Perfect Crime (25 page)

“What exactly are you looking for?” Tessa asked.

“The key to the treasury and all that Xenex money. Cy won’t be coming by any more.” His last words were addressed to the priest. “You’ll be dealing with me now.”

“There is nothing to deal with.”

“The revolution isn’t over—it’s just taken a new direction.”

Father Luke fiddled with the cuff of his robe. “I’m surprised to see you here, Enrico.”

“Really? Then you’re dumber than I thought. Although, I’ll admit I’ve had my doubts on your intelligence before.” Ric snorted in derision and pointed a thumb at Scott. “Idealists are always blind—like this one.”

Scott defended, “Blind isn’t the word I want to use.” He looked over towards Tessa.

Father Luke stared at the ground. “I thought we’d agreed you wouldn’t be back?”

“Well, I was busy the last couple days but…” Ric said to the priest, ignoring everyone else around him for the moment. “What? Didn’t you like helping me out last month with that lil’ package?”

Tessa blinked and looked innocent. “Package?”

“On the 19th?” Scott said.

“Kate Russo was a mistake!” Father Luke swore.

Turning conspiratorially to the other two, Ric explained, “We thought she had Dante’s car.”

“There is no we,” growled the priest.

“Don’t get self-righteous with me. You need that money back—you’ll never make bishop if they find it missing.”

“You wanted it for yourself.”

“There is plenty for us both.”

Father Luke no longer looked contrite. He took a menacing step forward. “I warned you about coming back.”

The two Italian men stared at each other and silence fell in the church. Ric pulled a pack of cigarettes from his slacks and tapped one into his palm. “I believe you said you’d pray for me.”

A match was struck. A flame flickered and caught as Ric took a drag from the cigarette and blew the smoke into the aisle.

Father Luke snatched the cigarette from the man’s lips, crushing it on the floor. “Get out.”

“We are at war!” Ric moved forward, his upper lip curled in a snarl as he stared down the priest. “And now it’s every man for himself.”

“At what price?”

“I need that car. Whatever is in that car, people are willing to die for. Darla wouldn’t tell me where it was and there’s no place else to look. I…I…”

Tessa stood, her eyes narrowed. “You what?”

For a moment he looked penitent, but then recovered. “I was committed.”

“You killed Darla Perelli?” Scott dared to interrupt.

“It was an accident,” Ric said, as if it made it alright.

Father Luke’s face was flushed. “I told you, no more killing.”

“What!” Tessa launched herself at her cousin, but Ric batted her away.

“Nothing anyone of you wouldn’t have done. Don’t you remember our conversation at Rhen’s funeral? You didn’t want to be Daddy’s little girl, but you did want your brother avenged. An eye for an eye, you said …..”

She gasped, “I wasn’t talking about…”

It was Ric’s turn to interrupt “It’s all about fair exchange and payback. And you,” Ric pointed at Scott, “you had to keep poking around.”

Tessa whispered, “Darla had nothing to do with anything.”

Ric said, “She thought she was clever enough to smoke Cy out of hiding. Or maybe she figured I’d share what I knew about him in return for her own knowledge of Dante and his courier duties.” He offered a nod to Scott, seemingly enjoying dropping a small fact. “Every month Novus always made pay role courtesy of the Catholic Church.”

He didn’t appear the least uncomfortable as he continued, “But Darla, she over played her hand. If she had actually been able to tell me what Dante could – maybe I wouldn’t have had to give her so much to make her talk.”

“Where is Dante?”

Ric ignored her and made a sharp arm movement in the air; the motion causing his sleeve to pull up his arm that inadvertently showed off a big red tattoo. “Tessie, go over to your boyfriend and pat him down. Experience tells me he’s smart enough to have come packin’.”

With his left hand, Ric drew his own gun. “You’ve been useful, Crawford, but your time is over.”

Tessa made her way the few paces to stand beside Scott. She felt numb and the voices around her had become nothing more than droning noise as she lifted the back of Scott’s jacket and retrieved the gun. She’d seen him hide one there before. Now she held one of Dante’s own in her hand, but she didn’t think about how he must have searched the house to find it.

Stretching each finger, Tessa wrapped her hand a little tighter around the grip, getting used to the feel of a pistol again. “Don’t you just wonder sometimes…,” she muttered idly. A question, but really meant for no one, only thinking out loud.

It was the sound of Scott’s voice that brought her back, his voice cool and aimed at Ric. “You might want to check with Morgano before you do anything; I’m pretty certain he has other plans for me.”

“Yeah, well, Dante had other plans for you, too, and look how that turned out,” Ric snapped back arrogantly. “You owe me a thank you.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s…not here. You are.”

Tessa weighed her thoughts and unconsciously, her hand shifted on the 9mm Koch. Suspicions had nudged once before about Ric, when she watched him shoot Cy, now truth slapped her across the face. He was the bad guy. The devil was within, with his own motives and objectives—his greed. She felt her finger slide the safety off.

Something in her demeanor, perhaps the set of her jaw, caused Father Luke to say, “Put the weapon down, Contessa; there’s no place for guns in the church.”

Her posture didn’t change; neither did the grip she had on the piece, her petite hand circling round the handle, her fingers not moving. They’d found the sweet spot, where everything fits, now an extension of her own arm rather than just a weapon held.

Auburn locks shook in quiet disagreement. “No, Luca,” Tessa said, calling the priest by his given name, “not this time.”

A single shot rattled and echoed through the basilica, a horrifying noise that made her heart tighten. Fear, shock, or something else, but before she had time to realize what she’d done, Tessa felt her finger squeeze the trigger again.

The bullet grazed the pew at Ric’s hip.

Ric was the first to speak. Or, rather he laughed, apparently finding the situation of his possible demise amusing. His voice echoed in the holy chamber, causing Scott to look up towards the rafters where the sound came to rest.

Something in the shadows made the blond man move a bit closer to the woman with the gun.

“Put it down,” he whispered, “before you get yourself killed.”

The decision was on her. Tessa felt her teeth clench. She pulled her gaze away to look at Scott, and for a moment—one fleeting second—her fingers tightened around the pistol. But somewhere out of the darkness floated a barely there plea, a familiar voice urging her to heed the warning, “Smart man…listen to him, Contessa… before I have to bury another child.”

Donatello stepped through the arched doorway that shielded the choir loft stairs. He wasn’t alone. One of his bodyguards hovered next to the door. Most of the lights in the church were off; only a few in the corners kept the blackness at bay, but even through the dark shadows, Donatello’s warning leer was quite noticeable.

Her arm went limp. She allowed the handgun to swing freely in her hand, showing, if nothing else, a willingness to concede. Tessa knelt to one knee from where she stood.

“Good girl,” Donatello said.

Using the veiled light to her advantage, Tessa reached, unnoticed, into her front pant pocket and retrieved a tiny tape recorder. She pressed the right button, and laid it to rest on the church floor, placing it down hard enough to present the unmistakable sound of metal against hardwood. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the object sliding across the polished floor. A muted thud followed, an indication that it had stopped somewhere next to the pews.

She stood and turned to face her father, her body masking the movement of her hand. Tessa slid the Koch into her pocket – the swap not complete. She casually adjusted the hem of her sweater to ensure its secrecy.

“Father, it’s good to see you here.” The lie was worthy of a lightning strike, but she drew on all her skills to sound convincing.

Motioning to a spot next to him, Donatello said, “A lot has changed…you will acknowledge who you are.”

“And why is that?” she snapped.

Her father didn’t butter coat the facts, “We got a call this morning…Dante is dead.”

“What…How?” Tessa gasped the question, even though she suspected the answer.

“Someone took him to Locus Street and put a bullet in his head.”

She swung again towards Ric, but her father put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s time you take your proper place.”

Scott felt the shift in mood, the tensing of muscles, and the twitching of eyelids. He could almost hear the mental snap.

Ric growled, “I don’t think so.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that Ric disliked the ascension plan. Perhaps he was against women in positions of power, or maybe he thought the spot was meant for him, but the scales tipped in half a second and Scott simply let himself react.

A gun fired, as he knew it would. Scott was too busy shoving Tessa out of the way to avoid the inevitable. The sear of pain was frighteningly familiar, as was the desperate inhale he managed as he slowly crumpled to the ground.

With a speed that surpassed her talented cousin, Tessa reached back, yanked the gun from its hiding spot, and squeezed off a solitary round , beating the professional to the second shot meant for her.

Ric didn’t make a sound; just a sudden jerk backwards tattled that the bullet had found its mark.

Tessa crumpled to her knees next to Scott, her fingers still curled tightly around the proverbial smoking gun. “Scott,” she half whispered to the prone and bleeding man, “come on baby, stay with me.” Fingers from her right hand gently brushed back a few stray blond strands from his face, his breathing was shallow and labored; a sickly pale had replaced his usual sun-kissed skin.

Even in the veiled light, Tessa could see a pool of blood growing against his white shirt. The sticky warm fluid oozed onto the wooden floor as if seeking contact with the guilty.

An insistent tug on the handgun forced Tessa to look up. Donatello pulled the piece from her limp fingers. For a long minute, he stared at his daughter with dark eyes, knowing that no matter what else she did in life, nothing would affect her as much.

“How will you explain this?” Luke asked, snapping Tessa from the haze she felt enveloping her.

“I…Ric?”

Donatello shook his head.

“Self-defense. Not a word otherwise,” her father said, pressing her gun into Scott’s hand, then letting the piece fall naturally from the injured man’s hand.

Ice-blue eyes only blinked in response; she understood completely. Dead men don’t talk and modern science doesn’t lie. The concept made her nauseous.

An envelope of papers fell to the floor, tossed there by the grim-looking Morgano. “Crawford knew what he was stepping into a year ago…he owes us this one.”

Tessa went numb. She had no idea what he was talking about and there was no time to ask. “We need to call an ambulance.”

“The police will be here soon enough.” Donatello nodded towards Father Luke. “You’ll come with us.”

“But…”

Donatello put a protective hand under Tessa’s arm and half walked, half pulled her towards the altar and the rear entrance to the church. “We’re leaving.”

Chapter 21

Graduation

The drive from the church to her father’s Chicago estate was painfully silent. Tessa spent the time wedged uncomfortably in the backseat of the limousine, listening to the purr of the engine. Stuffy air and tinted windows added to the oppressive atmosphere.

There was blood on her hands. Scott’s probably; after all, he’d been standing in front of her taking that bullet from Ric’s gun on her behalf. The red liquid was dry now, cracking uncomfortably beneath her fingernails. Rubbing the pads of her fingers together could not erase the scarlet tinge.

Her father wordlessly handed her a handkerchief. She started to shake as she passed the white cotton over her fingers—finding they left no discoloring mark.

The shivers did not subside. Her stomach rolled as the limo made the turn onto the long private driveway. “Pull over,” she choked, knowing she wasn’t going to make it into the dark confines of the garage next to the house.

Donatello knocked on the privacy glass, signaling the driver to comply with her command. The doors unlocked with a click and Tessa tumbled out onto the asphalt. Bent over, half kneeling on the pavement, she let her stomach empty. It took only a few seconds for the worst of it to be over. Gingerly, she wiped her lips with the handkerchief, and took a deep breath of the cool air.

Beside her, Donatello asked, “Feeling better?”

All her emotions were packaged in the look she gave him: fear, anger, betrayal. “How can you ask something like that? I just…” Breathing again, she forced out the words, “killed a man.”

One Armani-suited shoulder lifted. He stood close enough to smell her fear and the bile on her breath, but he seemed unfazed by it and her words. “Get back in the car.”

“I’ll walk.”

He closed the car door, and the limo crept forward as father and daughter moved together towards the glass and stone building 100 yards in the distance.

She took no comfort in his presence. “Why did you bring Luca? He could have stayed and…”

“And what? Told the police that you shot your cousin? Perhaps shared more secrets about our family? No, this is best.” He cleared his throat, signaling his word was final. Donatello looked towards the limo. “I have some unfinished business to discuss with him. In private. I was in the middle of that when you and G.J. arrived.”

“I wondered what he was doing up in the choir loft,” she mumbled, as if it ever really mattered.

“None of that is of any consequence,” he said. “All that have wronged us, have paid dearly. It was most unfortunate to have Ric show such…flawed logic for all to see.”