Page 7 of Edge of Secrets

The old man’s sharp tone, loaded with implied criticism, made John Esposito flex his fingers until his knuckles popped. Murderous fantasies flashed through his mind, red-tinged, and dark and hot. Like fresh blood.

He did not turn his head from the monitor, and kept his voice rigidly even. “She appears to be reading papers.”

“Papers? What papers?” Ulf Haupt came hobbling over, his cane tap-tap-tapping against the floor. He leaned down to peer over John’s shoulder. John suddenly pictured jabbing an elbow deep into the decrepit shithead’s guts, hard enough to cause an internal hemorrhage. He would crush the guy’s liver in one blow, and then he would put up his feet and smoke a leisurely cigarette as he watched the old bastard gasp on the floor while his abdominal cavity slowly filled with blood.

“Student essays,” he said, through clenched teeth. “Poetry. She’s a teacher, remember? She’s getting her doctorate.”

“Essays?” Haupt leaned lower, his head bobbing far too close to John’s face. He leaned away maintain some space and avoid the guy’s sour breath. “Keep watching. She might get another phone call. You must let nothing slip through the cracks. Nothing. Tomorrow, she will make that call to Italy and possibly put a name to Barbieri’s corpse. This is already a disaster, John. Already a disgrace. You have failed me.”

The old man’s shrill, accusing tone put John’s teeth on edge.

“Why?” he demanded. “It’ll tell them nothing. It will change nothing. I need to take a piss. The stupid bitch hasn’t moved in hours. Watching her is about as useful as watching water evaporate.”

“I’m not paying you to be entertained,” Haupt retorted. “Keep your eyes on this one at all times, John—since you lost the other two.”

“I did not ‘lose’ anyone!” John said, stung. “I know exactly where they are at all times. The youngest is in Pennsylvania, working at a crafts fair, and the older one is with her fiancé in San Francisco. If you want me to take the youngest one, I could take off right now and drive to?—”

“No. Stay where I can direct you, blow by blow. I don’t like the results when you are left to your own devices.”

John ground his teeth. He loathed having his employer looking over his shoulder. By the end of this, he might just cut the whiny old bastard’s throat. And punish the D’Onofrio sisters just for having been such pains in his ass.

He stared at Antonella as she tossed an essay onto a pile and grabbed another. The camera was hidden in her smoke detector, so he was staring down at the top of her head. A great angle for cleavage—of which she had plenty. She was a bigger girl than either of her scrawnier sisters, with some tits and ass to her. He liked that. Something to grab onto. Something that jiggled.

The pendant he was going to take from her sparkled in the plump cleft of flesh bulging from the neckline of her gray tank top. She had peeled down to loungewear—gray cotton stretch shorts hugging her round, curvy hips. Taut, pinchable nipples poked through her tank. A cock-teasing outfit, like she knew he was there and was trying to lure him into doing something rash and stupid. Dumb slut.

He thought of her older sister, the one who’d slipped him twice. Rage grabbed him deep, twisting, hot and painful. He glared up into Haupt’s eyes.

“I’ll go get the bitch for you right now, if you like,” he offered. “She’s alone in her apartment. I have the code to disarm her alarm. Then she won’t make that call to Italy.”

Anything to get this goatfuck moving.

“No,” Haupt said coldly. “Wait. They will identify Barbieri anyway. It’s only a matter of time. Discipline, John. She’s finally getting back to her normal schedule, in her own apartment. And once you take her, you’ll have to move fast to collect the other sister.”

“I have backup for that. And for following Antonella tomorrow.”

“I hope they’ll prove more competent than that idiot you hired last time. I want this done without mistakes that end up on the evening news, if possible,” the old man lectured. “We lost precious weeks waiting for the noise to die down. Keep watching.” He hobbled stiffly out of the room.

John looked back at the screen. Antonella was stretching, tossing her head back. He admired her strong, curvy, flexible, luscious body. He could imagine it writhing desperately beneath him. He licked his lips. She massaged her temples, a tiny frown between her brows. A headache. Awww, poor baby. Working so hard. She needed Big John to give her a neck rub.

After which, he would rip those cock-teasing panties off her, stuff them into her mouth, and make her forget all about her poor head.

It was the least he deserved, after all this fucking aggravation.

Chapter Four

Nell

“Grazie per la telefonata, signorina,” said Osvaldo Tucci, the person at the commissariato who had fielded my call. “I do not believe that we have any pending missing-persons reports from Castiglione Sant’Angelo. And to be sincere, without a surname for reference, it will take a long time to?—

“But that’s just my point, Inspettore,” I argued. “If he got on a plane for New York weeks ago, then why would it have ever occurred to anyone to declare him missing? Perhaps you can cross-reference. I know that he was a resident of the Palazzo de Luca, and I know that he was married to Lucia de Luca, sometime between 1957 and 1968, I think. Her father was the Conte de Luca. Doesn’t that help narrow it down?”

“Not really, signorina. I am not familiar with all the palazzi of the noble families in Castiglione Sant’Angelo,” Inspettore Tucci said, his voice heavy with professional patience. “I did not grow up here myself. I was transferred here from Calabria. But I assure you, we will look into this, and we will get in touch with Detective Lanaghan as soon as possible.”

We closed the call with a polite round of pleasantries, and I hung up, tense and unsatisfied. Not that I’d expected anything to be so easy.

Unfortunately, all Inspettore Tucci had heard was an unhinged American woman asking weird and inappropriate questions about things that probably weren’t any of her business. I should’ve waited for the official channels, language skills or not.

Lunch prep at the Sunset was crazy, but that was just as well. It kept me too occupied to dwell on Marco’s tragic fate. Or to entertain the awful possibility that Lucia had been forced to witness her long-lost, still beloved husband’s murder before her own. The thought horrified me: that someone so fine and kind as Lucia had to die that way.

---