“It’s Eden, isn’t it?”
Her gaze darted to his face. “Yes, but I can’t say anything. Arie doesn’t know yet. We’ll tell her when we’re in the air.”
Eric held up his key ring, removed one key, and handed it over to Ciana. “I switched all the luggage to my truck. I’m afraid that old Lincoln is burning oil. It may not make it to the airport.”
“Your truck?” Ciana knew how special it was to him.
“I want my sister to arrive safe and sound. It’s best to take my truck.”
Gratitude filled her heart. “Are you sure?”
“Text me its location and Abbie and I’ll go over and get it tomorrow. We’ll pick you up when you return.”
She clutched the key. “Thank you. I’ll be very careful with your truck.”
“Just be careful with my sister,” he said, and walked away.
On the other side of the yard, Jon cut Arie away from a group of chattering cousins as smoothly as a calf from a herd. She wanted to throw her arms around him, kiss him, but such a display would start everyone gossiping, plus he didn’t look especially happy.
“You didn’t tell them, did you?” His tone sounded accusing.
Her face flamed hot. No use dancing around. “If I had, I couldn’t have gone to Italy. Mom and Dad would have hog-tied me, and Ciana and Eden might not have gone without me. Or they might have gone, but come back early. My news would have ruined everything for everyone.”
“Don’t you think they deserve to know before they take you halfway round the world?”
“Yes,” she said ruefully. “But I’m not saying a word until I have to. And neither are you. You promised.”
“You’re putting your life on the line for a vacation.” He sounded baffled.
“Not a vacation. A dream fulfilled. Dreams die hard, Jon Mercer. And when one is offered to me like a magic carpet ride, I’m jumping on. It’s what I want. It’s what I’m doing.” She wanted him, too, but the trip was within reach. He wasn’t. Still, his concern for her was touching.
“It doesn’t seem fair to Ciana and Eden. What if you get sick over there?”
“Cancer’s not fair either,” she said stubbornly. “My doctor’s given me the name of some oncologist in Rome. They went to med school together, so I’ll go to him if I have to. Plus I’m taking meds on the trip. I think I’ll be fine till I can come home.”
“You may be betting your life.”
She forced a smile. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
He hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
She offered a wan smile. “Me too. But it’s a chance I’m willing to take. I’ve been tethered to this illness all my life, so now I’m calling the shots for a while. I’m going to Italy.”
“Take care,” he said.
“You take care of my horse,” she said lightly. “Show her my picture occasionally and remind her who really owns her.”
He nodded, his expression troubled. “I won’t let her forget.”
An hour later, amid cries of “Goodbye, good luck, have fun, write us, we’ll miss you, we love you,” the three girls piled into Eric’s truck and started for Atlanta. When morning broke, they’d be in Italy.
Gwen sat alone in her darkened living room knowing he would come. His kind always did. She lit a cigarette, and the glowing red tip penetrated the dark. Her nerves felt raw. She wished she’d taken a second tranquilizer before coming downstairs to wait. She was scared, afraid she’d blow it. And she was afraid of him. She’d faced down such a man once before, but she was out of practice. She hoped she could do it one more time.
A car screeched to a stop in front of her house. Doors slammed. She snuffed out her cigarette. Her front door was kicked open and Tony and two other men came inside. “It’s customary to knock first,” she said, her voice steadier than she’d expected.
Tony crossed the floor and jerked her up from her chair, his fingers digging into her upper arms with a vengeance. “Where is she, old woman? And don’t lie to me.”
One of the muscle boys turned on the table lamp beside the chair. Although the light was dim, she saw her adversaries clearly. Tony and his menacing henchmen, as large as brick walls and about as solid. Their two faces wore no expressions. Tony’s blazed with wicked fury.
Tony shook her.
Gwen cowered, partly an act, mostly real. It had been a long time since she’d been on the receiving end of a man’s wrath. “I … I don’t know—”
Tony slapped her hard across her face. She yelped. “Stop wasting my time! Tell me where she went.”
“Please, don’t hit me. Please.” She tried to buy time by begging. Abusers liked to hear a woman beg.
He gave her a second jaw-rattling slap on the other side of her face. “I’ll do worse than hit you if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
She sagged, went limp. Her face stung like fire and she tasted blood from a cut on her lip. “Sh-she said you were going to hurt her. She’s my child! I have to protect her.”
Tony’s eyes were cruel, heartless. “I don’t give a shit. You tell me or I’ll have one of my boys beat it out of you.” To prove his point, one of his men grabbed her arm and twisted it so severely that she screamed. How many years had passed since she’d been hit, punched, and kicked?
“No one walks out on Tony Cicero. No one.” He emphasized each word with a painful jab to her chest.
“If … if I tell you, you won’t hurt her, will you?”
“I’ll decide that when I catch her.”
Gwen’s interior defiance hardened. She’d played this game before with Eden’s abomination of a father, and she knew all the right evasive moves to prolong the expected beating. “She left with Ciana and Arie.”
Tony bared his teeth. “And where did she go with Ciana and Arie? I know she took her passport. Stop stalling.”
“A long trip. Ciana planned it. She paid for it too.”
Tony squeezed the arm he still held until she winced. “Where?”
“Greece.”
The lone word stunned him into silence. Gwen bided her time, dragging out the silence. Just as she anticipated his upcoming eruption, she added, “They’ve been planning the trip. She wanted to go away. She wanted her freedom.”
“Her freedom? I gave her anything she wanted.” Tony’s voice turned into a snaky hiss. “The lying bitch.” He shook Gwen hard, rattling her brain. “She said it was her friend’s birthday. I let her go out alone and this is how she repays me?”
“There was a party for Arie,” Gwen cried out. “That was true.”
“When did they leave?”
“Less than an hour ago,” Gwen lied. She hadn’t attended the party, but expecting the worst from Tony, Gwen figured he’d leave more quickly if she made him think he could catch her fleeing daughter. “For the airport.”
“Which airport?”
Gwen trembled, adrenaline pumping through her body. International flights went out of Atlanta and Nashville, so this was the tricky part. She had to make him believe her. Should she lie or tell the truth? If he didn’t believe her, he might kill her on the spot. “Nashville,” she whispered, dropping her head and shoulders to show he’d broken her resolve.
“What vehicle did they take?”
“Ciana’s old farm truck. The banged-up blue one. I think it’s a Ford.” She added the unsolicited detail to underscore her willingness to cooperate. To an abuser, it sounded as if she’d been broken.
Tony looked to his boys. “We still have time to catch her.” He slapped Gwen hard again. “That’s for wasting my time. I’d better catch her, or I’ll be back to settle with you.” He shoved her backward and Gwen collapsed into the chair where she’d been sitting when Tony had first walked in the door. She kept her head down, gushed tears, stared at her hands in her lap, waited for the sound of car doors to slam shut and the powerful engine of Tony’s chase car to start up and roar away.
Alone aga
in, she continued to shake all over. She wiped her eyes, reached for her pack of cigs on the table, and turned off the lamp. Her hands shook so badly she barely got the cigarette lit, but when she did, she inhaled deeply, pulling the smoke deep into her lungs, held it, released it and waited for her nerves to settle. She took several drags, snuffed out the cigarette, then went upstairs. In her bathroom, she turned on the light and saw bruises already rising on her cheeks and upper arms. She raked fingers through her wrecked hair, bent down, and splashed cold water on her face. She rinsed out her mouth, spit blood into the sink.
She went into her bedroom closet, dragged down the blue duffel bag, tossed it onto the bed, opened drawers, and tried to figure out what to pack. Crazy. She never took this kind of time when she was on a manic tear. Everything was crystal clear with the whispering voices to guide her. She threw clothes haphazardly into the bag, remembering the night she’d left Oregon and Eden’s father, another no-good piece of human waste. He’d gone to the liquor store and she’d frantically grabbed up a few of her and her month-old baby’s belongings. She had squirreled away money for months, hiding it in a Bible, knowing he’d never look there. In a matter of minutes, she broke for the door, clutching a grocery bag of stuff and her baby. Her escape had to be fast and clean because he’d sworn he’d kill her if she ever tried to leave him.
That night she boarded a cross-country bus under an assumed name and rode it to Nashville. She had an aunt there, an old woman who’d told her to come if she ever got away from her situation. Gwen nursed Eden, ate peanut butter crackers and raisins cross-country, and counted every penny, hoping her money would last her on the long bus ride.
Once inside the Nashville bus terminal, she clutched baby Eden and called Aunt Myrtle, then waited under a garish streetlight until the gray-haired woman arrived in a rust bucket of a car. They arrived at Myrtle’s house—this house—miles from the city, a safe haven. Gwen’s parents had disowned her, unable to accept a daughter who was a “bad seed,” but Myrtle liked her and would help her with the baby. Gwen’s affliction, her bipolar disorder, was growing worse. It was the thing that Eden’s father hated most about her. The thing he’d tried to beat out of Gwen with his fists but couldn’t.
When Eden was two, Myrtle died, leaving the house to Gwen, where she lived as a neighborhood built up around the old house. She raised Eden and struggled against the rising tide of her illness, taking meds and abandoning them because none of them were ever quite right. None made her feel “normal.” Eden had suffered because of it, but it had also helped make the girl stronger and self-reliant. Until Tony came along. No matter. Eden was far away from him for now.
Gwen opened the top drawer of her dresser and pulled out an old tin box, her only keepsake from her hellish childhood. She opened it and removed a roll of money wrapped in a rubber band. Her habit of secretly hiding money had never changed. A little here, a little there. Piggly Wiggly job to her rescue. In the bathroom, she grabbed a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a few cosmetics. Her hand skimmed over the row of medicine bottles that kept her illness at bay. She disliked taking them, but she had taken them faithfully for months, sensing that Eden would need her well enough to handle breaking away from Tony. Without the meds, she’d feel like her old self in a few days. She’d hook up with others in Florida, a collection of homeless misfits she’d met over the years with mental problems bigger than hers. They were her friends. They understood her, accepted her “as is.”
Gwen hurried downstairs. Outside she threw her bag into the car. Only one more thing to do. She took out her cell phone, made two calls, spoke briefly to the recipients, then placed the cell under the right rear tire of the car in the driveway.
She got into the car and took deep breaths. She looked out, staring at the place that had been her home for almost twenty years. Tony would return to an empty house. Maybe he’d burn it to the ground. So be it. “This one’s for you, baby girl,” she said, for all the times through the years she’d left her child to manage on her own.
Gwen started the car and backed over the phone, turning it into a tangle of crushed circuits and plastic dust, then drove off into the night.
“Look! It’s Rome.” Arie pressed her nose to the plane’s window, watching the clouds part and shred like paper as the plane descended over a great sprawling city.
“Where? I can’t see a thing with your head in the way,” Eden grumbled.
Arie leaned back, tears misting her eyes. She glanced across the aisle at Ciana, who was straining against her seat belt to catch sight of the Eternal City.
“Big city,” Eden said, awestruck.
“Almost three million people,” Arie said, dabbing her eyes.
“Are you crying?” Eden turned from the window toward Arie.
“Just a little overwhelmed. I never thought I’d actually come here.”
“We all needed a vacation. Think of it as the senior trip we never got,” Ciana offered.
Arie’s gaze connected with Ciana’s and she mouthed, “Thank you.”
Ciana waved off the gratitude. She was cross-eyed from lack of sleep. Who wouldn’t be after chasing the sun across the Atlantic for over nine hours? They’d left Atlanta on time and were arriving in Rome midmorning. She’d attempted to sleep, but her head was too full of the drama of leaving and the excitement of the upcoming months. All the travel info the agency had given her urged them to hit the ground running, stay awake, and go to bed at a regular time. Get on Italy’s time schedule as soon as possible. She yawned, hoping she could.
The plane landed. The girls disembarked into the chaos of the crowded airport, the sound of foreign languages, and the long lines leading through customs. Once their passports were stamped and they gathered their luggage, they emerged into the bustle of the outer area of the terminal, where other crowds waited to greet family and friends.
Ciana was heartened to see a woman holding a sign with the word Beauchamp written on it. “Over there,” she told her friends. “Our greeter.”
The Tennessee agent had said they’d have a go-between in Rome to help them navigate and negotiate the rental car, money exchange, and any other hurdles. The woman was warm and friendly and spoke perfect English with a distinctive Italian accent that Arie thought charming. In no time they were in their rental car armed with tourist brochures, maps, and a GPS navigator in the car’s dashboard. “The hardest part is getting out of the city,” the woman told them.
Eden elected to drive and bravely thrust the car into the snarl of noonday traffic, dodging cars, buses, scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians; managing city roundabouts; and waving at motorists’ blasting horns when she veered in front of them.
“Don’t kill us,” Ciana warned, her knuckles white on the car’s armrest.
“If I’m too nice, they’ll plow me down.”
Eden kept glancing in the rearview mirror, looking for a tail, some goon of Tony’s who couldn’t possibly be there.
Arie stared out the windows dreamily, unaffected by the traffic congestion. “We are going to spend some time in Rome, aren’t we?” she asked as the car passed ancient ruins in the heart of the city.
“We are,” Ciana assured her. “There’s just so much to see and do, but that’s why we’re staying three months—so we’ll have time to do it all.”
The drive up to the Tuscany region and their villa was less than a hundred miles, and once they left Rome, traffic fell off significantly. The two-lane road passed fields of grazing animals and a line of cypress trees, olive trees, and a vineyard. A blazing sun shone down through air pure and sweet.
By late afternoon, the car was at last winding up the narrow road to their villa. When they crested a hill, they saw a lovely two-story house and heard the GPS announce that they had arrived at their destination.
“Wow,” Eden said, turning off the engine. “Not too shabby.”
Ciana felt a wave of relief. The place looked as charming as it had on the rental website, with cream-colored stucco, a red barrel
tile roof, and dark wood trim under the eaves and around the door and window frames. “Let’s check it out.”
The front door had a lockbox hanging on the doorknob, and Ciana punched in the code the rental agency had given her. She removed the door key and unlocked the door, then stepped inside with Arie and Eden tight on her heels. They took a breath in unison. The foyer was open to a great room that soared two stories. A dark wood staircase off to one side led up to a second floor with a walk-around interior balcony and doors standing open. “Bedrooms,” Ciana said, motioning to the upstairs area.
Downstairs, built-in sofas lined two walls, a modern kitchen claimed another wall, and a bank of windows and French doors led outside to a bricked patio on the fourth wall. On a rustic table beside the kitchen sat an enormous plastic-wrapped welcome basket heaped with food, fresh fruit, and two bottles of wine.
Eden headed straight to the basket, untied the ribbon, and rescued one of the wine bottles. “We don’t have to be old ladies to drink in Italy.”
Ciana scoffed. “Age requirements never stopped us before.”
Eden found wineglasses in the kitchen, uncorked the wine, and poured three glasses. She passed them to her friends. “To us,” she said, raising her glass for the others to tap.
“To the best three months of our lives,” Arie added.
“And to fun, fun, fun,” Ciana said. She said it as if a burden had been lifted from her. Tennessee and Bellmeade were far away, and so was her day-to-day grind and constant concern for Eden. She’d been at loose ends ever since Olivia’s death and needed the break.
They flopped onto a sofa, passed around crackers and cheese, prosciutto slices, and several varieties of olives from the basket, and sipped their wine. After a minute of contented silence, Arie put her glass down on a coffee table, looked at her two friends, and asked, “Okay. Will one of you please tell me what’s going on between you? What secret are you two keeping from me?”