Ravenous

by Forrest, V. K.

  As the sun rose, casting faint light in the bare room, Liam looked down at Mai’s sleeping face and promised himself he wouldn’t fall in love with her. He told himself that as long as he didn’t love her, he would make no mistakes and Mai would survive this.

  When full morning came, Mai and Liam showered and dressed and sat down to a breakfast of cold cereal. But even though she poured a bowl, she didn’t eat. She just drank her coffee, staring at Prince, who sat by the door that led downstairs.

  “You think he needs to go out?” she asked. Those were the first words she’d spoken since she woke.

  “I took him out while you were in the shower.” Liam ate a bite of Rice Krispies, trying not to think about the fact that he’d bought the box for Corrato.

  “He’s waiting for Dad.”

  “Probably,” Liam agreed.

  She pushed back from the table, leaving her bowlful of soggy Cheerios. “So what do we do today? We wait?”

  “We wait,” he said. “The Weasel will contact us.”

  “But he hasn’t yet.”

  “He will. He’s just trying to wear on us. It’s how it’s done.”

  “It’s how it’s done,” she repeated sarcastically. “Because you know how this is done, don’t you, Liam?”

  He assumed her question was rhetorical. He let her go on.

  “You’ve done it before. Dealt with kidnappers, drug dealers, murderers. Something like that. I knew it.” She slapped the kitchen table. “I knew you were too good to be true.”

  He pushed his bowl aside, no longer hungry. “I never promised you anything, Mai. Except to help you. You came to me. You asked me for my help.”

  She surprised him with the faintest smile. “I did ask for your help. I asked you because I knew in my heart that if anyone could help us, it was you, only you. And you’re right. You never promised me anything but that,” she whispered. “But I hoped. A girl can hope, can’t she? That there really is the right guy out there? A man you can trust?”

  He forced himself to meet her gaze despite the emotions that twisted his gut. What he wouldn’t have given at that moment to be standing in a cold alley alone somewhere instead of sitting in the warm kitchen with her. “You can trust me.”

  She exhaled slowly and glanced at the dog waiting at the door. “You think the Weasel will contact us today?”

  “Probably.” He got up, taking their bowls with him.

  “And while we wait?” She sipped her coffee.

  “While we wait . . .” He dumped the bowls and rinsed them. “We start sorting jewelry.”

  “We sort jewelry?”

  He watched the milk turn watery as it went down the drain. Rice Krispies swirled, pooled, and were swept away. “It’s better if you keep busy. It helps pass the time.” He saw a flash in his head of the hours he had waited in that Paris apartment, waiting for darkness to fall, waiting to pay that visit to the Gaudet brothers. It had been some of the longest hours of his life. “You can stay up here if you’d rather. I can do it alone.”

  She rose from her chair, taking her cup with her. “And miss the opportunity to size rings? No way.”

  Downstairs in the shop, Liam opened the blinds so he could keep an eye out for anyone who approached the building. It was a cold, gray day and when he went outside midday to walk the dog, he smelled snow in the air. It didn’t usually snow in early November in southern Delaware, but snow approached from the west, nonetheless.

  Kaleigh was at the front door, tapping on the glass, before four. Welcoming a break from the boring task of sorting hundreds of pieces of jewelry, some worthless, some worth small fortunes, he unlocked the door and let her in. “How was the quiz in calculus?”

  She wore her backpack and carried a small brown box. “Sucked. I got 110 percent. You know it’s starting to snow out there?”

  He locked the door behind her. “How the hell do you get 110 percent?”

  “Extra credit.” She walked over to where Mai sat cross-legged on the floor, her back up against the counter. The rat terrier slept beside her, curled in a ball like a cat. It was such a dark, dreary day, they’d put several lamps on the floor, running a tangle of extension cords to several different outlets.

  “Expecting something good? I ran into the UPS guy on the corner. He asked me if I could bring it, since I was going this way.” Kaleigh tossed the box into Mai’s lap. “It was at the door. Hey, cool earrings.” She dropped her backpack and crouched to pick up a pair of paste diamond chandelier earrings from the forties.

  “It’s for me?” Mai turned over the four-by-four-inch package, wrapped in brown paper, to read the address. “It can’t be for me. No one—” She looked up at Liam.

  Kaleigh looked from Mai to Liam and froze. “Shit,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I—”

  “Give it to me, Mai.”

  Mai held the box tightly for a second. “It’s not a bomb, is it?”

  He held out his hand.

  Mai got to her feet and slowly handed over the box. “Maybe I should open it.”

  “I don’t think so.” He turned it over, checking every side. It was addressed to Mai, with his street address, but there was no return address, of course.

  “Should I take Mai upstairs?” Kaleigh asked, chewing on her lower lip.

  “No.” Mai’s voice trembled. “He can open it, but I stay. It’s my dad missing. My dad who created this mess.”

  He went to the counter, found a pair of scissors, and took his time cutting off the paper. He knew he had to open the box, but he didn’t want to. The flaps of the small cardboard box were sealed with packing tape. When he opened them, the first thing he saw was a smear of blood on the crumpled paper towels inside. He glanced away for a minute.

  “What is it?” Mai demanded, her voice shaky.

  Kaleigh grabbed her shoulders to hold her back.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Liam swore when he pushed back the paper towel. Inside was Corrato Ricci’s wedding ring. Still on his finger.

  Two hours later, Kaleigh remained upstairs with Mai, making her a cup of tea, while Liam took the dog outside. The thing about having a pet was that, even in a crisis, it still had to pee. Liam didn’t bother with the leash. He just carried the little guy down the steps and deposited him in the grass that was slowly becoming covered with snow. There was no way the dog was going to take off; Liam was sure of it. The dog had come back to him because it expected Liam to find his master, and the Prince of Dogs wasn’t going to let him out of the obligation.

  Liam looked up and down the alley as he flipped up the collar of his leather jacket against the biting wind. He didn’t sense any humans nearby, but how long would it be before they came if they didn’t get what they were looking for?

  When Liam’s phone rang, he hesitated before answering it. It was inside his coat. With Corrato’s finger, which was now in a Ziploc bag. It wasn’t that Liam really wanted to carry the guy’s finger around with him; he just didn’t want to leave it in the apartment or the shop where Mai could find it if she got it in her head that she needed to see it again.

  Prince whined, looking up at Liam. The dog obviously wanted him to answer the phone.

  “Okay,” he muttered. Snow was beginning to sting his face. The wind had shifted and he turned his back to it. “Fine, I’ll answer it.”

  It was a cell phone number with a New York City area code. Liam knew who it was before he answered. “You forgot to block the phone number,” he pointed out to the caller.

  “I intended for you to see the number,” the old man on the other end of the line said. “So you could give me a call back, after you chat with your girlfriend. Disposable phones. Nearly untraceable. Wonderful technology.”

  “You found us through Anthony.”

  “Lucky break, him finding me.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that to him.”

  “He shouldn’t have been so stupid. He was a braggart. Had he kept his mouth shut and just chatted with me, he’d have probab
ly learned all you wanted and I’d have been none the wiser.”

  Liam knew the Weasel was right; that didn’t make it go down any easier. But he hadn’t called to talk about Anthony. “Is this the part where you tell me that Corrato will lose more than a finger if we don’t come up with the diamonds?”

  The old guy chuckled, then coughed a smoker’s cough. “Something like that.”

  Liam could just imagine the Weasel smoking a fat cigar as he talked. “And if I tell you she . . . we don’t know where they are?”

  “If you told me that, I would tell you that would be a terrible shame, Corrato Ricci dying for a bunch of rocks. My rocks.”

  Liam picked up the dog. It was shivering, but he didn’t want to take the phone call inside and risk Mai overhearing him. After a second’s hesitation, he stuffed the rat terrier inside his coat. With the finger. “Corrato okay?”

  “For now. Tough old bird.” Machhione coughed again. “Got a lot of fight in him.”

  “What if they really don’t know where the diamonds are?” Liam demanded. “What if Donato sold them years ago?”

  “It’s not about the money. It’s about taking something that is mine. Old beef. Donato never sold them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the bastard told me so. Right before my guy held him down and I slit his throat,” he growled.

  “Guess your temper got the best of you. The truth of where your diamonds are might have died on the floor of that antiques store. You think of that?”

  “You’ve got two days.”

  Liam knew the call was just about over. “Wait. What if we do find them? If I bring them to you, will you really let Corrato go?”

  “I said it wasn’t about money, but it’s always about money. You bring the diamonds, you get the old man. You don’t bring me the diamonds, the old man dies, slowly. Then we come for the daughter. You can get me at this number for the next two days. After that, I come find you.”

  Chapter 27

  Liam found Mai and Kaleigh back in the shop. Someone had pulled down the blinds, but he could hear the wind. It tugged at the awning, making a flapping, groaning sound.

  “You think you ought to hit the road?” he asked Kaleigh, depositing the dog on the floor.

  Kaleigh and Mai both sat on the floor, the lamps around them, sorting through jewelry. Several small cardboard boxes were stacked nearby.

  “Called my mom, told her the storm was really picking up and I didn’t want to walk home,” Kaleigh answered.

  “She didn’t offer to come get you?”

  “And risk wrecking her new Volvo? No way. I’ll just sleep in Mr. Ricci’s bed.” She slipped a silver filigree ring on her finger. “Mai said I could stay.”

  “That right?” He pulled off his jacket and tossed it over the counter.

  Mai hadn’t said a word. He looked at her until she looked at him. “You okay?” he asked.

  “As okay as I can be, considering the fact that someone cut my father’s finger off and gave it to me in a box.”

  Her face was pale, but she was hanging in there. She was strong, stronger than even she realized.

  “He did it to make sure we understood that he meant business.”

  “Obviously.” She pushed aside a pile of earrings and leaned back against the counter. “Where can the diamonds be, Liam?”

  “What if he hid them a long time ago?” Kaleigh got up on her knees and opened a cardboard box. Prince wandered over and stuck his nose in it and sniffed.

  “We’ve probably got enough jewelry out,” Liam said, leaning on the counter, watching Kaleigh. “It’s all got to be sorted, recorded.”

  “That’s boring. I like seeing what you have in these boxes. It’s like buried treasure.”

  Liam looked back at Mai. “How old were you when your uncle went to jail?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nine.”

  “We have to think outside the box. If you were Donato and you knew you were going to jail, possibly for a long time, where would you hide them, where they’d be safe? Can you think of any contact you had with him just before he went to jail? Did you and your dad go to visit him? Did he come to see your dad?”

  “Wow. Look at this!” Tearing away tissue paper, Kaleigh held up a silver and gilded bronze jewelry box. She looked at Mai. “Maybe your uncle gave your dad the diamonds and your dad didn’t even know it.”

  Liam looked at Kaleigh. “That’s good thinking.” He squatted on the floor in front of Mai. “Think, Mai. Did anything new appear in your house around that time? 1987, 1988, 1989? Before your uncle went to jail?”

  Mai pressed her hands to both sides of her head as if thinking hurt. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want my dad to die. I don’t care what he did. He’s a good man. I swear he’s a good man.”

  Prince trotted over and sat down next to Mai, looking up at her with his big brown eyes. Half-laughing, half-crying, she stroked the little dog’s head.

  “He’s not going to die, Mai. We’re going to figure this out.”

  “And then what?” She looked up at him, tears filling her eyes. “All those things my father wrote down, a lot of it had to do with crimes the Weasel committed or ordered committed. Find the diamonds, don’t find the diamonds. We’re both dead. If I was him, I wouldn’t let us live.”

  Liam stood up and walked away, clenching his fists in frustration. She was right. This whole mission, it had been fucked since day one. Donato, Corrato, and Mai had probably been fucked since the day the Weasel got out of jail. Who was he kidding, to think he could save any of them? The day he had gone to Donato’s funeral, he’d been on some kind of power trip. He felt guilty about all those kids he hadn’t saved from the Gaudet brothers and somehow, in this idiot mind of his, he had thought that if he could protect Mai and the old man, he could somehow be absolved of his guilt. But there would be no absolution. There never was. Best thing he could do right now is put Mai and the dog out on the sidewalk and toss her the keys to her van. At least then the mafia wouldn’t be roaming Clare Point.

  But if there was no absolution, why did he do the things he did, roaming the earth, seeking evil, destroying it? If there was no hope, why did the Kahills, why did dear Kaleigh rise each morning, hoping that maybe today would be the day that God would determine them absolved of their sins? It was hope that made Liam, and Kaleigh and Fia and all of them, fight the good fight.

  Which meant there was still hope that he could save Corrato and this beautiful woman sitting on the floor of his shop. It meant he had to try.

  He grabbed Mai’s hands. “Think,” he said. She was cold and he rubbed her hands between his.

  “You said you didn’t see your uncle that often,” Kaleigh said, sitting cross-legged, the old jewelry box on her lap. “So it must have been a big deal when you did. Maybe you just met for dinner, or—”

  “Oh, my God,” Mai whispered. She was staring at Kaleigh. “Oh, my God. I might know where they are.” She shook her head, almost seeming dazed. “But Uncle Donato wouldn’t have . . .” Fresh tears filled her dark eyes again. “He wouldn’t have risked my life, would he? I was just a kid.”

  “Where are they?” Liam asked, looking into her eyes.

  “It’s probably crazy.”

  “Anything could help,” he insisted, squeezing her hands. “You never know.”

  Mai took her hands from Liam’s and reached over to take the jewelry box out of Kaleigh’s lap. “He gave me a jewelry box for my seventh birthday. It’s a beautiful, black lacquered box. It was Chinese, of course, not Vietnamese, but I loved it anyway. He gave me the box and a pair of tiny diamond stud earrings. I lost the earrings years ago.” She met Liam’s gaze again. “But I still have the box,” she whispered.

  “Of course. Always hide things in plain view,” he said. “It’s at the house?”

  “They knocked it off my dresser. Remember? My jewelry was strewn all over my bedroom. They looked in the box. There’s no diamonds in the jewelry box.
I would have found them years ago.”

  The moment she said it, Liam remembered the lacquered black box. He had put it on her dresser after nearly stepping on it. “What year did he give it to you?”

  “1987.” She hugged the silver and bronze box to her chest. “I was seven in 1987.”

  Liam offered his hand to help Mai to her feet. “Kaleigh, grab the dog. We’re going for a drive.”

  Liam, Kaleigh, Mai, and the Prince of Dogs stood in Mai’s bedroom, staring at the jewelry box on her dresser. Their clothes glistened with melting snow.

  “I’ve opened and closed that thing a million times,” Mai insisted. “There’s no way there can be diamonds in that box.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Mai seemed unable to move.

  “You want me to get it?” Kaleigh asked her gently.

  Mai shook her head. “No. I’ll do it. I was just thinking that if those diamonds aren’t there, my dad—”

  “They’re there, Mai.” Liam said it with such certainty that even he believed it.

  Kaleigh and Liam watched as Mai crossed the short distance to the dresser and picked up the box. She dumped the contents on top and turned to offer the jewelry box to Liam.

  Liam grabbed it, set it on the dresser, and pulled a lamp closer so he could get a better look. Outside, he could hear the wind roaring and told himself that that was what made him nervous.

  The storm outside was what was making his pulse beat too fast. The box was perhaps ten inches long, six wide, and six tall. It was some sort of wood painted in black lacquer, with leaves and butterflies painted in pinks and oranges and reds. The top opened to reveal a red velvet tray with a place for rings on one side, and on the other side, a tray for additional small pieces. He pulled out the tray, felt beneath the lining, and set it aside. He ran his fingers along the inside of the box.