Callie's Christmas Wish

by Merline Lovelace

  “Well,” she admitted after a moment, “I probably wouldn’t have given him that exact answer. But close enough.”

  “Are you sure, Calissa? You really feel this way?”

  “For pity’s sake, Simona...”

  “Do not fire up at me! Carlo and your bedmate have given me enough grief.”

  “Our intake interviews and case files are privileged information. Carlo must know that. Joe, too.”

  He had to. He couldn’t have been in the security business without smacking up against privacy laws. Although... With an inner grimace, Callie shoved the suspicion that he might’ve found a way around, over or under a few of those rules and regulations to the back of her mind.

  “Carlo does indeed know it,” Simona confirmed, “but he says he will take the matter to the board. We will soon be caught in the middle of a fight.”

  “It won’t be my first time.”

  “Yes?” The director cocked her head. “You’ve battled with this fiancé of yours before?”

  “We’ve had a few differences,” Callie conceded, “but we sat down and discussed them like rational adults. We’ll do the same in this instance, too.”

  “Ha!”

  “We will! But...” she said, coming off her haughty stand, “perhaps I’d better take another look at our operating procedures. I read through them my first morning, but I want to be sure I didn’t lose anything in translation.”

  She was thoroughly acquainted with the standards of patient confidentiality as detailed in the American Psychological Association’s code of ethics, of course. She could also quote title and chapter of Massachusetts law that codified those standards. Her initial review of the center’s operating procedures had indicated that IADW’s policies mirrored APA’s. Basically, client information and records of therapy sessions were confidential, with several internationally recognized exceptions.

  One of those exceptions involved any reasonable suspicion of child abuse. Callie was intimately familiar with that provision. She’d had to exercise it far too often while acting as an ombudsman for children caught between warring parents or kids seemingly lost in the foster care system.

  Belief that a client will harm himself or someone else was another exception to confidentiality laws. Callie had been forced to exercise that option on several occasions, as well.

  She hadn’t worked as much with the criteria involving lawsuits and court-mandated therapy sessions, however, and would have to dig deeper to make sure she fully understood IADW’s position on each of them.

  Crossing the hall to her own office, she retrieved one of the dusty black binders from atop the metal file cabinet. She still had her nose buried in the notebook some thirty minutes later when the sound of footsteps outside her door brought her head up. Expecting Simona, she blinked in surprise.

  “Joe! I didn’t hear the bell. How’d you get in?”

  “Please.” He gave her a pained look. “Tommy Ellis could pick the lock on the front door blindfolded. The one on the back door’s even worse.”

  “Simona told me you’d decided to beef up our security.”

  “Just met with Emilio. He’ll purchase the equipment and install it himself. What’d you do to your hair?”

  She’d forgotten all about her new do. Lifting a hand, she combed her fingers through the curls. “I call it adaptive therapy. Like it?”

  “Yeah, I do. Makes your eyes look even bigger. And speaking of therapy...” He wedged into the narrow space in front of her desk and claimed one of the two chairs. “I expect Simona also told you that she stonewalled Carlo and me a while ago.”

  “She told me you wanted access to our case files. She also said she, quite correctly, refused.”

  “Correctly?”

  “Those files contain privileged information, Joe. You know that.”

  “They also contain intake interviews that document your residents’ nationality and where they entered the refugee aid system. One of those interviews might reveal a link to the drone strike.”

  “Not every resident’s home of origin is documented,” Callie countered, thinking of Amal’s shrouded past. “And even if that information is in the record, it’s protected. We couldn’t disclose it without the written consent of the individuals involved.”

  “So get their consent.”

  He said it so coolly. So matter-of-factly. As though extracting information was a matter of time, patience and technique, not ethics. A little shocked, Callie pressed him to understand.

  “Joe, please. Listen to me. Most of these women have been severely traumatized. Simona, Nikki, the professionals here at the center...they’ve worked with them for weeks and in some cases months. I’m just beginning to make a few tentative connections. Yesterday, with a sketch pad. Today with this.”

  Her hand went to her hair again. Raking the shaggy curls. Standing them on end.

  “I have to earn their trust, Joe. That won’t happen if I ask them to sign a document they may not understand. One that strips them of the little privacy and dignity they have left.”

  He studied her through eyes that had gone as opaque and as impenetrable as the fog that rolled in across Boston Bay.

  “What about our connection?” he asked after a long moment. “Our trust? You don’t believe I could protect their privacy and dignity?”

  She flinched and searched for a possible compromise, however shaky.

  “Let me talk to Simona.”

  He nodded. Once. A brief dip of his chin. Then he pushed out of the chair. “You do that. And tell her Emilio should be here before noon.”

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got some business to take care of. I’ll see you later.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Joe labeled it a strategy session. Carlo, still smarting from the wounds he’d received during the morning’s firefight with Simona, declared it a war council. Dominic Dukakis thought he’d been invited to the prince’s palatial apartment on Via Zanardelli to discuss yet another proposed amendment to the hotly debated Greece-Italy pipeline.

  He learned otherwise shortly after the three men gathered around a burled walnut table in the library. Leather-bound first editions lined the shelves that ran the length of two walls. Gilt-framed portraits of Carlo’s ancestors covered every square inch of a third. The fourth boasted velvet-draped windows that give an unobstructed view of the Pantheon’s colonnaded portico. None of the three men were interested in Emperor Hadrian’s architectural gem, however.

  When Joe explained the reason for the meeting to Dominic, the Greek diplomat didn’t bother debating the nebulous nature of the threat. Desperate refugees were wading ashore in his county by the thousands. Most carried with them hope for a better life. No small few, Dominic knew, carried a buried—sometimes burning—resentment toward the Western nations that had bombed or strafed in the ceaseless battle against terrorists. That one of those terrorists might have survived a direct strike and was now making inquiries about the center where Nicola Dukakis worked was all her husband needed to know.

  He also didn’t waste time sympathizing when Carlo related Simona’s flat refusal to grant access to the center’s computerized case files. His wife was a highly skilled nurse-practitioner, licensed to diagnose and treat in Greece, Macedonia and Italy. Dominic was well aware of the laws governing patient privacy and the confidentiality of medical records. Instead of railing at the system, he wanted to know what had to be done to protect the women who lived and worked at the center, his wife included.

  “Emilio’s there now,” Joe reported. “He’s installing new electronic locks with touch pads and putting motion detectors on the ground-floor windows.”

  Shuffling through a stack of papers, he extracted a schematic detailing all three floors of the center’s interior and exterior.

&nb
sp; “We’re also installing surveillance cameras that feed to our twenty-four-hour monitoring service. Here, here, here and here.”

  Dominic’s brows winged up. “Simona’s fiercely protective of the residents’ privacy. I’m surprised she consented to cameras, much less to twenty-four-hour monitoring.”

  “She agreed to exterior surveillance only.” Joe shot Carlo a quick look. “But we’re adding unobtrusive interior cameras that can be activated with the flick of a remote switch.”

  “By unobtrusive I assume you mean hidden.”

  “Correct.”

  “And you haven’t told Simona about them?”

  “Not yet.”

  The Greek blew a soundless whistle. “I sincerely hope I’m not in the line of fire when she discovers what you’ve done.”

  “She won’t. Not with Emilio doing the installing.”

  “You live dangerously, my friend.”

  “Comes with the territory.”

  “Speaking of your man Emilio,” Carlo put in. “Did he hear from his man in Palermo?”

  “He did,” Joe reported grimly. “His guy squeezed every contact, legitimate or otherwise, but got nothing. Whoever powered up that laptop knows how to cover his tracks.”

  Carlo muttered a curse while Joe shuffled the papers again and slid one across the table.

  “This is a copy of the center’s daily schedule. Also a list of outings planned for the next two weeks. I’ll have someone shadowing each outing.”

  The list ran the gamut from shopping excursions to a walking tour of streets lit with holiday lights to attendance by three of the center’s Christian residents at the pope’s traditional Christmas Eve Mass.

  “Christós,” Dominic muttered when his gaze snagged on the last item. “Fifty or sixty thousand people jam into St. Peter’s Basilica for that Mass. Another four hundred thousand fill the square outside to watch it on huge screens. Your men will have a time keeping watch on these three.”

  “They’ll manage.”

  Carlo picked up from there. “I spoke to a contact at Questura Centrale. He agreed to step up patrols by uniformed police in the area around the center. I’ve also briefed the commander of the ROS.”

  The Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale, or Special Operations Group, was an elite arm of Italy’s national military police, specifically established to combat terrorism and organized crime.

  Dominic nodded his approval of these measures and voiced a key question. “What can I do?”

  “The same thing Joe and I intend to do. Become more involved in center activities. For the next few weeks, at least.”

  “That may not be easy to pull off,” Dominic said slowly. “Some of those women have been severely traumatized by the very men who should have protected them. Nikki understands this. Simona even more so. She allows only three men to work at the center, two cooks and one mental health tech, and Nikki says she personally vetted each of them.”

  “Which is why it must be the three of us,” Carlo responded. “Il Drago can hardly object to a casual visit by Nikki’s husband or Callie’s fiancé. Or,” he added with a twist of his lips, “the chairman of the board she supposedly reports to.”

  Dominic looked skeptical but withheld comment as a phone pinged. All three men instinctively checked their devices, but the text message was for Joe.

  “Emilio’s almost done,” he reported, pushing back his chair. “I’ll use checking his work as an excuse for another foray into the dragon’s den.”

  * * *

  He activate the override code on the shiny new touch pad Emilio had installed beside the front door but took care to announce his arrival by texting Callie. Her answering text was short and succinct.

  I’m in session. Wait in my office.

  Another text pinpointed Emilio’s location. Joe found his subordinate crouched beside a low sill in a small storage room at the end of the first-floor hall. Its single window was almost obscured by stacked boxes and metal shelves jammed with an assortment of office supplies. Muttering to himself, Emilio scraped at what was probably three or four centuries of paint with a sharp-edged knife.

  “These windows,” he snarled to Joe in idiomatic Italian, “they’re a bitch.”

  “Need help?”

  “No, this is the last. But I could use some mineral water. Or better yet, a stiff shot of grappa.”

  Joe was more than happy to comply with the first request. It gave him an excuse to conduct a visual surveillance of the kitchen. He’d already studied its floor plan and assessed every possible ingress and egress point. Still, nothing compared to direct eyeballing.

  The unmistakable aromas of Italy hit him the moment he pushed through the swinging door. Garlic, olive oil and the sweet, heavy cream of fettuccine Alfredo. Both of the regular cooks on the center’s list of employees were present. One was busy grating fresh Romano while his associate stirred several steaming pots. When Joe asked for mineral water, the stirrer merely stabbed the tip of his spoon in the direction of a stainless steel refrigerator.

  Once every nook and cranny was imprinted in his mind, Joe made his way back down the hall. A quick glance in Callie’s empty office confirmed she hadn’t finished her therapy session. Simona’s office across the hall also stood vacant. But when Joe approached the storage room at the end of the hall, Emilio’s tense voice stopped him in his tracks.

  The Roman tried Italian first. Then French. Then English. Each iteration was more pleading than the last.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay. Please! Don’t do anything rash.”

  Every instinct on red alert, Joe dropped into a crouch. He shifted the water bottle to his left hand and dropped his right to the lightweight Ruger nested in its ankle holster.

  “I see what you want,” Emilio said. “No! It’s okay! It’s okay! You do it. Take my knife. Go ahead, take it.”

  Joe was still in a crouch, still strung wire tight, when he caught the soft thud of footsteps on the stairs at the far end of the hall. He spun around and spotted Callie frozen halfway down the spiral staircase, her eyes wide and questioning.

  He put a finger to his lips. She got the message, but only to the extent of creeping down the remaining stairs on tiptoe. Cursing under his breath, Joe signaled for her to stay the hell back.

  She froze in place again, her entire body rigid as she, too, caught the faint whisper of what Joe guessed was a naked blade slashing through cardboard. Emilio’s voice followed a few second later.

  “There. Take as much as you want.” A pause, a gentler tone. “When’s your baby due?”

  Oh, God, Callie thought. That was Amal in there with Emilio. Amal, who never spoke a word but could sketch like this century’s answer to Michelangelo. Amal, who might give birth any day, surrounded by strangers. Callie knew she should intervene. Should let the other woman know she wasn’t...

  “My name’s Emilio.”

  She held her breath as Joe’s associate waited a beat. Two. Three.

  “And you?” he said softly. “What’s your name?”

  The tableau played out in vivid high definition inside Callie’s head. The dusty storage room. The impossibly handsome Roman with his buffed-up biceps and bedroom eyes. The pregnant refugee who’d lost everything. She’d just decided to terminate the agonizing inquisition when she caught a whisper so faint she almost missed it.

  “They...they call me Amal.”

  Callie couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Astounded, unbelieving, thrilled, she locked on Joe. He transmitted an unmistakable signal to keep silent as Emilio spun out the tenuous thread.

  “Amal? That’s a pretty name.”

  Painful seconds ticked by. Callie had almost given up hope when Amal answered in tortured whisper.

  “The name is a mockery.”

  “Why?”

&nb
sp; The reply was low, tortured. “In Arabic it means ‘hope.’ But I have none.”

  “Why?” Emilio asked again.

  So calm. So unthreatening. Yet the single word provoked a fierce response.

  “You could not understand!”

  “Then tell me. Explain why you’re so frightened.”

  Callie inched closer to Joe. She felt like a world-class voyeur but wasn’t about to interrupt this fragile conversation. To her intense disappointment, it was terminated a moment later.

  Amal burst out of the storage room. Her robe flattening against her distended belly, she flew past Callie and Joe. Emilio emerged almost on her heels. His handsome face contorted into a scowl as he watched her rush up the spiral staircase.

  “She shouldn’t run like that. She could trip,” he worried. “Hurt herself or the baby.”

  “What was that about?” Joe demanded. “What was she doing in the storage room?”

  “I’ll show you.” Emilio went back into the dusty storage room and returned a moment later with a still-wrapped ream of copy paper.

  “Here. This is what she was after.” His glance cut to Callie. “She seemed desperate for it. Why don’t you take it to her?”

  * * *

  She knew where to look this time. As she’d anticipated, Amal had taken refuge in the corner half-hidden by the potted palm with its mantle of tinsel and silver balls.

  Once again Callie signaled her presence with a soft hello. And once again the mother-to-be looked up with wide eyes and refused to return her greeting.

  “Emilio...the man downstairs...he said this is what you wanted.”

  Callie placed the ream on the table beside Amal. Despite the other woman’s blank-eyed stare, a dull red crept into her cheeks.

  “You know you can have as much paper to draw with as you wish. You’ve only to ask.”

  The red deepened.

  “I heard you downstairs,” Callie continued gently. “You and Emilio. I’m so glad you speak English. I’ve been wanting to tell you something.”

  That produced not much as a flicker of response but she refused to give up.