MARCUS: Hola. How did things go with the photograph? Did Charlotte find it?
ME: She did. Long story tho.
MARCUS: Want 2 talk?
I stared at the screen—did I? Conflicting emotions funneled like a tornado in my brain, images of Marcus mixed with Keira mixed with Luis Basso. My head pulsed from revelations, and my eyes ached from staring at photos. I typed the only response I could.
ME: Not yet.
It was the truth. And not just because I was tired, but because, regrettably, it was Marcus. No matter how unfair it was and how much I knew he sincerely wanted to offer support, I feared my guilt-ridden soul would forever be incapable of disassociating him from that morning. I was distracted by Marcus when my sister was attacked and taken. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by him now.
I needed to think.
I needed to find her. I needed to find someone who knew something.
Finally, I thought of someone who did. Someone who knew many of the players involved in my sister’s final weeks, especially the one willing to attack over a Cinco de Mayo photograph—Luis Basso’s father.
Chapter Thirteen
It seemed the economy had been kind to the antiquities business in the Tuscan town of Cortona. Salvatore Basso’s shop still existed. It even had a poorly optimized website that took several search pages to find, but it was there—Cortona Antiqueria. On the home page was a photo of Salvatore, his hair a bit more silver and his cheeks a little rounder, but his eyes just the same.
On the bottom of the page was a phone number.
I had promised Charlotte that we would take our newly discovered photographs of Keira, Craig, and Luis to Detective Dawkins during Charlotte’s lunch hour today. I fully intended to make good on that promise. What I left out was that I planned on calling Salvatore Basso the second she left for work. I knew she’d just try to talk me out of it, tell me that this was a job for the police and that we’d already overstepped enough. Of course, she had no problem hindering the investigation electronically, but when the leads to my sister required face-to-face communication (like with Seamus) or phone communication (like with the Bassos), she thought we were going too far.
I did not.
I held the phone in my hand as I prepared for an incredibly awkward conversation. “Hi, I’m not sure if you remember me from that one time my parents bought a desk from you, but my presumed dead sister was seen with your son not long before she disappeared. Any chance he might have taken her?”
That script might be a bit too literal to go with.
I punched the digits and listened to the low pulsing tones of a phone ringing overseas. He answered on the third ring.
“Sí?” said a deep voice.
“Ciao, posso parlare Salvatore Basso?” I asked in Italian. It’d been awhile since I’d spoken the language, but the words still sat ready at the edge of my brain. I may not be a competitive softball player, a concert pianist, or the next astrophysicist, but I excelled at languages.
“Sí, parlando.”
My heart thumped, my knee bouncing as I sat in my desk chair, a tsunami of questions flooding my brain. If this man knew where his son was, I might finally get some answers; I might finally know what Keira was up to those last few weeks, where Craig was now, where Keira was now. I took a deep breath, sweat breaking under my arms.
“Signore Basso.” I aimed to sound respectful as I continued in Italian. “I hope this is a good time. I wish to speak to you about your son Luis. He was recently in the United States, correct? In Boston?”
“Yes,” he replied in English. I guess my American accent gave me away. “What is this about?”
“My sister, Keira Phoenix. I don’t know if you remember, but my family visited you several years ago. My parents bought an antique desk, and—”
“Anastasia?” he asked.
My leg stopped bouncing. I stared at the splinters of raw wood on the unfinished pine desk Keira and I had planned to paint years ago. “Yes,” I replied, my voice suddenly hoarse. “How do you know my name?”
“Your parents and I were good friends.”
“You were?” My head tilted, perplexed, dark hair dripping over my shoulder. “I thought they were just customers.”
“No, we knew one another quite well.” He didn’t elaborate, and a long silence hung. Already, this wasn’t going as planned.
“Well, um, I’m calling because my sister was seen with Luis back in May, and not long after, she was attacked in our home and kidnapped. She and Luis were photographed with a guy named Craig, who we believe took her. I’m wondering if Luis knows something? Maybe he could help?”
I’d thought about it all night and determined this was the best way to approach Salvatore—suggest his son was a witness. Accusing Luis of potentially being involved might send his father into protective mode, but if I gave the impression that his son could help save my sister, then I might appeal to Salvatore’s savior instincts.
“I knew they were reacquainted. Luis told me he ran into your sister at the hospital. She’s a nurse, no?”
“Yes, she is.” So that was how they met. That made sense. “Have you spoken to your son recently? Does he know anything about what happened to Keira?” My voice quivered from the mix of nerves, hope, and fear pumping through me.
“I am aware of what happened to your sister, but I don’t think we should discuss it over the phone.”
“Why not?” I leaned back, my wheeling desk chair swiveling to the side. When else would we talk about it?
“You may not realize it, but I was close with your parents. So were my sons. I know Luis had nothing to do with what happened to your sister, if that’s why you’re calling. He’s very concerned.”
“Good, can I speak with him? Do you know where he is?” My voice clicked up an octave as my nerves heightened. I wasn’t expecting him to already know about Keira’s disappearance, but the fact that he did was a good thing. It meant he’d talked to his son recently; it meant he potentially knew where he was.
“I think there’s a lot about this situation you don’t know.”
“I don’t know anything.” I sat still as a statue, fearful that moving might make him stop speaking. This man had answers, something he was nervous about discussing over the phone, and my body tensed with the desire to reach through the airwaves and yank the information from inside his brain. “Does Luis know where we can find Craig? Because Keira—”
“I’m not talking about Keira. I’m talking about your parents.”
The breath caught in my throat as my hand started to shake, gripping the phone tighter. Why did my parents keep bubbling into this situation? I didn’t want to think about them. I didn’t want to think about their deaths, their lives, or their pasts. But their constant mention was making me feel sick, a physical reminder that the horror I was living with my sister could spread to everyone else I knew like a virus of torment.
“What do you know about my parents? Because Keira was looking into their pasts before everything happened. Was Luis helping her?”
“From what he told me about your sister, I believe there are larger forces at work here, and I’m not comfortable discussing this over the phone. Believe me, when you hear what I have to say, you’ll understand.”
“No, I won’t. Please, tell me now. My sister was kidnapped—who knows what she’s going through. If you know something—”
“I know my son had nothing to do with what happened, but he did see her before she went missing, and he told me a few things. I don’t want to get him into trouble or drag him into this, and I definitely don’t want to say anything over the phone that could be misconstrued.”
“I don’t care about things being misconstrued, I care about finding my sister,” I snapped. “How are you going to help me from another continent if you won’t talk to me?”
“Come here. To Cortona. Let’s speak face-to-face.”
“You expect me to hop on a plane?” I uttered in disbelief, though I alread
y knew I would. I’d take a rowboat to South Africa, if I thought it would lead me to Keira.
“I’m too old to come to you, and…” He paused. I could hear him breathing. “Let’s just say there are some things you need to see.”
“Please, every second counts. If you could just—” I pleaded.
“I hope to see you soon.” Then he hung up.
...
Charlotte thought I was crazy. I’d repeated the conversation multiple times to both her and Detective Dawkins, whom we visited during Charlotte’s lunch hour as promised. Each time I relayed Salvatore’s words, I looped back to the same conclusion—I was going to Italy.
No one agreed.
In fact, I worried that the Boston PD was going to charge me with being an accessory to some sort of fabricated crime after Dawkins learned we’d talked to Seamus, recovered a photo, and talked to Salvatore Basso, all before informing them of our leads. (Though they did offer to pay for Seamus’s new phone as long as Charlotte surrendered his old one.) But when I said I wanted to go to Italy, I might as well have suggested hang gliding in the Swiss Alps without a helmet or a lesson. Both Charlotte and Dawkins hollered in unified protest, insisting I let the Boston PD work with Italian law enforcement via the proper channels.
Did they really think I would do that? My local precinct wasn’t keeping me apprised of my sister’s case, but now I was expected to trust a police department overseas. Not to mention, Salvatore said he was worried about getting his son into trouble, and to me, that meant he’d probably be less inclined to share information with the cops, whether they be from Boston or Cortona. He wanted to share it with me—specifically, and in person. How could I not go?
“Okay, I realize I started this,” Charlotte said as we sat in my bedroom, continuing the argument that had been going on all day. She paced barefoot. One, two, three steps to my closet; one, two, three steps back to my desk. “I hacked into the surveillance footage, I recovered the photo, I let us talk to Seamus. But Italy? You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s like you’re Nancy Drew with a James Bond complex!”
“But Salvatore’s not just talking about Keira, he’s talking about our parents, my entire family. I have to hear this.” Just the thought of my dead parents somehow being connected to my sister’s disappearance had my hands shaking like I’d drank too much coffee. Because burrowed deep in my brain was a fear I didn’t want to admit was relentlessly worming its way to the surface—I never listened to Keira’s theories about our parents, because I didn’t want to. I wanted to believe she was joking, and I didn’t want to admit that I found their careers just as suspicious. If this was what Keira was investigating, if this was what got her taken, then she was doing it alone because she didn’t think she could come to me, because she didn’t think I wanted to go there—and I didn’t.
If I had only been more receptive, more honest, more open to what she was going through…
“What if Luis is involved?” Charlotte snapped suddenly. “What if he and Craig were in it together, hurting Keira? What if his dad’s just as crazy? They could be luring you to the Manson compound.”
“I realize we’ve watched a lot of 20/20 lately, but that isn’t the impression I got on the phone.”
“You’re not an expert! The cops are, and they’re telling you not to go.”
“If you’re worried about me going alone, then come with me.”
“How?” She tossed up her hands in aggravation, her nails chewed into tiny stubs. “You expect me to leave work and tell my parents I’m jetting off to do investigative work with their grieving teenage dependent?”
“We’re just going to talk to an old man.” I slumped onto the bed. Charlotte’s parents had replaced my funky sheets with a crisp new set in icy blue, which according to online research, should have a calming, Zen-like effect on my mood. “This isn’t a covert op.”
“No, but it also isn’t necessary. Look at how much we’ve uncovered in the last few weeks. The police are on this. And it’s time for you to go back to school. Senior year starts in, like, two weeks.” She stopped pacing, her toes wiggling in the fibers of my new pale blue rug.
I looked at her and sighed audibly. “Okay, let’s be real—do you actually think I’m going back?” I knew we were all going through the motions, but my sister was taken from a pool of steaming blood— Did anyone really expect me to start AP bio in a few weeks and doodle sketches of prom dresses in my lab notes?
“Yes, you’re going to school. My parents are your guardians. You’re still a minor. You can’t just leave the country without their consent.” Her voice was firm as her fingers dug into her frizzy hair, pulling hard. “You have to graduate. What do you think Keira would want? She gave up everything for you, and now it’s up to me to follow through. For her! Do you get that? Do you get the kind of pressure I’m under?”
I squeezed my eyes tight, shoving my new pillow against my ears.
I may not have appreciated it when it mattered, but I now realized how much Keira gave up to take care of me and how much grief I gave her in return. I was not going to make that mistake with Charlotte. No more lives were going to be detrimentally altered because I was an orphan. Yes, her family saved me from foster care, but that meant they were a form in my file, an emergency contact. They weren’t my parents, not because I didn’t appreciate what they’d done, but because I refused to burden them any more. My real guardian, my sister, was out there. I believed that, and I was going to find her. For all of us.
I looked at Charlotte, feeling completely resolute. “Nothing will matter to me, ever, for the rest of my life, if I don’t find my sister,” I stated plainly. “She’s all I have left. You have to get that.”
Charlotte’s mouth snapped shut at the severity of my tone. Then she shook her head aggressively. “No, no, no. You can’t go. It’s too dangerous. Besides, where are you going to get the money? How are you going to fly off to Italy? I know I’m not paying for it!”
Actually, I was pretty sure I already knew somebody who would.
Chapter Fourteen
I crossed my chilled arms over my chest as I waited in Randolph Urban’s reception area. The air conditioning was cranked to Arctic levels, which matched the harsh white lights and white marble corridors. I hadn’t stepped inside the building in years, not since the funeral, but it hadn’t changed. It was still lofted with a ring of executive suites on a metal catwalk overlooking a pit of employees—all rushing around shiny stainless steel desks or clicking computer keys as they blabbed on phones in their cherry red chairs. Modern art hung on the walls, and I couldn’t be sure, but some looked like original works of Mondrian.
In the five minutes since I’d arrived, Urban’s assistant, Donna, hadn’t stopped typing, not even when she reminded me three times of how my meeting—without at least two weeks’ notice—was “extremely rare.” The fact that the exception was made for me, a teenager, made her left eye twitch.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, already set to vibrate per Donna’s instructions. I pulled it out, expecting to see another shouty-capital text from Charlotte threatening to revoke her family’s guardianship if I dared to even Google the word “Italy.” Instead, I saw Regina’s name.
Hey! Going 2 movie 2nite w Tyson. New Channing Tatum! Wanna come?
To say our lives were moving in different directions would be a radical understatement. How was I supposed to answer? “OMG! But I’m visiting with my dead parents’ former BFF to secure funding for a solo trip to Italy to hunt down my presumed dead sister! Maybe next time!”
I didn’t reply.
An intercom buzzed on Donna’s desk. “Send her in,” the voice barked.
“I rescheduled your four o’clock for four thirty, moved your five o’clock until tomorrow, and asked Hester to meet via teleconference,” she said into the speakerphone as she glowered my way.
“Fine, fine. Just send her in.” The voice was curt.
Donna frowned at the lack of recognition, then straightened a s
tack of papers on her desk and rigidly rose from her chair. “He’ll see you now.”
I followed her to a heavy steel door, more fitting for a bank vault in Zurich, and watched as she opened it wide, spreading her arms like Vanna White. If this were Take Your Daughter to Work Day, I didn’t think I’d be very impressed by Donna’s job. It required too much unappreciated stress and fake niceness for my taste.
“Thank you,” I said, forcing a grin as I walked into the cavernous loft, its black marble floors shining below stark white walls decorated with colorful splatter art, that was probably very expensive, and a massive collection of hand-printed black and white photographs. Urban remained seated, his desk a mile away, and I stopped to admire his pictures. He was featured in every photo with just a sprinkling of Dresden employees mixed in—including my parents.
In the center, hung a large, eleven-by-fourteen, professionally matted image. My parents and Urban were standing alongside the president of France. I had seen it before. It was taken at a summit a year before their deaths. They’d just won a massive project. It was a huge accomplishment, even made the newspapers. Next to that, was a small five-by-seven photo in a simple black frame, taken in Venice. My parents were seated in an ornately carved gondola with Randolph Urban standing beside them, steering the boat with a long stick, one hand resting on my mother’s shoulder. They were floating in the Grand Canal, and behind them was one of its many stately hotels. My parents couldn’t have been more than twenty-five in the photo. They looked so happy.
I swallowed the rock swelling in my throat and turned my attention to the photos around it: Urban and some world leader dressed in African garb; Urban flying his own jet plane; Urban mountain climbing, scuba diving, wind surfing, sky diving. He was like an aging X-Gamer, and he featured his unusual accomplishments right beside his images of the prime minister of Japan and the president of Russia.
Proof of Lies (Anastasia Phoenix) Page 10
