Nerves tightening with each step.
Something about this wasn’t right, not right at all. He reached into his shoulder holster, pulled out his Glock, released the safety and set his jaw.
No way would he fire at Resa…or…?
The narrow opening was just over his head. He squinted upward, weapon drawn, ascending slowly, knowing he was an easy target.
She was there, leaning over the railing, standing alone in the darkness. He relaxed for a second. “What’re you doing up here?” he asked, lowering his pistol.
She turned then, her face in shadow and in a breathy voice whispered, “I’m waiting for…” Her voice trailed off and she stiffened.
Something wasn’t right. He felt it.
“I’ve been waiting for five years.” The voice was different now. Low. Dangerous.
In a heart-stopping instant, he knew his mistake, saw the gun.
He swung his weapon up.
Bam! Light flashed from the muzzle of the gun pointed straight at his heart.
Parker hit the deck as he pulled the trigger, firing wildly. Too late.
Hot agony seared through his gut. He stumbled, still firing crazily as he fell backward on the steep stairs, beginning to tumble. He caught the smallest glimpse of his assailant’s face, the wild fury of ringed brown eyes haunted by the pale light of the moon. His gun clattered out of his hand, falling into the gaping hole where the ropes hung.
Clunk! His head smashed a wooden riser. Hard. Pain exploded behind his eyes as he slid and rolled, gravity pulling him downward, each wooden step catching his body, bruising him. He heard something crack—a rib? And all the while the lifeblood oozed out of him…hot, sticky. It smeared the dusty wooden steps. He threw out a hand, grabbed the railing, stopping his crazy descent on the small landing before the stairs turned again.
There were noises.
People screaming.
The rush of footsteps.
He tried to stay awake, to remain conscious, but the blackness pulled him under. The last thing he saw, in the periphery of his vision, was his attacker jumping down into the center of the tower.
Bong! Bong! Bong!
His brain was nearly crushed with the thunderous peal of bells clamoring so loudly the stairs shook.
“Resa,” he called weakly. “Resa…” And then he slipped under the veil of darkness.
Parker? Lucas Parker had shown up? Of all the rotten, dumb luck!
I was furious! Seething as I slid down the bell ropes, I tried to think clearly. She was supposed to have followed me up into the tower. I was sure she’d spot me and be intrigued enough to climb the stairs, then fall to her death, just as poor Ian had fallen.
It would have been such a fitting, ironic end. Perfect in every detail.
But Lucas had spoiled it all.
I couldn’t think about that now. I dropped the .22 pistol, letting it fall to the floor below. My only consolation was that I was free to end this all another time, as long as I escaped. Which wouldn’t be too difficult in the ensuing chaos. Already there was a near-riot going on, people screaming and running, panic sizzling like an electric current through the hallowed walls of the winery.
The gloves frayed as I zipped downward, the friction from the old ropes heating my palms and fingers, just as it had when I’d been a child and first discovered I could slide quickly from the top of the belfry to the floor.
As soon as my feet hit the ancient stones, I took off down three flights of stairs to the lowest level of winery, the cellar that had once been my playground. Alone, very much alone. I knew these old caverns and tunnels better than anyone and, of course, I still had the keys, squired away from when I was a kid. The locks hadn’t changed. Silvio, my skinflint cousin, was too damned cheap.
But there was pandemonium above. Scurrying footsteps. Shouts. Horrified screams.
Don’t think about them. Or her. Just keep running!
I moved by instinct, but my brain was pounding. Why the hell had that son of a bitch shown up? He’d been divorced from Resa, airbrushed out of family portraits. And what the hell had happened to her? Just two minutes ago I saw her enter the library.
I’d planned everything so perfectly, spent the last five years in that place, plotting the perfect moment for my revenge, and then Lucas Parker had to show up?
I’d caught a glimpse of him earlier and couldn’t believe it, the former cop stalking the perimeter of the monastery walls.
My feet moved soundlessly through the dimly lit corridors, my breathing regulated from years of running. I clutched an aura of calm, despite my fury that my plans had been ruined.
Down a long, shadowed corridor illuminated by a single string of lights, past barrels stacked high, around the far corner and up an old flight of stairs to a door I’d already unlocked, I raced. The door opened to the old infirmary where sick monks had once been treated. Now the small rooms were filled with supplies for the winery.
The muted sounds of chaos within the winery walls mixed with the scream of sirens from outside. Someone had called the police. That part I’d planned. I tore off my wig, dress and padded bra, kicked off the stupid-ass shoes, cleaned my face with some of those sanitized wipes, peeled off the eyelashes and pulled the stuffing out of my cheeks.
Then I opened the bag I’d left here earlier, grabbed my jeans and shirt, and yanked them on along with a pair of beat-up running shoes and a dark jacket. The kayak was waiting on a bank beneath a eucalyptus tree and the nearby river flowed rapidly away from the winery to a small town where I could catch a train into the city. I planned to take my “Resa” clothes and dump them into the bay. I would fling them from atop the Golden Gate. With a little luck, I’d escape once again.
And disappear.
For a while…
Three days later, Parker woke up mad as hell in a hospital bed. A stern nurse told him he’d been out for three days. An IV dripped some kind of painkillers into his arm, but it wasn’t working. On a scale of one to ten—with the nurse’s stupid chart of little happy and frowny faces indicating pain level—he was at eight, maybe nine, where the red face was frowning but no longer shouting expletives.
But he didn’t give a damn.
The surgery had been a success, the bullet removed, his intestine repaired, his dislocated shoulder snapped back into place, his ribs only bruised. The concussion had been slight.
He’d been lucky, the doctor had said.
Lucky, my ass!
He closed his eyes for a second, trying to figure out how to get out of here. Pronto. In his experience, hospitals were dangerous places, full of the sick and dying.
“Lucas.”
Her voice came to him in a dream. Soft and breathy, but this time, no sound of laughter or lightness.
Disbelieving, he opened an eye and saw her in the doorway. She looked frail and frightened, unlike the woman who’d turned his life upside down. There were dark smudges beneath her eyes and her lips trembled slightly. He blinked, thinking she might be a vision, a figment of his imagination, even a hallucination from the drugs, but no, she was there.
He tried a smile and failed, but she saw he was awake.
“How…how do you feel?”
“Worse than I look.”
From her guarded response he suspected he looked pretty damned bad. His mouth tasted foul and as he shifted on the hospital bed his entire body screamed in pain. He winced, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“They’re going to arrest me,” she said, and swallowed hard. Fear gripped her, casting dark rings around her brown eyes. “The police have been following me, but…but I was able to lose them and sneak in here.”
“How?” he asked, before he thought twice. Resa was nothing if not quick. And clever.
She ignored the question. “The police, they think I tried to kill you. They’ve been putting together a case. A few people claim that they saw me in the belfry right before the shots were fired.”
He tried to lift his head but the ache sucked
his strength. Hadn’t he seen her there, in the bell tower?
“And there’s more. They think I killed Aunt Lorna that night, too, but…but I think they’re having more trouble proving that.”
“Aunt Lorna?” he repeated. “Alberto’s wife?”
The cobwebs in his mind stretched thin, fading.
“They…they found her in her house. I heard on the news that she fell…off her scooter and down the stairs. But the police think she might have been pushed. Oh, God, Lucas, I didn’t do it. You have to believe me.” Resa’s face was drained of color and a small tic had developed at her temple.
“Slow down. Start over.”
“I don’t have an alibi. I was home alone about the time Aunt Lorna died. I was getting ready for the party. I knew you’d be there and I was…I was excited. Anyway, I went to the party, hung out for while, then I saw you. Do you remember our conversation in the library?”
“I remember.” That much was clear.
“You went up, I went down to the wine cellar, thinking you’d follow, then I heard gunshots and ran up the stairs but you were already…already…” She looked at him and shook her head.
“Jesus.”
She stepped forward, touched his hand and all the warmth and passion that they’d once shared came back to him. It clouded his mind like a drug. No…he couldn’t go there now.
He reminded himself of the many times Resa had deceived him, the way she’d masked the truth to protect her family, to cover up the transgressions committed behind those sacred walls.
Gritting his teeth, he drew his hand away.
“You have to help me, Lucas,” she said, pleading. “I can’t be put away for a murder I didn’t commit.”
And there it was between them.
The lie.
The one they both knew existed.
From the hallway came the sounds of the hospital: whispers, softly rattling carts and gurneys, the ding of a bell announcing that an elevator car was about to arrive.
“Do they have any other evidence?” he asked.
“The gun, the one they found in the belfry. It was mine, Lucas. It was the .22 you gave me.”
He hardly dared breathe. “Your pistol.”
“It must have been stolen,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “I didn’t shoot you, I swear it.”
“I know.” His voice was faint, but the image was solidifying in his head. Mad, dark eyes in the moonlight. A square jaw braced in fury. And a complexion nubby from the scrape of a razor.
The face of a man.
“It wasn’t you,” he said, weak with relief. “I know it wasn’t.”
“Tell the police that, will you, please?”
“It’s going to be okay, Resa. Please, I’ll take care of you. I can protect you.”
“No.” She stepped back as if stung by his suggestion. “There is no protection in this world. I learned that with Ian. You can’t protect me, Lucas, and you can’t change what’s happened. No one can escape the past.” Fighting tears, she backed toward the door.
“Resa, wait…”
He shifted in bed and, fighting the pain, levered himself up onto his elbows, but she was already gone.
“You look like hell,” Noah Kent said cordially.
“Don’t try to cheer me up.”
It had been less than three hours since Resa had left. Parker had tried and failed to get Dr. Woods to release him from the hospital. Still, Kent was a welcome sight, dressed in pressed slacks, a blazer and shirt and tie, as if he were on his way to court.
“They letting you out of this place?”
“Nah, but I’m going anyway.”
“Not a smart move.”
“One of many,” Parker said, wincing against the pain in his belly.
Kent cut to the chase. “She came to see you, didn’t she? She was here, earlier.”
“Who?”
“Don’t mess with me, okay? Theresa D’Amato was caught on camera in the parking lot. Hospital security has been on alert for her since you checked in.” When Parker didn’t respond, Kent went on. “Okay, two guns, both registered to you were found at the scene. One, the Glock, has your prints on it, the other, a.22, has Theresa’s.”
“I gave it to her years ago, but she wasn’t in the belfry that night,” Parker said.
“Who was?”
He frowned. “I—I’m not sure.”
“Think real hard.”
He’d been picturing that face all morning. He could see the shooter turning to him, a face so like Resa’s, but so different. “It’s a little blurry.”
Kent eyed him critically. “No more bullshit, Parker. I know you lied when the kid died. And I know you’re lying now. So stop yanking my chain and give it to me straight. Was Theresa D’Amato in the bell tower?”
“Not in the belfry, no.”
“Then who? Who shot you?”
“I…I think it was someone who was trying to look like her. I only saw the face for an instant and it was dark, but…” He swiped a hand over his forehead, a bead of sweat there. “I think it was Frankie D’Amato.”
“Her cousin.”
Parker knew it sounded nuts. “But he’s in a mental hospital.”
“Not anymore.” Something shifted in the hospital room—the tiniest drop in temperature. In that heartbeat, with his partner hesitating, Parker sensed what was coming and it scared the hell out of him. “I tried to call you about that,” Kent said.
“It was him?” Parker gaped. “Frankie D’Amato.”
Kent leaned forward in his chair. “Frankie D’Amato walked away from the hospital Friday sometime. No one knows exactly how it happened, but they think he slipped into scrubs, then pilfered some poor nurse’s locker. Probably walked out of there decked to the nines.”
Parker felt his entire life beginning to unravel. Frankie D’Amato, Theresa’s cousin, had been institutionalized in a mental facility for five years…ever since Ian’s death.
“And on the day of the escape, what happens? Frankie’s mother, Lorna, is found dead at the base of the stairs, a convenient accident, if you ask me. Then you’re shot in the belfry of the D’Amato Monastery Estates at a gala hosted by Frankie’s uncle. Coincidence?” Kent shook his head, clasped a hand over one knee. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re serious?”
“Dead.” And he was. Gone was any twinkle in his eyes. “Someone worked real hard to make it look like Theresa was in the tower. Octavia and a few other guests swear they saw Resa in the belfry. Then there’s a pistol registered to you that was found on the floor, as if someone had dropped it.”
“Not Resa.”
“Well, her prints are on it.”
“I gave her that gun a long time ago.”
Kent nodded. “I knew you’d defend her. Lucky for you, we’ve got some evidence that leads in another direction. We found hairs at the scene—synthetic.”
“A wig.”
“And pieces of leather in the bell rope, the escape route the attacker used.”
“Gloves,” Parker whispered, remembering his assailant sliding past him on the ropes.
“That’s right. So if the assailant was wearing gloves, there’d be no new prints on the gun.”
“It was Frankie,” Parker said.
“I think so. Shoe prints are larger than Theresa’s, and a silver Mercedes registered to Lorna D’Amato was left with the valet, who remembers the woman who dropped it off. Someone who looked a lot like Resa, but, the valet thought, a little larger. Even though Frankie’s small for a man—five-six—it would be tough to look as petite as Theresa.”
“What about Resa’s car?” Parker asked. “Didn’t the valet see her, too?”
“She parked in the family’s private lot, didn’t want to get stuck in all the hoopla.”
“It wasn’t Resa,” Parker insisted.
“We’re looking at all possibilities, but right now Frankie D’Amato is our prime suspect. The guy’s got lights on upstairs but nobody’s home.
He knows the winery well, was raised there before Alberto was pushed out. Then there’s the matter of Alberto’s suicide. Was it? And Lorna’s death down the stairs?”
Parker sensed what was coming.
“Then there’s Ian D’Amato.”
“Let’s not go there.”
“Why? Because you lied in your deposition? Lied to protect Resa?”
Parker ground his teeth together at the notion. At the time he’d thought he was protecting the woman he loved, but the lie had actually only fanned the fires of hell that were the D’Amato code of secrecy.
“Frankie swore Theresa pushed the kid to his death, that he witnessed the whole thing.”
“She was with me.”
“I know you alibied her, Parker, but that never really hung together for me.”
A dull roar, like the sound of the sea in a cavern began in Parker’s head. “You would believe a mental patient over me?”
“I’m not saying I believed Frankie. I don’t think I ever heard the true story on that incident. Which had to have affected Resa deeply. She was the kid’s mother.”
“Yes,” Parker hissed. Everyone knew this much.
“And yet she let her aunt Lorna raise him. That’s kind of odd, don’t you think?”
“She was young. Unmarried.”
“Even so,” Kent continued, “Theresa allowed her child to be raised by an aunt and uncle who were at odds with her side of the family.”
“They offered.”
“And why was that?”
Parker closed his eyes, wishing for escape. “It happened before my time.”
“We know that. You didn’t meet Theresa until a year after the kid was born and married her a year after that. Then three years later, when the boy was five, he dies and you get a divorce soon after.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with—”
“Sure you do, Parker. No more bullshit.”
The roar was getting louder, the surf pounding through his brain. “Theresa didn’t kill Ian.”
“Then who did?”
Parker didn’t answer.
“So this is the way I think it went down. Theresa goes to her aunt’s house to take the kid away. The nanny is out, probably with Alberto, and the kid is supposed to be in his room. Theresa sneaks up the back stairs and goes into Ian’s room, but he’s not alone, is he?”