The Given

by Vicki Pettersson

  “Stop talking, you damned fool!” Sal demanded, his voice suddenly rounding out with his old authority. Ray cringed.

  “You knew all along,” Gina said to Sal.

  “That Barbara set up Mary Margaret’s kidnapping? That she led my nephew, Tommy, to his death? That she pinned it all on that sap of a P.I., Griffin Shaw?”

  Yes. He knew.

  “And you still married her? You lived with her? All these years?”

  “I was alive, but that’s different from living, isn’t it? And I can’t say that I did that, not really. Not after Theresa died. When she was gone . . . living was just another job.” He shook his head, deflating again. “But maybe I didn’t want to see what Barbara was all about. She stayed so long. She mourned the end of the good days with me. She stayed throughout my prison sentence. She stayed after I came home, crowded her space. Her house.”

  “Because she still wants the other two,” Gina said without emotion.

  Ray couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. He reached for the gem. “Wait, there are two more of these?”

  “Don’t touch it, you idiot!” Sal’s voice thundered through the room, and for a moment Kit glimpsed the feared mafia don beneath the sagging meat suit, the criminal patriarch who had run this city like it was his own. He glared at Ray until the younger man backed away, and then turned that fierce gaze back on Gina. “I swear, he’s more her son than he is Theresa’s.”

  Ray’s face fell slack in stricken surprise. Sal pushed into a seated position and turned away before Gina did, so he missed the way his son’s face hardened in hatred.

  “Help me up,” Sal told Gina, and she did. When Kit and Grif next blinked, they were standing before a safe, which Sal opened with shaking fingers. A bank of security cameras displayed different parts of the house in black and white, and tilted angles. Ray was nowhere to be seen.

  “I found this when I got back from the pen,” Sal said, handing Gina a slim, folded slip of paper. “It’s the birth certificate she used to change her name when Theresa ran her out of Vegas the first time. Tuck it away,” he said, before she could open it. “Use it as insurance.”

  Then he reached in for something else. “And this . . . this is mine.”

  Very carefully, he unfolded a thin, delicate slip of paper, then held it up to reveal a series of nonsensical lines. Tracing paper, Kit saw. Did they even make that anymore? Reaching down, he laid it atop the safe’s only other item, a map of the city and the surrounding terrain.

  “Your drop zones,” Gina whispered, and her accompanying thought hurtled through Kit’s and Grif’s minds. Where all the bodies are buried. Sal smiled bitterly, then pointed to the largest circle, the darkest mark. “This is—”

  A loud blast sounded, and Sal jerked back. His gaze narrowed as he caught sight of movement on the cameras above. Barbara was back. And she’d brought two cops with her.

  Dad, Kit thought, seeing the fuzzy black-and-white images through Gina’s gaze. Oh, my God. Grif, it’s my dad. But then, in the past, Gina looked away. “She knows I’m here.”

  Sal’s mouth thinned, his bushy brows drawing low. “Stay here in the safe box. I’ll take care of this.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Fulfill Theresa’s last wish,” he said, nodding down at the map, then back at the cameras. “Barbara will never see those diamonds.”

  And he left. But Gina didn’t stay put. Instead, she grabbed the gem, the map, and the birth certificate—and ran, like she always had. Out of the safe box, through the kitchen, and out the back door. She glanced back only once, when she heard her name shouted from behind. Ray DiMartino was pointing her way, and one of the officers was squinting at her quizzically, then rushing to follow . . .

  No, Kit implored her father, though the memory was already fading, sulfur again crowding in to obscure the past, but not before Kit saw the plasma swirling around her father’s ankles. Please don’t follow.

  They came to in the morgue with the sound of pounding at the door. Sucking in a deep breath of air, Kit gasped, and then turned into Grif’s shoulder. The sulfur was gone, and Gina Alessi’s face had disappeared again, along with her memories.

  Along with Kit’s father, who had died that same day.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Obviously, Charles Ott kicked them out of the morgue. As the door shut behind them, and the security guard trailed them to make sure they got into their car and left, Grif and Kit remained silent, heads reeling from the experience of being in Gina Alessi’s memories, though likely for different reasons.

  Grif cleared his throat as Kit sped from the parking lot. She ignored him, so he simply stared out the window and waited for her to come around. It was only fair that she needed more time to process what they’d just seen. He was used to the supernatural. The experience had obviously shaken her, but he had to trust that Sarge wouldn’t have given her Divine Sight if she wasn’t ready for it.

  “Do you want me to break it down for you?” he finally asked, placing his hand atop the gearshift, where hers was tightly clenched.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” she said stiffly.

  “Barbara knew that Gina was going to go to Sal fourteen years ago. She must have been following her, just like Gina suspected. She probably set Gina up for something, which was why she brought the police along.”

  “You mean my father,” Kit said in a small voice, and then cleared it, speaking louder. “Can you believe it? How unlucky to be on duty that day. That woman destroyed everything she touched.”

  “Ray killed your father, Kit.”

  “She had a hand in it.”

  Yes, thought Grif. Barbara had her hand in all of it.

  “You know,” he finally said, “men are tough, but women have a ruthlessness to them that I don’t think I’ll ever understand.”

  “I don’t,” Kit said quickly, jaw set defensively.

  “You could,” he said immediately, and held up a hand to stave off her anger. “Don’t take it the wrong way, but I’ve seen it in you, honey. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do to protect the ones you love.”

  Kit finally just nodded. “Theresa knew all the way back in 1960 that she couldn’t stop Barbara from going after her husband after she was dead. Not if that’s what Barbara really wanted, and she was right. But damn if she didn’t keep her from getting those diamonds.”

  And Barbara, who had learned long ago how to circle back around and hide in plain sight, who they now knew was still alive, was still searching for them.

  So where the hell was she right now?

  “You know, the past,” Kit said, shaking her head. “It’s not at all what I expected.”

  “Not enough rockabilly music for your liking?”

  She cut her eyes at him but didn’t smile. “No, I mean it didn’t feel any different from now. For some reason I thought it’d be . . . simpler. Then again, the future is never what I think it’s going to be, either. I’m misjudging both. I have no idea what it all means.”

  “I think,” Grif began, but faltered because he’d struggled with the same . . . and because what he was about to say was a new thought to him as well. “I think that the meaning is in the moment.”

  He couldn’t tell if Kit agreed. She was still reeling from seeing her father, a woman’s sulfuric face, and someone else’s memory in her own mind. But she finally reached out and took his hand, squeezing like she wanted to hold on to this moment forever. So Grif didn’t ask where they were going. He just settled back and watched the streets go by, holding her fingers lightly in his palm, squeezing back.

  Kit had composed herself by the time she arrived at the newspaper, and she strode into Marin’s office ready to do battle.

  Which Marin seemed to be expecting. Sitting behind her desk—usually piled with tottering stacks of paper but now loaded down with a giant cardboard file box—she merely leaned back in her chair and sighted Kit over the top of her reading glasses.

  “Amelia said you might be by.”
Her aunt attempted a smile, a flicker of hope mixed with uncertainty. Kit nearly deflated with gratitude and had to fight the urge to run and pull Marin into a hug. She wasn’t going to have to fight her on this. Kit would finally know exactly what her father had given Marin on the day he died.

  “You know,” Grif said, clearing his throat, “I think I’m gonna go look for a stale doughnut or something. Some subpar coffee. A magazine to read.”

  “What?” Kit turned, blinking.

  “He means he’s going to give us privacy to talk.”

  Grif just shrugged one shoulder. “Estrogen makes me dizzy.” Then he turned to Marin before Kit could snarl. “Hey, do you have an envelope I can borrow?”

  She searched around, then held one out to him.

  “And a stamp?”

  “Jesus, Shaw.”

  “Here,” he said, matching her grumble with his own as he threw down a wad of bills. “That should cover it.”

  And he strode from the room without another word. Kit stared at the money, blinking because she realized it meant he wouldn’t need it. Like everything else on his body, the money replenished itself at 4:10 A.M. . . . but he was supposed to be dead the next time that hour rolled around.

  “As chipper as ever,” Marin remarked wryly, drawing Kit out of her trance. “Any news of Zicaro?”

  “Dennis is working on it, but there’s nothing yet.” And if Kit was going to change that—if she was going to help both Zicaro and Grif—then she had to keep moving forward. So she refocused and gestured to the box.

  “Your father’s personal effects. Mostly detritus from his office,” Marin confirmed, though she didn’t move to open it. Kit realized she was going to let her do the honors. “The department brought it by after his funeral, and I put it aside. We had enough to deal with, and then . . .”

  And then Kit had broken down.

  Marin shrugged. “I stored it once you came home. Never thought I’d see it again.”

  Kit moved to place one hand atop the box. “Is it all here?”

  “Including what he sent me?” Marin nodded and stood. “I know Amelia already said it, but I was only trying to keep you safe.”

  “My dad died for this information,” Kit said. Because of something in this box.

  Crossing her arms, Marin looked toward the door. “It seems right that you’re working with Shaw on this. They’re cut from exactly the same cloth, you know.”

  Kit looked at her like she was crazy. “My father was a sweetheart.”

  And Grif was a lot of things . . . but she wasn’t sure anyone would ever call him sweet.

  Marin’s laughter bounded throughout the room. “Dear, dear Katherine. Your father loved you like you were the breath in his chest, he loved your mother with a single-mindedness that verged on madness. His love was brutal . . . but it was never sweet.”

  Kit had never heard this about her father, or her parents, before. It felt like listening in on a forbidden conversation.

  She loved it.

  “Really?” she asked, forgetting the box before her, and its mysteries, for a moment.

  “Absolutely. He took one look at your mom, and made it his mission in life to sweep her off her feet.” Marin huffed and rolled her eyes. “Treated her like the princess she thought she was, though he was smart about it. Didn’t try to buy her favor with baubles or flowers or anything like that. No, he knew she wouldn’t value anything she could gain for herself. Instead, he gave her something infinitely more valuable.”

  “What?”

  “Himself,” Marin said, and even she looked a little awed by it. “His whole life. Like a trench coat laid across a water puddle, he just put it out there for her to walk on. No ulterior motives, no expectations except that she love him the same way in return. It was the craziest, most wholehearted display of love I’ve ever seen.”

  Kit closed her eyes so that Marin wouldn’t see the tears warming them. After the silence had gone on for a time, Marin finally said, “Do you know why I keep the family archives so meticulous and so intact even after all these years? Even though they don’t contain any usable reportage?”

  “Because you’re nosy?” Kit said, sniffing.

  “Yes,” Marin admitted with a small laugh. “And because knowing the minutiae of people’s lives makes me feel alive. Even the obits are comforting.”

  “That’s . . .” Kit thought about that for a moment. “Really disturbing, Auntie.”

  “Why? Laying it down in black and white strips a story of its emotion so that anybody can face it. That’s why newshounds like you and me and loony Al Zicaro try to capture it so precisely. It’s why people read the news, even if it’s bad.”

  Especially if it’s bad, thought Kit.

  “We attempt to tame life on the page so that we can understand it, learn from it, and try not to repeat others’ mistakes. Story is memory and memory is story, do you see?”

  “Sure.” A story was a transcript of a memory. What you remembered of an event or a person became true for you . . . whether it was true or not. That’s why Kit had trouble remembering a father who loved brutally. And it was why Grif had trouble forgetting Evie at all.

  “And so that’s why I never told you about your father’s letter,” Marin finally said. “I thought I could keep you safe if you just forgot.”

  But you never really forgot love. No matter how it left you.

  “So.” Marin sighed, then, with a shrug, gestured to the box. “Open it.”

  Layered with dust and weakened by time, the masking tape gave easily. An image flashed through Kit’s mind: a doll lying there, blinking up at her with precious, winking eyes.

  But there was no doll . . . and no diamonds, either. Just half-used notepads and a handful of pens, along with a photo of Kit and her mother, and another of the three of them together. Kit gingerly set those aside for herself before lifting a yellowed envelope from atop what remained. She read it, then gaped in surprise.

  “Do you remember this?” Kit asked, holding up the unsealed envelope stamped with Albert Zicaro’s return address.

  “I must have just tossed it in there.” Marin shook her head. “I told you. I just wanted to forget.”

  But Kit needed her to remember. Opening it, she began to read aloud:

  Dear Ms. Wilson,

  My name is Al Zicaro. You may recognize it because I was one of the most prolific and illustrious reporters to ever grace the pages of your family newspaper. I remember you from the newsroom (though you likely can’t say the same) working like a grunt in the pen and chasing down stories like you were really hungry, even though everyone knew you were heir to the throne.

  “Bitter much?” Marin retorted now. Kit kept reading.

  If you’re anything like your old man, you’re running that ship like the Titanic—thinking it’s both grand and unsinkable. If you treat your present employees anything like Dean Wilson II treated me, then you’re also a jerk.

  As for me, I did good work for the Trib from the years of 1957–1988, and I’m doing it still. The enclosed map was sent to me by your brother-in-law, who was instructed to mail this to me by a woman named Gina Alessi. His note, which I’ll show to you if you deign to respond, gives further instruction that both Gina and this map need to be kept safe. He was supposed to take care of Gina, I got the map. Apparently, you received something as well.

  So why’d he send this to me? Because I’m the finest damned reporter this side of the Mississippi, that’s why. But why not send it all directly to you, or wait and hand it to you over Sunday dinner? That is a mystery. All I know is his name popped up today in the obits, and something smells fishy.

  Of course, I have my own theories, which is why I’ll be coming in next week to discuss the matter further with you. But I’m gonna want something in return, namely to return to the Trib with full benefits, and exonerated of all charges levied against me when I left. (The protest out at the Test Site wasn’t my fault, I don’t care what the military says.) I do hope that
at that time you will remember this great favor.

  Most sincerely,

  Albert Edward Zicaro

  Kit looked back up at Marin, who was nodding slowly. “Yeah, it’s vague, but I remember now. I figured he just wanted his old job back.”

  Kit pulled out the map that Zicaro’s letter had referenced. There was no way to date the map, it only held a cartographer’s code in the lower left corner, but it was obviously old. Kit could tell from the way the streets she knew either ended in abrupt corners or lacked representation altogether. She was willing to bet the streets listed were a good match for those in existence in 1960.

  Frowning, Kit worked back and forth between that timeline and the day this map had been sent, fourteen years ago. Her dad had obviously seen Gina Alessi someplace safe, then mailed this to Zicaro right before he was killed.

  “So what’s Zicaro talking about?” Kit said, looking up. “What did Dad send you?”

  And, heaving a great sigh, Marin finally pointed to the far wall. “That.”

  Kit glanced at her aunt’s bulletin board, a giant swath of cork that was so crowded with papers and note cards and sticky notes that many had dropped to the floor beneath it. But Marin was pointing to the top right corner, where one sole slip of tracing paper was pinned . . . and had been for as long as Kit could remember. So long that I stopped seeing it, she thought, drawing nearer. She guessed that after fourteen years, Marin had stopped seeing it as well.

  “I didn’t know what it was,” Marin said, reaching up to carefully unpin it. “But it was the last thing your father ever did . . . that was clear. It arrived in my mailbox the day after he died. A total mystery, and one that died with him. I thought that if I pinned it up here, I would never forget. But time goes on, and well . . . sometimes it’s better to just forget the past.”

  She handed the paper to Kit. Age had added to its fragility, and lightened the lines scribbled randomly along the middle. Some had end points that were joined in sharp circles, but most were scattered and lacking any sort of pattern.

  Kit lifted the tracing paper to peer through it at eye-level, and caught sight of Marin on the other side. Then she let her aunt’s concerned face fade into the background, and keyed in on the darkest, largest circle. “Give me the map,” she whispered to her aunt.