by Isabel Wroth
Portrait of Death
UNCOVERED
By Isabel Wroth
Copyright © 2019 Isabel Wroth
All rights reserved.
This book was formatted using Kindle Create, and the gorgeous cover art was made by Maria Spada.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Portrait of Death: Uncovered
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | Callum
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
Portrait of Death: Unknown
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Portrait of Death
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Uncovered
PROLOGUE
I stood in front of the granite gravestone with a pair of white roses in one hand and a Transformer in the other.
Thanks to John Graham’s dogged determination, a pair of names had finally been etched into the stone in front of me.
My sketch of the vehicle license plate had been off by two numbers, but after eight years, Victoria Minardo, age thirty-four, and her son, Frankie Minardo, age seven, had been found still buckled into their seatbelts when State Troopers pulled the old station wagon out of a deep pond in Saratoga Springs.
John had taken the gas station receipt—the one I’d picked up and preserved in a sleeve of plastic in the crypt—to Jimmy the Print Guy at the crime lab. Three sets of fingerprints were pulled from the wrinkled paper.
Mine, the gas station attendant’s, and Victoria Minardo’s. Victoria had taken her husband’s credit card to pay for gas and groceries, which was how Tony Minardo had been able to follow his wife.
Tony had a rap sheet half a mile long. All violations—including DUIs, domestic disturbances, assault and battery—had been dismissed when his wife refused to press charges.
Basically, the guy was an asshole who liked to beat up his wife, and John said it was probable Tony beat on his son, too.
Armed with the information his father uncovered, Callum arrested Tony Minardo and charged him with the murder of his wife and son. John told me later that Tony cracked like an egg within ten minutes of Callum’s relentless questioning.
Tired of the beatings and unwilling to allow her husband to put his hands on their son one more time, Victoria had taken little Frankie to go move in with her mother, who still lives in Glen Falls.
Not a man to be scorned, Tony went after his family. In his tearful confession, Tony told Callum he only meant to run his wife off the road so he could take his son back, but drunk and enraged, the nudge of his bumper did more than run Victoria off the road.
It flipped her car twice, then a third time down the embankment before it sunk into the pond.
Tony claimed he’d tried to do something but couldn’t swim. He just stood there like a fool, blubbering while he watched the car sink.
Tony knew if he called it in, with his record and being drunk, he’d be imprisoned for the rest of his life. After Victoria’s car was completely submerged and he sobered up, he got in his car and drove off.
A few days later, he called the police to report Victoria and his son missing.
No one would have found them had Victoria not filled up her tank at the gas station and thrown the receipt on the ground. Had I not picked it up, intending to throw it away, I would’ve never absentmindedly put it in my pocket, nor would I have ended up at home, hours later, standing in front of a newly finished portrait.
It was unclear exactly how much time passed between Tony gassing up and running his wife off the road, but the put the time of death at two days after the date on the receipt.
Callum got the credit for solving the eight-year-old missing person case, or rather the re-designated homicide case. His father was so pissed, John went out and got his PI license, which in turn pissed Marcy off.
She still wasn’t speaking to her husband, which is why I’d done my best to sound pathetic when I called Marcy yesterday and asked if she wouldn’t mind coming with me to Glen Falls.
Callum hadn’t been able to get the time off work, and he tried to hide it, but it was obvious he didn’t completely understand why I wanted to attend the funeral of the victims in my POD.
I’d tried to explain, but my explanation turned into an argument, which ended in me shouting at him at the top of my lungs. The mostly one-sided argument turned into a passionate non-verbal activity that led to me screaming his name in ecstasy, instead of extreme frustration.
The guy just knew how to push my damn buttons—all of them.
Two months had gone by since the weekend in the Hamptons where I’d held Callum’s hand while his parents spread Mia’s ashes.
It didn’t seem like very long at all, and yet, a lifetime had passed.
“It was a nice service,” Marcy told me, drawing me out of my inappropriately sexual daydream.
I cleared my throat, hoping my smile wasn’t of the goofy, I’m-so-in-love-with-your-son variety.
“It was. I’m glad Mrs. Carlotta finally has closure. You and I both know how hard it is not knowing what happened to the people we love.”
I stepped forward on the freshly laid grass to prop the Transformer up beside Frankie’s name on the headstone, and then put the roses down for his mother.
Your husband was a piece of shit, Victoria. I hope you and Frankie can rest easy now.
Marcy sniffled and huffed in annoyance behind me; the expression on her face when I stood back up, one of angry indecision.
“You dragged me up here on purpose, didn’t you?”
I did my best to feign innocence. “Well, yes. I didn’t want to come by myself, and since both our men were being major jerks, I thought you were the perfect person to accompany me.”
After a minute or two of scowling at me, Marcy rolled her eyes and hooked her arm through mine as we walked away from the gravesite.
“Considering the way Victoria and her son died, this is indelicate of me, but I know of all people, you’ll understand the sentiment.
“John needs this PI thing. Even his doctor said it would be good for him to get out there and solve some mysteries, but I swear, my husband is going to drive me to drink!”
Even angry, exasperated, and worried about his health, there was no mistaking the love in Marcy’s voice. I didn’t have anything constructive to add, so I just squeezed her arm while we walked back to the car.
She got behind the wheel of my Rover and slammed the door, but once ins
ide and buckled in next to me, the vitriol went out of her voice when she glanced my way.
“John is as stubborn as a damn donkey, but you’re right. We know what it’s like to not have answers. Maybe with his license, he can dig into your brother’s case, Jo. If anyone can find out the truth of what happened, it’s my man.”
I was glad I wasn’t driving. I might have taken out a few headstones when I swerved in reaction to the confidence in Marcy’s statement.
With everything going on, I honestly hadn’t thought to ask if John would look into Elliot’s case.
But who better than a former homicide detective?
CHAPTER ONE
“So? Has your PI found anything yet?”
I paced around my rooftop garden with my cell pressed to my ear, admiring the beautiful colors of the leaves changing as fall approached. The Japanese maples in their big pots were a mix of stunning orange and vibrant magenta. One of them sprouted a full bush of pale pink leaves.
Most of the flowers had already withered. A few of the berry bushes lingered, and the feathery patches of fountain grass still sprouted in big beautiful tufts. The air was crisp and cool, and I swear the scent of pumpkin spice wafted around me.
Unless it was in a pumpkin pie, I wasn't interested. Unlike every other woman in Manhattan who was all about pumpkin spice everything, I was more of a mint kind of gal.
I'm no basic bitch. Give me mint and chocolate over pumpkin spice any day.
“No, not yet,” I grumbled in frustration. “It’s only been a few months.”
Four months since Gemini’s—now known as the Twin Killer—arrest had become public knowledge. My name had appeared in the news reports due to a loose-lipped uniform, who Callum told me will be doing janitorial work at the 81st Precinct for the rest of his career.
Being in the tabloids and a legit newspaper within the span of a few months meant I am officially a person of interest to the information bloodhounds who call themselves reporters. Once cracked open, no part of my life was a secret.
My parents jumped at the opportunity for their few minutes of fame when some reporter in Florida offered them a fist full of money to share my dirty laundry with the world.
After the story of what a terrible, crazy, ungrateful daughter I was hit the newsstands of Orlando, someone here in New York latched on and offered my parents more money to fly up and do a live interview—an exposé of the very worst kind.
Thank God the restraining order I renewed each year was still in effect, otherwise, dear Mother and Father would have shown up on my doorstep with their new friends to call me out, like Frankenstein's monster.
Every day since their first interview here in New York, a new pile of steaming bullshit hit the stands and more reporters came out of the woodwork wanting a comment from me. I knew better than to say so much as the word ‘boo’ to anyone who may or may not be a reporter. They would take everything I said and twist it, making things worse than they were.
The only person I spoke to, outside of my small little pseudo-family, was the woman responsible for helping me take my life back after I'd been brought home from the asylum.
Rebecca Gibbson lived with her husband in the Texas Hill Country. They ran the winery and the bed and breakfast my parents had impulsively bought and have been making quite a name for themselves at the Hidden Mill Winery.
I always said I'd come out to visit during the spring when the bluebonnets and wildflowers were blooming, but in the ten years since Rebecca had taken over at the winery, I hadn't made it out there.
Rebecca called this morning after seeing the latest shit show on The Callie Burns’s Show.
I hate that show. She is such a bimbo! Fake, fake ... FAKE! From her teeth to her tits, she's nothing but plastic.
For a New Yorker, Callie talked like a girl raised in some hipster valley in California. It grated on my nerves, so bad! Rebecca was quiet while I vented my anger and humiliation on someone new, allowing me the opportunity to give Callum and Nigel's ears a break.
I wasn't willing to respond to any of the reporters' prompts for a statement, but I sure as hell didn't mind raging at my man or my assistant. Both my favorite guys were exhausted from listening to my tirades, and in the last two weeks since my parents’ first interview, nothing had changed.
“Well, from what you've told me about Mr. Graham, he'll keep after it until he finds something.” Rebecca's confidence made me smile, and she wasn't wrong.
John had been after any information he could find on Elliot, but the Pine Hill Sheriff's Department wasn't cooperating, and without his badge or any clout from a higher authority, John still did not have the original police report from the night of Elliot’s allegedly accidental drowning.
Callum asked me if I wanted him to step in to help, but he and I both knew John was still miffed over the last incident. John had done all the legwork on solving the case, only to be pushed out by “The Brass” when Callum brought in the man responsible for running his wife and son off the road.
John’s PI license hadn’t opened all the doors he assumed it would. In our weekly updates, he informed me about reaching out to some PI guru in Texas, who gave him the scoop on backhanded techniques not used by the police force.
I thought about asking Rebecca if she was familiar with John's contact, but Rebecca had just gotten her doctorate in psychology. It was doubtful she knew someone named ‘Nasa’.
I kicked a small piece of gravel off the path and into the foliage of my rooftop before leaning against the rail so I could look out on the city below. But almost as quickly as I settled, I straightened and backed up.
A reporter might be down there waiting to take my picture with a telescopic lens.
A shot of me standing in the window of the loft downstairs already existed. A shot taken moments after I'd climbed off Callum's gloriously nude body where he lay on the floor and put his shirt on.
Had the shot been taken three seconds earlier, naked photos of me would be out there for all to see. The thought still had the power to make me sick to my stomach.
“I really hope so, Rebecca. I don’t think I can deal with this for much longer. I planned to ignore my parents until the news anchors and gossip rags found something more interesting to report, but so far, no one else has done anything worth blowing completely out of proportion. Guess no other parents are willing to tell terrible lies about their daughters on national television.”
Rebecca’s understanding murmur filtered through the phone, along with the sound of ice rattling in the glass. I pictured her in her baggy jeans and a pastel T-shirt, sitting in her rocking chair on the back porch of the farmhouse, drinking sweet tea. Rebecca is in her late sixties, but you’d never know it just by looking at her. She looked and dressed like a woman twenty years younger. Rebecca claimed her secret was the Texas sunshine and a glass of red wine every night from the vineyard.
For my last three birthdays, she’d sent me a case of Hidden Mill Cabernet. I hadn’t been a fan of red wines until I’d gotten a taste from that first bottle, and now I had a glass every night.
“You're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for, Jo. I can't imagine whoever is paying your parents for their outrageous lies will keep supporting them when the audience starts to get bored hearing the same rhetoric.”
I scoffed as I kicked another pebble out of my way. “I haven't left the warehouse in two weeks because I can't go anywhere without a bunch of reporters showing up to chase after me for a comment. It feels like the tabloid crap all over again.”
“I'm sure it does, but like you said, someone is bound to do something terrible, and the news crews will jump at the chance to feed on someone else's sordid past.”
“Whose past are you calling sordid?” I half-heartedly joked.
“Yours, goofball. Now, why don't you go find that sexy man of yours and forget all about your parents for a while? Doctor's orders.”
Best orders I've ever received from a doctor.
MY FIN
GERS TRACED THE edges of the diamond pattern etched into the cool glass. The cup made a delicate ringing sound as I set it back onto the saucer, the taste of peppermint lingering on my tongue.
I watched the waves going in and out against the shore, but I couldn't hear the sea or feel the wind.
“You're getting stronger,” the familiar voice at my side said happily.
I turned to find Mia Graham in her red boho dress, placing twists of yellow banana taffy into the leaf-shaped bowl in the center of the table between us.
It had been six months since the last time I'd had dreams of this woman, and while I honestly felt happy to see her, my brows furrowed in confusion.
“Mia, you're supposed to have moved on. What are you doing here?”
My lover's sister gave a happy laugh, her golden hair fluttering in the breeze.
“I did move on, and I am at peace, but every now and then, I check in on you and my family. I miss them, you know?”
“They miss you too. Did you want me to give them a message?”
Mia shook her head, taking my cup and saucer and setting them aside before folding her hands around mine. I felt the gravity in her gaze, like weights in my pockets pulling me down into the sand.
“No. It's time for you to go home, Jo.”
I looked at her incomprehensibly, squeezing her soft, delicate hands. “Mia, I am home.”
“You need to finish it. It's time to go home. Talk to Helena before it's too late, Jo. Jo?” My name on Mia's lips came out extremely masculine, startling me into looking around for someone else with us on the shore.
“Jo, I need you to wake up.”
The waves and the sand, along with Mia's smiling face, disappeared and I opened bleary eyes to find another Graham leaning over me.
It was one hell of a face to see in the early morning sunlight, but he didn't smile back at me when I reached up to touch his cheek.
