Revenge at Bella Terra (39 page)

“We can do the weeding,” Olivia and Bao said together.

“I like to weed.” Sarah got her walker. Stopping by the coatrack on the wall, she picked up her purse—she wanted her cell phone—and walked down the hallway to her bedroom. She shut her door and loudly flipped the lock.

That should have echoed down the hallway to the kitchen.

Was there a camera in her bedroom? A microphone? She hated being suspicious of everyone and everything, having her sense of safety stripped away and replaced with the brokenhearted knowledge that one of the girls she adored—maybe both—was plotting to rob her.

But she had to put her pain aside and concentrate on her scheme. And if there were a camera and microphone in place, that made the plan all the easier.

Putting the walker aside, she went to the closet.

Just because she didn’t know where Anthony had hidden Massimo’s wine didn’t mean she didn’t know the hiding places Uncle Leonardo Di Luca had constructed during Prohibition for their family wines and brandies.

Going to her closet, she took the wide, white-painted wooden trim and opened it as she would a cupboard door. The hinges squeaked. The scent of cedar wafted out. Shelves lined the narrow space in the wall.

She kept concealed in here the best memories of her life with Anthony: the love letters he had written her while they were courting, the photo he had taken of her during their trip to Cuba on the beach in her bikini, the naughty poem he’d written her from Italy . . . and the wine they had created together.

She smiled fondly as she examined the tall ruby red glass bottle and the red wax seal they had so carefully crafted to fit over the cork. They’d been sure that this wine would launch the premium wine market.

And it might have, too, except for two things: they were ten years too early . . . and Anthony had used grapes planted by his grandfather, a varietal no one recognized, and the wine had been a spectacular failure. They’d been disappointed, of course, but as with everything in their marriage, they’d picked up and soldiered on.

Anthony had dumped most of the wine, but she’d kept one bottle as a memento and now . . . now she was going to sacrifice it on this terrible ongoing feud with Joseph Bianchin.

Taking it out of the cubbyhole, she carried it to her dresser and placed it there.

The mirror reflected it back into the room. The red glass glowed like a ruby.

She frowned. Too obvious?

No matter. She was a recently concussed elderly woman. She could get away with what appeared to be a senior moment.

Plucking her phone from her purse, she made a display of punching a number, but she never pressed CALL. This was for show only, for the spy who might be watching her. Speaking into the phone in fond tones, she said, “Hello, dear. I think you’re right. I’m getting uneasy about the safety of Massimo’s wine, so would you come by and take it home with you? Your security is so much better than mine.” She made a pretense of listening, then chuckled. “Really, you can’t complain. I have kept it safe so far. Come when you can. Thank you, dear!” The pretense of hanging up, and she was done.

She kept her expression determinedly bland as she gathered her clothes for the day and laid them out on the bed, but she couldn’t help being startled when someone knocked.

“Mrs. Di Luca? I wish you wouldn’t lock your door. If you fell, I couldn’t get to you.” It was Olivia.

Using her walker, Sarah made her way to the door and opened it a crack. She could have won an Academy Award for her backward glance at the bottle on the dresser and the worry and guilt on her face. “I’m ready for my shower, but you don’t need to check on me. I’ll be out in a half hour.”

Olivia nodded, her wide eyes guileless.

Sarah started to shut the door, then opened it again, wide enough for Olivia to actually see the bottle. “Oh, and, dear, Rafe is coming by to pick something up for me. If he shows up before I’m out, make him comfortable, won’t you?”

“Yes. I will.”

This time Sarah noted a definite shade of worry in Olivia’s eyes.

Sarah felt sick to her stomach with misgiving . . . and maybe from the drug hangover, too.

She waited until she heard Olivia walk away, then walked down the hall to the bathroom. She shut the door—and that newly acquired paranoia made her quietly turn the lock.

She might not know which girl had searched for Anthony’s bottle of wine, but she knew she didn’t want her to step in while Sarah was naked and defenseless.

She turned on the water—that would block any sounds from the hall—got ready and showered as she would have on any morning, except perhaps she took a little longer than normal.

If one of the girls was going to steal the bottle off the dresser in her bedroom, Sarah didn’t want to catch her.

When she finished, she pulled on her robe and tied it tightly, as if the strength of the knot would give her the fortitude she needed to face these challenges. She listened at the door, straining to hear any movement in the hallway.

There was nothing.

Cautiously she opened the door.

It was quiet. Had both the girls left?

She walked down the hall to the front of the house, to her bedroom.

The door was open.

Tears welled in her eyes.

She had wanted to be wrong so badly.

The front door was open, and she could hear a murmur of voices outside. A man. And a woman.

Rafe. Rafe was here.

Had
he
taken the bottle?

She hurried out onto the front porch.

He stood facing Bao, frowning heavily. At Sarah’s appearance he turned to face her. “Nonna, I—”

“Do you have the wine?” she asked.

“What?” His eyes narrowed on her.

No. Obviously he knew nothing. “Why are you here?”

Bao stepped forward. She was still pale and strained and still so guilty-looking Sarah didn’t know whether to call her a thief or embrace her and tell her everything would be all right. “I called him, Mrs. Di Luca,” Bao said. “I have to retire from my position here.”

“Retire?” Sarah hadn’t expected that.

“Yes. I must.” Bao’s eyes shifted away from Sarah, and she twisted her hands. “Last night I . . . I slept through the night. I never stirred. I never heard anything. Someone could have come in and killed you, and I wouldn’t have known, so—”

“Ah. I see. Where’s Olivia?” Sarah asked.

Bao blinked in confusion. “She said she had some errands to run. Why?”

“What’s wrong, Nonna? You look . . . upset.” Rafe’s frown deepened.

Sarah said, “I was drugged last night so someone could search my room.”

Rafe and Bao viewed her in astonishment and alarm.

Sarah looked at Bao. “Could you have been drugged, too?”

Bao whirled to face the driveway. “Damn her! Olivia? I never suspected that insipid little twit of having the guts to—”

“What wine?”
Rafe asked.

“I pulled a bottle of wine out of the hiding place in my bedroom. Not Anthony’s wine,” Sarah assured him. “I left it on the dresser while I showered. It’s gone.”

“I’ll check your room for monitoring devices,” Bao said.

“I’ll send law enforcement after Olivia’s car,” Rafe said.

The two shot into action.

Sarah seated herself on the porch swing and rubbed her aching head.

Olivia. It was Olivia who had drugged her. Olivia who had searched her room.

But Rafe had investigated her. Olivia had no record. She had no family, either: no mother or father or grandparent who loved her and would keep her from going astray. Someone had offered Olivia money either before she came to Bella Terra or after she came to work in Sarah’s house, and she had taken the bribe.

With her innocent eyes and shy way, she had never given a hint of the avarice that drove her. But neither had she ever uttered a word about her past, or her goals, or anything personal. Sarah should have had doubts. Instead, she had respected Olivia’s privacy.

Noah drove up on his motorcycle. As he parked it, Rafe went out to meet him.

The two boys stood hunched together, talking.

And Noah . . . Sarah could tell he had been interested in Olivia. Just like the other boys, he had his secrets. Unlike the other boys, Sarah didn’t have a clue what mystery lurked in Noah’s background, only that something had happened that year after high school when he was wandering around the world. . . . He’d come back, her youngest grandson, the boy she’d raised free from the angst that had dogged his brothers . . . and somehow the angst had found him.

He’d never fully met her eyes again.

Foolish old woman that she was, she’d had hopes that shy, sweet Olivia would heal whatever anguish dogged him.

Instead, Olivia had betrayed him . . . as she’d betrayed them all.

Bao put a cup of coffee on the table beside her.

Brooke drove up, Eli and Chloë close behind.

The family was all there, and that meant . . . that meant bad news.

They walked up onto the porch and stood around her.

Eli sat next to her on the swing. “Nonna, I’m sorry. They found Olivia’s car about twenty-five miles from here on a turnout on East Summit Highway. The bottle is gone. And Olivia . . .” He shook his head.

“She’s hurt? Is she going to be all right?” Sarah asked.

Eli looked around helplessly.

“No, Nonna. She’s not. She’s dead, shot execution-style.” Noah’s face was angry and drawn, and each word was as direct as the blow of a sledgehammer. “It would appear that the professionals have descended on Bella Terra.” He looked around at his family, daring them to deny him the truth. “And it’s not the bottle they’re after, is it?”

Sarah looked around, saw the heightened anxiety on Eli’s face, and Chloë’s, and Rafe’s, and Brooke’s. She saw the way Bao had herself braced, and knew this thing was much, much worse than she’d imagined.

“They want what’s hidden in the bottle. And I know what it is,” Noah said. “There’s no use trying to protect your younger brother from this.”

“How do you know what’s going on?” Chloë asked. “Eli and I barely figured it out ourselves.”

“We were going to call a family conference,” Eli said, “but . . . Noah, what do you know? And how
do
you know it?”

Noah laughed, bitterly, briefly. “I know because I’m right in the middle of it. These people . . . they’re ruthless, and they are going to find Massimo’s pink diamonds any way they can.”

 

“
D
o you ever get gut feelings?” Aaron asked.

“When I get the flu.” Rosamund laughed too long at her own joke, then grew uncomfortable under his steady regard. “I used to. Sometimes. But my father said gut feelings were nothing but wishful thinking, and I might as well depend on a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.”

“He wanted you to stay in the real world.” And why? When Aaron had come down to the library basement with antiquities that needed to be authenticated or manuscripts that required translation, Dr. Elijah Hall had been brilliant, stiff-necked, and grim, yet keenly interested in the paranormal. Most important in Aaron’s mind was his sharp instinct for the genuine above the counterfeit.

Never, ever had he mentioned that he had a daughter.

Why had he so emphatically quashed Rosamund’s curiosity?

Had Dr. Hall foreseen a dread prophecy for her?

“Are you familiar with the legend of the Chosen?” Aaron asked.

“The Chosen . . .” He could almost see Rosamund flipping through the encyclopedia of her mind. “Yes. The Chosen and the Others. When the world was young, a beautiful woman gave birth to twins, each marked as something set apart from average people. Repulsed, the woman took them into the darkest woods—in these fairy tales, it always is the darkest woods—and left the babies for the wild animals to devour.” She looked at him inquiringly. “Is that the legend you mean?”

“That’s it. Do you know the rest?”

Rosamund continued. “Those two children were the first Abandoned Ones, babies left by their parents without love or care and, to compensate, given a gift of power. The babies survived. The girl was a seer. The boy was a fire-giver. They gathered others like them and formed two gangs—one for good and one for evil—and they fought for the hearts and souls of the Abandoned Ones.”

“A battle that goes on today,” he finished.

“Yes.” Her brow knit. “It’s not a very comforting fairy tale.”

“How many are?”

“Most have endings of some kind. The witch is tipped into the oven. The evil stepmother falls from a cliff—” She caught sight of his face. “All right, not happy endings, but still, there’s none of that
The battle goes on today
stuff.”

“Yet it’s so much more realistic to know there can never be an end, or at least not until the”—he could scarcely stand to say the words—“until the Apocalypse.”

“If the legend of the Chosen Ones were true, which it’s not.”

Aaron wished that she was right. Unfortunately for her and her future peace of mind, she was staring right into the eyes of one of the Chosen Ones.