at which point, Kate looked quickly away as if she hadn’t been looking at all. It struck Kate at that moment how much of her grandma her mom had inherited. “Wait a minute,” Kate said, hopping up the steps two at a time. “Those pictures in the room I slept in, those are of my mom, aren’t they?”
“Indeed. Wasn’t she a doll?”
Kate chuckled. “So all of this was yours before you left for the States?”
Her grandmother nodded.
“But, who took care of it while you were gone?”
“Our whole staff stayed on to run the ranch. It was your grandfather’s pride and joy and he would never have abandoned it.”
“And yet, you never came back to visit it while you were in America?”
Her grandmother snorted. “Not for seven years. I figured your grandfather was afraid that if we came for a visit, we’d never return. And, he would have been right in that assumption.”
“So what did he do to be able to have this ranch?”
“He was in textiles if you can believe that.”
They walked into the house and Kate couldn’t help but notice the beautiful tapestries, rugs and cloths decorating the main room.
“He sold items to the Vatican, the Russian Prime Minister, the German Chancellor… In any case, he was not only great at what he did, he loved it.”
“He must have been good if it produced this.” Kate looked around in awe as they walked toward the kitchen. She’d missed everything on her way out.
“Yes. He had a gift for creating relationships with people. One of my sons, your uncle Tomasso, inherited that gift and he took over the business when your grandfather died. Your other uncle, Ernesto takes care of the empire in the States.”
They crossed into the massive kitchen.
“And had my mom stayed?”
“Well, your mom, she wasn’t much of a business woman. I’m sure she would have found her own path, most likely with the ranch. She loved the animals, and she loved the ranch hands. She was a people person, much like your grandpa, just never had the stomach for making the deal.”
Kate’s pride in her mom ratcheted up several notches and she stood taller and smiled. “She has a hyper sense of right and wrong, you mean?”
Her grandma nodded, opened the fridge and pulled out a glass pitcher of water and set it on the counter. “It’s a rare thing.”
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “I don’t think it’s really that rare. I think we all have that thing inside us, that guide that makes us feel bad when we do or are about to do something that is bad. That is the indicator for right or wrong, I think.”
“Yes,” her grandma said as she pulled out two tall glasses from the cupboard. “But, do most choose to listen to that guide?”
“Touché.” Kate said, noticing her phone next to a laptop on the large farm table. She glanced at her grandmother who was pouring the water.
“Go right ahead. It’s fully charged and the laptop is for your use also.
“Does your family still attend church?” Her grandmother’s voice sounded inquisitive rather than accusatory.
“Yep.”
“And?”
“I like church. I like my priest. Sure it can get boring sometimes, but there’s something there that makes me feel right somehow.”
“Something here,” her grandma said, placing her open palm over her heart.
“Yeah. Right.” Kate’s hand went to her heart too before she reached out and picked up her phone and noticed her knife was also there on the table. The metal shone in the light.
Her grandma nodded and walked toward her with two glasses of water. “You and I are going to get along just fine. As for your knife, I had one of my men clean it up for you. I’m glad it wasn’t one of them you decided to stab.”
Kate shuddered. “It was awful.” She opened and closed her hand, a shiver grabbing onto her spine.
“But necessary. You did what you had to do. I understand.”
“Wait. How did you even know about that?”
“I had someone tailing you.”
“You too? Creepy. Why? Why were you following me?” Kate tore her eyes away from the knife and picked up her phone.
“Let’s just say I know things.”
“No. You don’t get away with saying that. How did you know?”
“I know you’re anxious to make some calls, so I’ll leave you to it. Oh, and your bag is upstairs in your room if you need it. At lunch, I’d really, really like to hear what’s been going on with you. And you can show me the pictures if you’d like.” She set the glass on the table next to Kate before moving quietly away. Wow, now she knew how her mom got so good at avoiding answering questions. Apparently that was a family trait. Kate would have to be okay with not having the answer right then. She grabbed the water and took a drink as she made
her way to an overstuffed leather sofa in the room adjacent to the kitchen. She set the glass on a coaster on the side table and settled in.
Her phone clicked on and as she’d anticipated, she had a ton of text and voice messages. She smiled despite herself. It was nice to have someone who cared about her enough to worry about her. Instead of checking the messages, she just called Ellie. It would be easier that way.
She clicked on Ellie’s name and the phone rang, but Ellie never picked up. The call went straight to voicemail. Strange. Ellie never let her phone die. Never. Kate listened as the message played. “Hey! This is Ellie! I’m in Italy so you’re just going to have to wait to talk to me. Get over it.” Kate blew a puff of air out of her nose. That message was the epitome of Ellie.
Kate called Colby with the same result. What was going on? Fear raced through her veins. What if Veronica had them? Kate quickly pulled up the texts.
Ellie: We got a couple hotel rooms for everyone. The guys are dying to go by the apartment. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop them.
Ellie: Okay. I can’t stop them. They are going to go see what they can see.
Ellie: Are you there? What’s happening? The guys are watching the apartment and it’s kinda freaky.
Hope you’re okay.
Ellie: OMG Kate! Someone just went into the apartment. Some man.
Kate’s heart started to race.
Ellie: Answer your phone! Where are you? The guys want to go into the apartment and check things
out. I need you. I’m scared.
Ellie: Colby called the police. They’re going to wait. If you don’t call me soon, I’m going to start really worrying about you.
Heat filled Kate’s belly. She’d told Ellie not to call the police.
Ellie: Where are you? I’m officially worried. Oh, the police arrived.
Ellie: They’re going in. I’m not. No way. Wish you were here to wait outside with me.
Ellie: This is Colby. Where in the heck are you? Get back here ASAP. We need you.
Kate Concealed Page 19
