Page 46 of Return to Whitmore
“We’re going to figure out what happened to him,” Charlotte said.
“This is only the beginning,” Nina affirmed. “We’re going to update you all the time.”
“But it’s important that you don’t tell anyone anything,” Charlotte reiterated. “We don’t know how deep this goes.” She remembered how, before he left Manhattan, Jack hadn’t been able to figure out what Tio Angelo had been up to. Maybe he had by now. Perhaps by now, Jack was dead. Maybe Tio Angelo had seen to it. Was he really that evil?
Oh, she didn’t want to think that. But maybe she had to be realistic. Perhaps she had to face this story head-on to make sense of her life.
Before Addison headed to her gate in another terminal, Charlotte set up her camera and asked her a series of questionsabout her life with Seth Green. It was for the good of the documentary. Addison didn’t hesitate to help.
“He always made me feel loved and protected. He always made me feel like the kids and I came first.” Addison swallowed, her eyes to the window as a plane outside took off. “But he never once insinuated that he wasn’t Seth Green, that he wasn’t who he said he was. If I never see him again, I need answers. I need to know why he kept that from me. I’m still in love with him, and I always will be in love with him. But I feel like a fool.”
Charlotte cut filming and thanked Addison with a final hug.
“We love you, Addison,” she whispered in her ear. “You’re family and always will be. Thank you for coming out here.”
As Addison sped off to get her flight, Charlotte and Nina went through security, speaking in dull tones as they removed their shoes and packed and unpacked their computers and phones and tablets and film equipment. Charlotte saw her tracker tag and cursed herself for not remembering to put it in her checked luggage. Previously, when traveling, airlines had lost her bags, so she’d always longed to have a tag in the bag itself, something that tracked where it went. Next time.
“What a strange time,” Nina said as she put back on her belt after security.
“You and Addison just found out your husbands weren’t who they seemed to be,” Charlotte said, shaking her head to clear it of its messes. “You’re both handling it much better than I would.”
Nina gave her a look. Last night, Charlotte had finally told Nina about the car accident, about how Jack’s driving had nearly killed her ex-fiancé, and about how Ralph had dumped her for someone at his office and she’d never managed to find another love.
“We’ve all been through more than our fair share,” Nina said.
“And there’s more to come,” Charlotte said.
Outside the gate, Charlotte dared to tell Nina the other thing on her mind. This wasn’t the first private investigator she’d met. “Another one came to find me back in 2005. He wouldn’t tell me who sent him or what he was up to. It freaked me out.”
“Did you ever hear from him again?” Nina asked.
Charlotte nodded. “He called a few more times, but I refused to tell him anything, and I refused the money he was offering me. I didn’t want to get involved in anything too sinister. I’d been through too much.”
Nina pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I hope we’re ready for this.”
Charlotte didn’t answer.
The flight from Boston to Rome was bumpy. Charlotte ordered a glass of wine and nearly spilled it. She tried to read her book or watch a film but was too anxious to concentrate. When she glanced across the aisle at her baby sister, Nina, she found her fast asleep, curled up in a ball. She was jealous. They both needed their rest.
They reached Rome at eight in the morning. Customs was fluid for Charlotte, because she was an Italian citizen, but she had to wait a full forty minutes for poor Nina to get through. When she appeared, her cheeks blotchy from having slept strangely on the plane, she said, “Francesca was legally my mother, wasn’t she? Couldn’t she have gone through the trouble of making me an Italian citizen? Did she really want to punish me?”
Charlotte tried to laugh. She didn’t want to say,Well, yes, our mother did want to punish you.
To rest up before going to Tuscany, Charlotte and Nina checked into hotels in Rome and agreed to strategize over dinner that night. As far as Charlotte knew, one or both of their sisters lived in Rome, and as she prepared for their night out, she imagined running into them. What would she say?She hadn’t googled them lately, but she knew they were both highly successful and career-oriented women with husbands and children. They probably made Francesca very proud.
Had Francesca called them when the private investigator had begun sniffing around? For some reason, Charlotte doubted it.
Did Francesca secretly think that Charlotte knew where Jack was? The thought rattled Charlotte. She nearly swallowed her tongue.
At a gorgeous Italian restaurant stretching across an ornate piazza, Charlotte and Nina ordered a bottle of red wine and two pasta dishes to share. They reminisced about the Italian meals they’d had as children, the red sauces that had bubbled on the stovetop all Sunday long.
“Those stopped when I went to Michigan,” Nina remembered.
“Did you ever try to recreate them yourself?” Charlotte asked.
Nina shook her head. “The flavors were too painful. I didn’t want to remember. But now that I know Francesca wasn’t my mother, that it was all a mess, I’m trying to make peace with Italian food.” She twirled her fork around and around and ate a huge bite.
Charlotte laughed.
