Page 18 of Runaway Queen

We uncovered the rest of the coffin quickly.

“Man, I don’t know about this. If she wasn’t really dead, why bury an empty coffin? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m looking inside this coffin, and nothing you say will stop me. Here, help me pry it open.”

Grabbing the twin crowbars I’d brought with me, I tossed one to Bran and posed myself at one end of the long wooden box. Bran grimaced but caught the heavy metal bar and moved to the other end of the coffin.

“On three. One, two, three,” I grunted as I leaned down on the crowbar.

After a moment of both of us pushing, the edge cracked open on one side. Bran stepped back, clamping an arm over his mouth and nose.

“Does it smell? I don’t want to smell it.”

I approached the gap and used my foot to push it wider. My heart was beating so hard, I couldn’t quite catch my breath. The strange unreality of the last few days popped like an overripe bubble as I peered inside.

It was empty.

Bob, the accountant, had been right.

Sofia De Sanctis wasn’t here, and she never had been.

She was alive. Just like that, I was painfully awake.

I couldn’t sleepfor days after the graveyard. I stayed awake, finding out what I could.

Seven years ago, Renato De Sanctis, through a shell corp, bought a new set of ID documents. The new identity was for a Sophie Rossi. Rossi was Sofia and Renato’s mother’s maiden name. I only had to pull out three of the forger’s teeth to find that out. A light day’s work. Once I had the name, it wasn’t too difficult to find out more. There were a lot of Sophie Rossis in the country, and I needed to narrow it down. Luckily, one of the IDs that had been forged had been a Maine state driver’s license.

Did you really think I wouldn’t find you there, prom queen? Did you think a few states between us would save you?

Having the state really narrowed down the number of Sophie Rossis to look into. I was able to narrow further when I cross-searched by a couple of other names. It was only a hunch that the three of them would have stayed together, but I always trusted my gut. There were no hits for Angelo or Chiara in Maine, but I found a newspaper article about an Italian American who had started a boxing gym in some small town. It was a wide net to cast, and yet there was a photo of the front of the gym. Angelo wasn’t dumb enough to pose in a photo, but his young wife wasn’t nearly so careful. In the photo of the front of the gym, a car had just pulled up in one of the staff parking slots.

Chiara was getting out of the car, oblivious to the photo being taken. I scanned for more information. Andy and Cicci Salva were the registered owners of the gym.

It merited checking out, even if the very idea was still far-fetched. The truth was that Antonio De Sanctis had buried an empty coffin and told the world that his daughter was dead. It was a thread I’d never stop pulling until I had uncovered the truth.

* * *

The gymthat Chiara and Angelo owned was in a small town. Hade Harbor, Maine, famous for its university and ice hockey team. A speck on the map, near the sea. I left the next morning, and Bran tagged along for “the story.”

We stopped for dinner in some small diner. It smelled like grease and burnt coffee.

“Fuck, it’s nippy up here.” Bran hunched forward in his jacket, sticking his hands into his pockets.

“Aren’t you from Ireland?”

“Fair enough. So, have you seen your brother yet? Is he back from Russia?”

I shook my head, taking a mouthful of the bitter black tar that the joint had the nerve to call coffee.

Bran pulled a face at the taste of it. “Does he know about this resurrection business? Ronan will probably tell him.”

“I asked him not to. I don’t want anyone to know, not yet anyway. I don’t want him involved and I don’t want anyone in her family to realize what I suspect.”I don’t want anyone trying to save her from me.

“Right, that’s why we had to fill the damn grave back in.” Bran stretched his neck this way and that. “It still feels like shit, by the way.”

“How about you? Seen your brothers yet?” I wondered how the O’Connor family worked. With a stepbrother like Ronan Black, it was a surprise that both Bran, and his older brother, Killian, had been inside so long. The only sibling who hadn’t done time was Quinn, the youngest.

Bran grinned and shook his head. “Ronan sent me a message to stay out of trouble, but that’s about it. I saw Quinn, though. She’s all grown up and getting into trouble already.”

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