Queen of Spades

by Kristi Belcamino

  She’d arrange for the real estate agent to pay for it and then Eva would register it to a small home in Boyle Heights that she’d bought last year for just that purpose. For the amount of money Eva offered, the agent agreed to do something normally outside her duties. Eva figured the less people involved in setting up her new world, the better.

  The home was a crumbling three-sided structure that was barely standing and was most definitely not habitable. The last time she’d checked, used needles and beer cans littered its dirt floor.

  She’d also used that address to set up a post office box under a false name and enlisted a remailing service that takes all that mail, ships it to another state and then ships it back to any address she desired.

  As she realized the lengths to which she had gone to prepare for her life in Sicily to catch up to her, Eva hung her head in shame. Her entire life with Matthew had been a lie. He hadn’t deserved that. If only she had told him and trusted him, he and their kids might still be alive.

  Instead, while she played Malibu housewife and mother, her secretive part-time job was planning for her identity to be revealed. But in her plans, she and her family would all go into hiding together. It was not supposed to have happened like this. They were supposed to disappear to Costa Rica or the mountains or to an island somewhere.

  Checking her watch, she realized she had at least another hour before she could contact the real estate agent she had in mind. A small icon on the corner of her home screen kept drawing her eye. It was the folder that contained the automatically downloaded surveillance footage from the previous day.

  Her heart pounded, and her face felt icy. Trying to ignore the folder, she logged online using a personal hotspot and VPN that couldn’t be traced to her seedy motel room. Instead, anyone trying to track it would be bounced around Russia and Bolivia and Greenland, among other places.

  It took less than twenty minutes for her to find a house. For five million, most people would consider it a fixer-upper. It was outdated with carpet and wood paneling in a bedroom, but she didn’t care about any of that. And it was furnished. But what attracted her was the location. Not just that it was in Hollywood Hills, but where it was in the hills.

  From the satellite images, she saw the home was perched high on top of its own little hill with a massive iron gate and guard shack. A winding driveway bordered with dense and difficult brush led up from a residential road with only a few other houses on it. The hillside below the house was thick with dense brush. Most people would view it as a terrible fire hazard. Eva saw it as a fortress.

  In addition, the house had a small back deck overlooking downtown Los Angeles. From there, she could see the entirety of the residential road that wound up to the house from Franklin Avenue. That meant she would see any vehicles heading her way from a mile out.

  Her mind raced with the modifications she had in mind. Some would be through the real estate agent: a security system installed at the gate with cameras and the ability to open the gate from the house and another state-of-the-art security system for the house and grounds. She figured getting the systems installed that day and expediting the purchase of the house would cost her a pretty penny, but that didn’t matter.

  Some modifications she would do on her own: a sensor a mile down the road that would trigger an alarm and cameras to film any vehicle that drove over it.

  She decided to do a little research on the neighbors. She dug up everything available online for the seven other people who lived on the small road. Nobody triggered any alarms. They were all upper middle class working families for the most part.

  Perfect.

  In two days, she would be settled into her new home and ready to hunt.

  At nine she called the real estate agent. She put on her voice encryptor headphones with the mic that made her sound like a man.

  It took an hour on the phone, but the real estate agent promised the house would be ready in two days. She would mobilize a team and get it all done that day. With the amount of money Eva was offering for the extra services, she could afford to get it done within 48 hours. The real estate agent said it would be tough but she could get it arranged and she’d program a temporary code into the gate so Eva could access the property immediately.

  When Eva hung up, she quickly made the wire transfer and, once she saw it was sent, sat back staring at the screen.

  She couldn’t put it off any longer.

  She had to view the surveillance video. Suddenly, she wished she still drank. But she’d officially given up alcohol when she met Matthew, who was in AA and NA. She needed something to numb the horror racing through her as she clicked the folder, opening the security camera footage. She rewound the video until she saw Matthew’s Range Rover pull into the driveway.

  Eva pressed play, resuming the footage at normal speed.

  Matthew stepped out of the car. When Lorenzo and Alessandra clamored out, Eva made a strangled gasping sound. Clutching at the trackpad she scrambled to hit pause. Something was lodged in her throat. There was no place left for the air. She stared at the image of her children on the screen. She enlarged the picture, 50 percent, 100 percent, 200 percent until the image pixelated and fractured, transforming flesh into small colored squares of pink and beige. She zoomed back out until she could again see their faces and then reached out her hand, her fingers nearly touching the screen where her dead children were frozen in time.

  Time passed. She wasn’t sure whether it was fifteen seconds or fifteen minutes before she hit play and the video resumed. Her children raced into the house, their faces wide with smiles. Matthew followed, his head down, frowning.

  Had he sensed impending doom, or had it just been a bad day at work? In his job as a producer on a sitcom, he sometimes came home exasperated with the unrealistic demands of actors. On those days, Eva always suggested they sit out on their private master bedroom deck and watch the sunset while the children did homework and took their baths.

  Eva was about to flick to the cameras showing the inside of the home, the foyer, and great room, but she paused. There was something dark in the corner of the screen.

  It was right at the first curve in the driveway leading away from the house.

  A vehicle.

  Painstakingly, she clicked forward one frame at a time. As soon as the vehicle emerged fully into the frame, she stopped the video. She blew up the picture as large as she could while keeping it somewhat clear. The vehicle was a black Mercedes SUV. The same model she drove. The same vehicle that many people in Malibu owned. She couldn’t make out the license plate number.

  Heart pounding, she started the video again, slowly, frame by frame.

  The Mercedes came to a stop right behind Matthew’s Range Rover. Eva held her breath as the driver’s side door was flung open. The driver moved fast.

  For a second, Eva froze. She’d assumed the killer was a man. But this person had long hair hanging down his or her back from underneath a ball cap.

  The clothing—baggy pants and an oversize jacket—didn’t give any indication of the person’s frame or gender. And the person’s head was tucked low, the face hidden from the overhead camera. She caught a glimpse from the side of massive dark sunglasses further obscuring the person’s features. A chill ran through her. It sure looked like a woman.

  It seemed impossible that another woman in Sicily had become an assassin like Eva. But maybe not. After all, Eva had been gone ten years.

  Eva watched as the person raced up the steps of her home. She hit pause. The person was carrying an assault rifle. She hit play.

  The person barged through the front door.

  Eva switched cameras to the one in the foyer, but not before closing her eyes for a second, bracing herself. She opened her eyes. Matthew whirled to face the intruder. His chest instantly darkened, and he crumpled to the ground. The killer stepped over his body and ran toward the great room. Alessandra’s head was visible over the couch. Within seconds, the back of her head exploded. Her body
slumped forward. Lorenzo…her brave boy, lunged forward with a heavy candlestick in his hand. His chest opened up. His eyes and mouth opened and a hand moved down toward his stomach before he collapsed out of view.

  Eva knew she should switch cameras so she could view the scene from the camera in the great room. Her chest and throat were tightening. Her heart was pounding so hard she vaguely wondered if it was what a heart attack felt like.

  As she sat in a paralyzed daze, the footage continued to roll. Her eyes glassy, she watched the gunman turn back toward the foyer camera. It wasn’t a man.

  The blonde-haired woman stopped right underneath the camera and was looking around, waving the gun as if she’d heard a sound. When the woman looked to one side, Eva saw dark lipstick on full lips. The woman looked up toward the stairs, lifting her chin, and revealing her face to the camera.

  Eva gasped, knocking the laptop over as she jerked to her feet.

  The face looking up was her own.

  Ten

  1990s

  Los Angeles and Sicily

  “It is done.”

  “You will return home a hero.” The man was in Sicily, but it sounded like he was in the same room. Approval and pride filled his voice. “We will make arrangements for you to return home within the month.”

  “I’d prefer sooner.”

  “We will make arrangements for you to return within the month.”

  The line disconnected.

  Eleven

  1990s

  Los Angeles

  Right after the woman with her face had looked up at the camera, she’d raised a gun and shot out the camera and then methodically did the same thing to all the other cameras in the house.

  Eva had stared at the black screen for a few seconds before turning it off.

  She felt hollow and numb inside. Every time thoughts of her family popped into her head, she angrily dismissed them. Not now. Later. Later she would allow herself the luxury of remembering them. She would give herself this gift on her deathbed.

  She would start at the beginning for each of them. She’d begin with Matthew on the Santa Monica beach and then remember every second with him until she kissed him goodbye the day of his murder. For Lorenzo, she’d start with the second she realized she was pregnant and remember every little detail of him in her life—his birth, his first bite of food, his first smile, giggle, step, day of kindergarten. Every single thing. And then she’d do the same for Alessandra. Start with that day she and Matthew made love secretly, giggling, trying not to wake Lorenzo who was asleep in the bassinet just one wall away. And how as soon as they were done, Matthew had known. “I just got you pregnant.”

  He’d grinned as he said it.

  “Whatever,” she’d said and laughed.

  “I know it.”

  She’d made a skeptical face but then her eyes had widened. He’d said the same thing the night Lorenzo was conceived.

  “Really?” she’d said. She leaned against his shoulder, closing her eyes. “God, I hope so. I want another baby right now.”

  “Lorenzo isn’t even out of diapers.”

  “I know. I just love being a mother so much. I never expected to feel this way.” I never thought I’d be a mother. “I never expected any of this.”

  “This?” Matthew said drawing back to see her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  She sighed loudly. “All of this. This happiness. This blessing. This life.”

  He drew her close and kissed the top of her head. “You deserve all this and more, my Eva.”

  She had smiled, but deep down she knew he was wrong. She didn’t deserve a second of it. She was a stone-cold killer who deserved to rot in hell for murder. Or at least that’s what most people would say.

  Now, in the motel room, she put those memories away for later. There was plenty of time left to rot in hell. In fact, maybe she was already there.

  For the rest of the day, Eva searched for information about the crime families in Sicily and Southern Italy. Nothing came up about a female assassin or mob boss. Who was this woman who looked like her? She still couldn’t quite wrap her brain around the fact that the woman was her doppelganger.

  Was it possible that she had a twin sister who’d been raised by someone else? Might her mother have been pregnant with another child when Luca and Stefano had shipped her off to live with her sister in Rome? And if so, what were the odds that she’d look just like Eva? And why would her sister commit such a horrific act?

  Another thought struck her—what if someone hated her so much that they had plastic surgery to look like her? It was too easy to get caught up in such questions—she needed to keep her eye on the prize. Once she found the woman, she’d get all of the answers before she slit the bitch’s throat.

  The next morning, she woke and fumbled for the TV’s remote control.

  She flipped through the channels until she found what she was looking for—the news.

  Within ten minutes, she was looking at a picture of herself staring back at her from the screen. The blown-up surveillance video picture was blurry and slightly pixelated. But it looked like her.

  She turned up the volume.

  “Police are asking the public’s help to find this woman,” the newscaster said. “Anyone who has information on her whereabouts is asked to call the crime tip number.”

  Eva groped for the burner phone she’d set on the nightstand repeating the tip number in her head. After her phone call to the real estate agent, she’d reprogrammed the phone with another burn number. Keeping her eyes on the TV, she dialed the phone number scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen.

  “Police.”

  “This is Eva White,” she said without waiting for the other woman to say more. “I need to talk to the detective handling the White family case.”

  “Ma’am, I am not able to transfer you. This line is only for taking messages. May I take a message?”

  “I said this is Eva White. I need to speak to the detective immediately.”

  “I’m sorry. I can only take messages.”

  Eva closed her eyes for a second. Fine. She’d get the detective’s attention, and he’d take her next call.

  “Then take this message down: I did not kill my family. I’m innocent. And I’m going to prove it.”

  She hung up. What else could she say? Nothing. She deleted the randomly generated phone number from the burner phone and reprogrammed a new one.

  Pushing the sheets off her sticky, wet body, she heaved herself to a sitting position, accidentally sticking her foot right in the puddle of vomit near the bed. She ran a hand through her hair.

  She stood and made her way to the bathroom where she gulped several handfuls of water while the shower water got warm.

  An hour later, she slipped out of the motel’s back door wearing a black stocking cap over her newly black hair. She slung both her bug-out and duffel bags over her shoulder and trudged in her knee-high boots toward the bus stop at Union Station, a few blocks away.

  Inside the bus terminal, she scanned the bus schedules and saw the bus she needed wasn’t there for another twenty minutes.

  For the first time, her stomach grumbled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She knew that she’d need to eat to keep up her strength if she was going to hunt down the woman who murdered her family.

  Eva felt the weight of her favorite dagger at her back in its scabbard. She would use that special blade to avenge her family. The dagger had belonged to her lover, Giacomo. She had taken it after Stefano had killed him.

  With time to kill, Eva ducked into an old-fashioned style diner inside Union Station. Worried she wouldn’t keep any food down, she ordered a bland meal—broiled salmon and plain white rice without any spices, herbs, or sauces.

  Sitting at the bar, she glanced at the TV screen, which was blaring some chirpy, cheerful newscaster’s voice. She flinched. She wondered if her family’s murder had been replaced by the crime du jour yet.

  She soon
had her answer.

  Krystal’s face appeared larger-than-life on the screen. So close, Eva could see the creases in the thick makeup around her mouth. A petite Latina reporter held a microphone up to Krystal.

  “Mrs. Diamond, you know Eva White?”

  Krystal let out a big puff of air. “Yes.”

  Eva remembered back to the first time she’d met Krystal Diamond four years ago during kindergarten orientation.

  The animosity between them had been immediate.

  That day, Matthew had taken the day off to treat Lorenzo to a baseball game. Although Alessandra was a good baby, Eva had arranged for the neighbor’s college-age daughter to watch her during the school meeting. But when the young woman called and said she was sick, it was already time for Eva to leave. Not wanting to be late, Eva grabbed Alessandra and a diaper bag and headed toward the school.

  When she stepped into the cafeteria, she slid into a spot toward the back in case Alessandra got fussy and she had to step outside. The chairs were filled, and the principal had just stepped behind the podium with the microphone when there was a commotion at the back of the room.

  A slim blonde with a massive mane of hair, a pink Chanel suit, beige pumps, and a red Kelly handbag slung on one arm walked in, smiling widely at the audience. Eva noticed everyone was smiling back at this woman. She paused before Eva and said, “So nice of you to make it.”

  For a second, Eva was taken aback. The blonde wrinkled her nose at baby Alessandra and was gone. She took a seat in the front row that had obviously been saved for her.

  The principal proceeded to give the details of the kindergarten orientation. As Eva listened, she thought that the information could have been given on a one-page memo. What a royal waste of time.

  A half hour into it, the principal introduced the blonde as Krystal Diamond, the head of the Guidance Facilitators Organization. As Eva listened, she realized the GFO was a fancied-up name for PTA—the parent-teacher association. Having grown up in Sicily, the PTA, like so many other things, was a foreign concept to her. But fortunately, her neighbor Sue had spoken about the PTA at her daughter’s school. Sue had said it was a way for parents to volunteer.