“I have the names of the two drug dealers who killed the baker’s nephew in Mexico.”
Eva looked up. It was a distraction from tracking down and killing Turricci, but it was a matter of honor. The baker’s family deserved vengeance too.
Francesca paused and then her face split into a wide smile.
“The men are local Mafioso, and word on the street is that they work for Turricci.”
Eva cocked her head.
“They just returned this morning from Positano,” Francesca paused dramatically. “On motorbikes.”
Eva smiled for the first time that day.
29
The inspector was hunched over some papers in his office. I’d talked the janitor in the front into letting me back inside. The department was closed for the night.
Inspector Brossard didn’t seem surprised to see me. He exhaled and leaned back in his chair, his fingers stroking his goateed chin.
“I need to know why you don’t think it’s her.”
“There are many things you don’t know about our country,” he said.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “I know about murderers in your country firsthand. My parents were murdered by Matteo Antonio Turricci. He also killed my godfather. Maybe even murdered my brother. Now, my boyfriend is dead. I need some fucking answers. You can count on seeing me here in your office every day until I get them.”
“Turricci killed your family?”
“Yes.” I glared at him. “And then I killed him.”
He sat back, unsurprised. As if he already knew.
“It was self-defense. Cops witnessed it.”
“You are Lucia Maria Bonadonna’s daughter.” It wasn’t a question.
“You knew my mother?”
He shook his head. “No. I only know the story.” He looked like he was about to say something more but then sighed and shook his head. He gestured at his desk.
“Signorina Santella, why do you think I am here when everyone else is home eating dinner with their family and taking la passeggiata? Instead, here I sit, trying to solve these murders.”
I softened a little. He was right.
“Why can’t you tell me what you know?”
He looked astonished. Then his expression changed. “May I ask? Are you a police officer in America?”
I scowled and reached for the door. That was his answer.
“Do American police officers share details of their investigation with the family of victims?”
Again, my silence was his answer.
“Aha.” He leaned back folding his arms behind his head. “So, you do understand why I cannot give you answers.” Again, it wasn’t a question.
“Signorina Santella?”
I paused but didn’t turn around.
“You may be looking for answers in the wrong place.”
I turned to face him. “What are you saying?”
He swallowed. “You mentioned your family…your mother…” He broke off suddenly and shot an alarmed glance over my shoulder.
I looked and saw the janitor hovering outside the door, sweeping.
After a few minutes, the janitor disappeared, and I heard a door close.
“Your name is Santella, no?”
“No. I mean, yes.” What kind of Abbott-and-Costello-shit was this?
“But your mother has a different name, no?”
“Yes. You already know that. You said so yourself.” I scrunched my face in confusion. My mother’s last name was Bonadonna. For some reason, I didn’t say it out loud.
“This is something you may not want people to know right now.” He was gathering the papers off his desk and shoving them in a beat-up leather satchel as he spoke.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your family name.”
“Quit playing games.” I stood, crossing my arms over my chest.
He slung the satchel over his shoulder and stood in the doorway of his office. “I must go.” He flicked off the lights and locked the door. I trailed behind him down the hall.
“You need to explain what you just said.” My voice was defiant.
“I need to?” His tone was mocking.
I watched as he got in a small blue car and drove away.
30
Eva stood in the dark outside the small cottage in the hills near Pizzo and listened to the men argue. They were drunk. Falling down drunk. Sloppy.
It had been easy to find out where they were hiding in the village.
She had been prepared to pay the villagers of the secluded cliffside town several hundred Euro for the information, but the storekeepers had been eager to tell her about the men. Apparently, they hadn’t been wise enough to keep a low profile. Every night, they came into town flashing their guns around and demanding they drink and eat for free, saying anyone who opposed them would face the wrath of La Cosa Nostra.
One store owner, a man in his thirties, said if Eva hadn’t show up, he had plans to burn the men’s cottage to the ground later that night.
“I’ll save you the gasoline,” Eva said.
The man nodded. “Who are you?”
“A friend,” Eva said.
She would wait until dark to strike. The men didn’t show up to eat and drink until about eight, the townspeople told her. It was still early, so she sat in the piazza and ate a simple dinner of fresh fish and drank some sparkling water.
People kept peeking out of windows or huddled together in groups watching her and talking, but every time she looked over, they smiled and dispersed.
As darkness fell, she pulled her vehicle out of sight and took a quick nap.
Her phone alarm woke her at ten. She crept to the edge of the piazza and saw the two men stumbling through the square. Each had an arm wrapped around a woman. As one of the men passed an older man shuffling along, he smacked the elderly man in the head, sending him reeling into a café table. A woman shouted angrily at them. The one closest to her whirled and drew his gun, holding it to her forehead for a tense second. Eva, with her hand on her gun, was about to emerge from the shadows when the man laughed loudly. He stuck his gun back in his waistband and continued to walk, catching up to the other guy who hadn’t even noticed.
The men had clearly been terrorizing the residents of this small village.
Eva stepped into the light as the men disappeared up a small, dark stone staircase and held her fingers to her lips as the villagers watched her pass.
She crept behind them until they emerged up the hill and turned down a small street.
Eva waited outside, wondering how difficult it would be to take them out without harming the two women. She hadn’t counted on the men bringing home visitors.
The men were falling down drunk. Their first mistake.
She would never allow her guerriere to drink to excess.
To her surprise, she heard the men say they were celebrating their notoriety in the newspaper.
“Come here, baby. Don’t you want to kiss me? I’m famous. You can say you got fucked by a famous guy.”
“And his friend!” The other man shouted and they both burst into laughter.
“At the same time!”
“We don’t do that,” one of the women said.
There was a moment of silence and then one of the men said. “Actually, you do whatever the fuck we say you do. Got it?”
“It’s okay. It might be fun,” the other woman said.
Eva cringed. She’d hoped to make allies of the women, but that might not be an option.
She could hear them now through the open windows of the cottage.
“That bitch, the Queen of Spades, declares war on La Cosa Nostra?” One of them cackled.
“We would rip her apart if she dared show her face,” the other said.
“She is a puttana.” It was a female voice. Disappointment filled Eva. How could a woman defend and side with these child-killers? They’d killed a boy.
�
�I would fuck her to death,” the other replied. “Like this.”
Grunting sounds and exaggerated noises filtered out the window followed by howls of laughter. “Come here and let me show you what it would be like.”
A woman squealed with delight, but her laughter soon turned to protests. “Stop. Please.”
Another woman’s voice. “No. She does not like that.”
Then there was the sound of a slap and furniture overturning.
Eva sighed. Time to make an appearance. She took out her gun.
As much as she preferred fighting with swords and daggers, she knew the men were armed.
She carefully crept toward the door and tried the knob. It was unlocked. She slowly turned it and then reared back and kicked the door open with one stiletto-heeled boot, sending the door smashing into the wall.
She stepped into the room firing. The first man was easily picked off, but the second had grabbed one of the women and thrust her in front of him. To her surprise, the second woman screamed and charged her with a knife. Eva ducked to avoid the woman’s off-balance attack. While Eva was near the ground, she saw an opening and shot out the second man’s kneecaps at the same time his bullets cut through the air above her head, striking the attacking woman in the shoulder.
When the man crumpled to the ground, Eva quickly finished off the job by marching over and shooting him in the forehead before returning her attention to the woman who had been injured.
She was wailing in pain.
Eva took the hem of her shirt and ripped a strip off it. She tied it tightly around the woman’s wound, trying to stop the bleeding. The other woman cowered on the floor in the corner. Eva met her eyes. “Run. Run to the doctor in the village. Bring him back here immediately.”
The woman raced out of the small cottage.
A few minutes later, the room was filled with villagers. A doctor commandeered a group of men to carry the injured woman down the hill to his clinic. Eva took out a wad of Euro. “I need strong men to help me. We will be gone until dawn.”
Ten men volunteered. Eva chose four.
They wrapped the men’s bodies in sheets, loaded them into vehicles, and headed for Pizzo, a town north of Eva’s villa.
There, with the help of her male volunteers, she had the bodies strung up in the Piazza della Repubblica, the town square.
It was dawn when she crawled into Alex’s bed. She’d used her codes for both gates, snuck into his bathroom and showered, and then slipped under the covers. She pressed her wet and naked body against his until he groaned awake and flipped her on top of him. By the time the sun rose, they were both sleeping soundly, satiated and wrapped in one another’s arms. Eva slept until noon when Alex woke her. She opened her eyes to him at the bedside with a tray of pastries, fresh orange juice, and a cup of espresso.
“You are a prince among men,” Eva said sitting up.
She reached for the espresso and picked up her phone. She’d texted Francesca on her way to Alex’s so she wouldn’t worry.
Francesca had replied with a heart emoji.
“I better get going,” Eva said, downing the coffee and leaving the juice and cornettos on the tray. She stood and stretched.
Alex gave her a sly smile.
“You are leaving today, right?” Eva asked.
“Yes. My plane leaves in an hour. That’s why I woke you.”
She swallowed back something—some unpleasant emotion stuck in her throat and smiled.
“Maybe I’ll come visit you in London next week when I return from America.”
“Or in Paris for fashion week.” His words were loaded, and his eyes twinkled.
“Che due palle! How did you know?”
“After we first met, I couldn’t figure out why you seemed so familiar. Recently, I remembered. Federico’s line—the Queen of Spades. My oldest daughter is a designer, and she asked me to accompany her to a few of the fashion week shows last year. Federico’s was one of them.”
Eva had been mortified the year before to hear that Italian fashion designer Federico Marcelli had dedicated his new line to her. Francesca had given her the full report. Apparently, all the models had long dark hair and dressed in black. The collection included black leather leggings with black silk shirts; sleek black dresses that hugged the body from neck to ankle; and black miniskirts with black over-the-knee boots and tight black long-sleeve T-shirts.
Francesca had thrown Eva a birthday party and bought every single piece for her. Never in a million years would Eva admit that she’d loved the clothing line and now dressed exclusively in Marcelli’s clothes.
How funny that Alex called him by first name, Federico.
“I asked him if he knew you, and he wouldn’t say a word. Or rather he made a gesture and said, ‘Omerta,’” Alex said.
“He’s a good Italian,” Eva said. She smiled before she kissed him and slipped down the back stairs.
Back at her own villa, Eva was brought a basket of fresh bread that had been delivered to her villa’s front gate.
A note was tucked inside. “Grazie,” It was signed Donatella Isalo, the baker.
Francesca also handed her the morning paper.
An American reporter named Jeremy Stand had written about the bodies of two murdered men found “displayed” in Piazza della Repubblica—the Pizzo town square—the night before.
The men were believed to be members of La Cosa Nostra, the article said.
It also quoted the baker:
“’Obviously, a warning,’ Donny Isalo, the town baker had said.”
Eva tossed the paper across her desk.
“What happened to the female reporter, Neri? Who is this Stand?”
“I don’t know who Stand is,” Francesca said. “But Neri called no less than a dozen times last night while you were away,” Francesca said.
“Next time she calls, tell her I am working on a much bigger story for her.”
31
I didn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, and at one point, deep in the night, gave up and got out of bed. I stood on the balcony, staring at the sea. If you’d told me three days ago that Bobby would be murdered and I’d still be able to function—to shower and brush my teeth, even eat a little—I would have told you that was insane.
Maybe I was in denial. In some fucked-up stage of grief. All I knew was that the tears were gone. They were replaced by white-hot fury.
All I could think about was finding the Queen of Spades and making her pay. I wasn’t sure how. I’d only killed one person in my life and still was haunted by it.
The truth was that I hadn’t intended to kill Mateo Antonio Turricci. He’d been cornered and facing life in prison when he found out I wasn’t his biological daughter. His response was to impale himself onto the fireplace poker I was holding.
I thought about what Inspector Brossard had said about how I might not want people to know I was a Santella? Or was it that I was a Bonadonna? I was unsure what he meant, and he was no help in clarifying.
It had to do with Turricci. He was from Sicily and had come to America only to find—and apparently torture—me. His existence had been a deep dark secret that I only learned about after he murdered my parents.
He’d been my mother’s guardian. And raped her. She’d fled to America. When he found her, he’d mistakenly thought I was their love child, as a result of the rape.
He tried to win my mother back by wooing her, which included buying a Sicilian villa in her name.
When she continued to refuse his entreaties, he killed her and my father.
Having Turricci die at my hands had triggered something inside me that I hadn’t known existed. A cold-hearted, crystal-clear, blood lust that was the opposite of the hedonistic, wine-guzzling, sex-crazed, pot-smoking self that I’d always been before.
But the Gia I had to live with everyday didn’t want that. Not really. I wanted to be the person that Bobby had seen when he looked at me: Big-hearted. Caring. Loving. Giving.
Even
though it was hard to admit, what I loved most about Bobby was how he made me feel. Like a person worthy of love.
But as much as I wanted to live up to the image Bobby had of me, I knew that somehow, some way, I would make the Queen of Spades pay for taking him away from me.
32
The next morning, I rifled through the newspapers looking for mention of the Queen of Spades. I found a story on an inside page: “Queen of Spades strikes in Calabria.”
South of here. In Pizzo. I read on. Two young men had been murdered. Their bodies were found “displayed” in Piazza della Repubblica, the town square, last night. The men were believed to be members of La Cosa Nostra.
“Obviously, a warning,” Donny Isalo, the town baker had said.
Obviously.
But a warning to whom?
I flipped to the front of the paper, looking for a phone number. The journalist thought nothing of saying the Queen of Spades was behind these two murders, but nobody would say she was behind Bobby’s slaying. I furiously punched the numbers on my phone.
“Jeremy Stand?”
“Speaking.”
“My boyfriend was killed at the Hotel Rizzoli.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry to hear that.” I could hear his fingers typing furiously on the keyboard. “What’s your name?”
“You don’t need my name right now. I want to tell you what I saw.”
“Fantastic.”
“There was a woman there. Long dark hair. Dressed in body hugging black. I think she was the Queen of Spades. I saw her there. What I don’t understand is how you can say she killed those two boys with such certainty and yet the police are acting like I’m ridiculous to suggest that she killed my boyfriend.”
“Hey, lady. I only write what I’m told. I don’t know why the cops said it was her. That’s what they told me. I just print what they say.”
“That’s lame. You don’t know for sure it was her? You just take their word for it? The police?” As soon as I spoke I knew it sounded dumb. Of course, he had to take the police on their word.
The Suicide King Page 9
