Dear Adam (35 page)

Again at your direction, I searched for any
murder attempts on one Adam Carter which also involved criminal or
“mafia” figures operating in the UK. I found one Adam Carter, age
19, who was shot while he was in the company of one Marco Mancino,
age 47, while they were in a London nightclub. I found one
newspaper article about the event (a copy is attached to this
e-mail and labeled “Adam Carter 2”). According to unsubstantiated
rumours, Mancino was connected to Sicilian mafia. I could find no
further information on Mancino, other than he originated from
Agrigento, Sicily.

Mancino died of gunshot wounds on the scene.
Adam Carter was taken to the hospital and later died of his
injuries. A copy of his death certificate, signed by the attending
physician, is attached to this e-mail (labeled “Adam Carter 3”). In
anticipation of your request, I performed a query for any
information regarding where Adam Carter’s remains might currently
reside. Unfortunately, the hospital morgue records for that year
were consumed by a fire some years ago. I was unable to locate Adam
Carter’s final resting place.

Furthermore, I was not able to locate any
photographs of Adam Carter. None were attached to his arrest
record. I was also unable to locate a birth certificate.

I could find no other information aside from
the attached documents.

An invoice for services rendered is
attached, labeled “Adam Carter Billing.”

If you have any further questions, please
send me an e-mail at this address or call our office at the number
on the invoice.

Regards,

Michael Stubbins

For the hundredth time, Eden re-read the
e-mail on her phone from the UK private investigator she had
hired.

Dead.

It was all there, in black and white. An
official death certificate. Everything lined up, the dates, the
age, the circumstances.

Could it be that her Adam had seen this
article and decided to appropriate the story for his own, only
changing the obvious outcome – that he survived?

Eden dismissed the idea. She was taking
Vivian’s advice to heart. She was going to assume that everything
that Adam had told her was the truth and go from there. This was
the only way she could proceed with trying to find him.

She thought back to their first conversation
about the shooting, trying to remember what he had said about it.
What was it? He said he owed everything to his doctor, “Ashraf.”
“Ashraf” had given him "a new life."

Eden opened the death certificate again and
zoomed in. “A. Khan” had signed it.

At the time, she thought Adam meant “Ashraf”
had saved his life. But what if “a new life” meant just that? Death
of his old life as Adam Carter, freeing him to live another life as
someone else, someone who wouldn’t be haunted by his affiliation
with a murdered Sicilian mafioso? What if “A. Khan” was “Ashraf” –
the doctor who falsely signed Adam Carter’s death certificate? If
his enemies thought he was dead then that would ensure the ultimate
privacy of his new life. And wouldn’t that mean then that he would
guard that new life so zealously that he would allow no photos, no
videos to be taken of him, ever?

It was an incredible theory – but then
everything that the private investigator had uncovered would have
been unbelievable, had it come from any other source.

“
Hi, honey. Happy Mother’s
Day!” Her mother and father had arrived at the café for brunch,
interrupting her thoughts. Her mother approached her with a warm
smile.

“
Hi, Ma! Happy Mother’s
Day!” Eden said as she hugged her mother tightly then handed her a
bouquet of roses.

“
Thank you, honey. They’re
beautiful,” her mother said appreciatively as she held the roses to
her heart and sniffed them.

Dante walked in at the same time that her
brother and his girlfriend arrived. “Hey, hey!”

It was a sunny May morning, warm enough so
that they sat in an outside table of the café.

Eden longed to tell her mother about the
books she had published, especially the first one, which was
dedicated to her. It would have made a poignant Mother’s Day gift.
But she swallowed her need to have her mother be proud of her. If
she wanted her anonymity intact, she needed to tell as few people
as possible. Once her mother knew, she would tell Eden’s dad
because they could never keep secrets from each other. And once
Eden’s dad knew, then everybody would know. He had no filter
whatsoever and said whatever came to his mind.

“
So when are you going to
get married again and give us more grandchildren?” her dad asked
without preamble, proudly patting Dante's back. “You’re going to be
36 in a week. You don’t have much time. Your eggs are getting
old.”

Eden almost choked on her pancakes.

Her mother slapped her father’s arm and
exclaimed, “Pa!”

Dante’s mocha came out of his nose.

Eden’s brother started laughing out loud
while his girlfriend tried to shush him. She gave Eden an
apologetic look.

Chastened, her brother cleared his throat and
tried to distract Eden, who was about to lecture her dad on her
evolutionary destiny. “Hey, so how’s your bucket list going? What
number are you on, anyway?”

“
It’s not a bucket list,”
Eden explained yet again. “It’s just trying 36 new things before I
turn 36. I’m on number 35.”

“
She made her own cheese
last weekend,” Dante offered politely.

“
That sounds … exciting,”
her brother remarked. “Soooo what’s going to be the big number 36?
Learn how to crochet? Basket weaving? Dye your hair purple? Gotta
end it with a bang, sis.”

Eden speared an asparagus and bit on it with
gusto before replying.

“
For number 36, I’m going
to Sicily.”

Chapter 18

The flight from San Francisco to Palermo was
over 20 hours total, with plane changes in Frankfurt and Rome.
Booking the trip last minute meant that Eden couldn’t avoid
layovers if she wanted to keep her expenses reasonable. She felt
guilty about taking money out of her savings for something that
wasn’t an emergency.

Dante was excited for her to go, until she
told him that his grandfather was going to stay at the house with
him while she was gone.

“
But, mom! I’m 18! I can
stay on my own for a week,” he protested.

“
Uh-uh,” she told him.
“You’re a senior and about to graduate. Not on your
life.”

To further stretch her dollars, she had
booked a red eye for the first leg. Unlike her other trips, there
was no one to see her off at the airport. Her parents had slept
over the night before and her mom cooked her a going away dinner.
She felt doubly guilty keeping her real reason for her spontaneous
trip from them. It was too long of a story to tell and even if
there had been time to explain everything, her parents would have
tried to dissuade her from going. The pleasure itinerary she
provided was 99% fabrication. Only the flight details and hotel
contact information were accurate.

To be safe, however, she told Vivian details
of her plan.

“
So what are you going to
do once you get to Agrigento?”

“
I have no idea whatsoever.
I’ll figure it out on the way over there.”

“
Great plan. I hope it
works.”

“
How hard can it be to find
a mysterious Englishman in Sicily?”

“
What if you go through all
this trouble and don’t find him?”

Eden put on a face of bravado. “Well then I
don’t find him. At least I tried. This is probably the most foolish
thing I will ever do, but if there’s ever a time to be foolish,
this is it. I am not going to spend the rest of my life wondering
and kicking myself because I didn’t go after the man I love.”

Normally, she would have dreaded such long
hours on a plane and multiple changes, but in this case, it gave
her more time to formulate a course of action. She spent the time
alternating between power naps and creating a strategy, poring over
maps and guidebooks, taking notes, and trying to cram as much
practical Italian as she could. Once her plane landed on Palermo,
she intended to hit the ground running and use every minute of her
time in Sicily towards one end – finding Adam.

By the time she arrived at
the Fiumicino Airport in Rome for the last leg of her flight, Eden
felt primed and ready. She had two hours to kill so she wandered
restlessly among the shops near her gate. She was looking through
tourist maps, trying to find one for Sicily, when she heard her
name being announced. “
Attenzion
e, Eden Espinoza” then a
stream of Italian she couldn’t understand, followed by “Attention,
Eden Espinoza, please go to the Alitalia counter in Gate 53. Thank
you.”

Gate 53 was her boarding gate. She tried not
to panic.

She gathered her carryon bags and went up to
the counter, behind which were two beautiful young women in green
and white uniforms with red kerchiefs tied around their necks. They
were talking to a tall man with black hair who was leaning against
the counter. They were laughing and flirting with him and didn’t
notice Eden standing there.

“
Buon
giorno
,” she interrupted, “I’m Eden
Espinoza.”

Both women reluctantly turned to her. One of
them gave the other a look as if to say, “It’s your turn to do the
dirty work. You handle this one,” and turned back to talking with
the man leaning against the counter.

Consequently, the one stuck with dealing with
her looked like she was in a foul mood.

“
Ah, Miss Espinoza,
buon giorno
. I am afraid
there is a problem with your ticket.”

Eden took out her boarding pass and
electronic ticket receipt. “I already got checked through in San
Francisco.”

The woman, whose gold lapel had the name “M.
Brassi”, took her documents from her.

“
Mmmm,” she said as she
looked them over. She then started typing in the computer in front
of her, looked at her ticket, then typed some more, frowning the
whole time. It did not look reassuring. After five long minutes of
typing and scanning the monitor, she handed the pass and ticket
back to Eden. “Sorry. No good. This flight is overbooked. You will
have to take another flight.”

Eden blinked at her, then shook her head.
Keep calm, she told herself. You’re in a foreign country and you’ve
just started your mission. This is what happens when you book
international flights one week ahead. You get bumped.

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Can I take the
next flight to Palermo?”

The woman nodded, then went back to typing on
the keyboard. As she scanned the results, her frown deepened. More
typing. More scanning. Her frown became a deep crevice of
worry.

Keep calm. Keep calm. This was her new
mantra.

M. Brassi turned to the other woman and said
something in rapid Italian. The other woman, whose lapel said “R.
Viola” stopped talking to the tall man and immediately turned to
the computer monitor with a concerned expression. What she saw
appeared to baffle her. More typing. And a frown appeared on her
face as well.

She typed and looked, typed and looked. With
each passing moment, Eden’s calm eroded. She hadn’t even stepped
foot on Sicilian soil and she’s already running into a big snag.
She looked around her, at the near-empty boarding area. The man
next to her seemed blissfully unaware of any trouble. He was
texting away like mad on his phone, oblivious. But then he probably
wasn’t about to get bumped from his flight.

“
Miss Espinoza. It appears
that the next flight to Palermo with an open seat is … seven days
from now.”

“
Seven days?” Eden
exclaimed. “But, that’s too late. I’m only here for a
week.”

Both women had dropped their impatient
expression and looked genuinely sorry.

M. Brassi shrugged and gestured helplessly at
the computer. “The computer says all the flights are full until
then. We checked and checked again.”

“
Um,” Eden said, trying to
think. “There’s another airport in Sicily, isn’t there?”

Their faces lit up.
“
Si
, one in
Catania,” M. Brassi said, relieved. “You want us to look for the
next flight there?”

Eden nodded eagerly. “Sure, how far is it
from Agrigento?”

R. Viola pursed her lips, “Mmm. Approximately
two hours drive.”