Page 13 of Nantucket Reflections
“It went live fifteen minutes ago,” Henry said. “People are posting it, saying it’s Lucia Colombo. It’s her, isn’t it?”
Julia leaped up and checked to see that, yes, in fact, the woman howling Coldplay’s “Fix You” on The Rusty Nail’s stage was in fact Lucia Colombo, who seemed too drunk to know that so many people were filming her and reporting her status online. It meant that Julia had to hurry before Lucia got the hint and fled.
Charlie was busy, working long hours at the woodworking studio, which meant that Henry and Madeline were Julia’s partners in crime this time. Julia drove them away from The Copperfield House and all the way to the bar near the port, where cars were parked at odd angles. Finally, she found a spot on the outskirts of the lot. Her heartbeat was like a bird in her neck. They scrambled out of the car and headed for the bar. But when they entered, a middle-aged woman in a dark red dress was on stage, singing Billy Joel. Her voice was like a car alarm.
“Let’s split up,” Henry suggested.
“It’s too dangerous,” Julia said, although she did not indicate that Lucia was violent. She scanned the bar, searching, then bolted to the bartender to ask about her. “A woman was singing Coldplay about twenty minutes ago. People were filming her?”
The bartender shook a cocktail and nodded. “She went out the side. She wanted to smoke, I think.”
Julia thanked him and hurried into the dark beside the bar, feeling Henry and Madeline behind her. She suddenly regretted having brought them. Never in her life had she put her son in a situation like this. Then again, he was in his twenties, living part-time in Los Angeles and working in the movie business, so he’d probably seen crazier things.
When she reached the doorway, she stopped short to see Lucia Colombo in conversation with three very tall and powerful-looking men. Henry tried to skirt past her, but something about those men, how they hulked over Lucia, made Julia force him back. “Hold it,” she muttered under her breath.
Although the men and Lucia were about fifteen feet away, Julia could just barely make out the fact that they weren’t speaking English. Nor were they speaking Italian. There was something fishy about their conversation, something about the way the men spoke to Lucia that made Julia think that they were in control of her. Julia wanted to run over and ask Lucia if she was all right, but she also didn’t want to call attention to herself.
Suddenly, one of the guys grabbed Lucia’s shoulder and tugged her toward the road. Julia flinched forward, reaching for her phone to call the cops. But that gave Henry the opportunity to run forward and call out, “Hey, Lucia! Stop!” The three men and Lucia turned and gazed at them, frightened.
“Henry!” Julia cried out. “Stop!”
But Henry was brash and confident and too young to care. He bolted up to Lucia and the men and said, “Hey, we know you’re not the real CAT. You need to explain yourself. You need to say why you took advantage of Julia Copperfield’s publishing house!”
Julia realized that he was filming the entire thing on his phone.Genius, she thought.
But that was when one of the guys reared his fist back and punched Henry in the face. Julia was stricken, racing toward Henry to tend to him. It gave the guys and Lucia enough time to race along the street and disappear in a dark car.
When Julia and Madeline reached Henry, he was laughing. Julia’s face was painted with tears. “Henry, are you all right?”
But Henry was already back on his feet. “I got them on camera, Mom,” he said, showing the video. “I got all four of them. We’re going to find them.”
They listened to the squeal of the black SUV’s tires as it whipped away from the bar and out of sight.
En route to the police station, Henry, Madeline, and Julia tried to speculate about why the men had taken Lucia away in that manner.
“It looked like they were angry with her about something,” Madeline observed. “Maybe they saw the karaoke video and couldn’t believe she’d revealed herself like that?”
Julia thought that was fascinating. “Do you think Lucia is a puppet?”
“Maybe!” Henry cried, snapping his fingers. “They realized she fit the bill, that she was from the same place as the real CAT and had a similar backstory.”
“I still think Lucia might know the real CAT,” Madeline said, her voice filled with suspicion.
At the station, they talked with a cop named Jeff Magnum. He appreciated the video but didn’t recognize any of the people involved, save for Lucia Colombo, who, by now, everyone knew. He attempted to use an online service to pair the faces of the men with others in their system, but he had no success. “The system isn’t always foolproof,” he explained, “especially when it comes to men and facial hair and dark shadows and so on.”
“But they’re still on the island. I mean, they have to be?” Julia said hopefully.
The cop looked at her. “People can get off and on this island in countless ways. It’s imperfect. But we can hope.”
The cop sent out images of the four people to every hotel in Nantucket, as well as to every police officer stationed around the island. At first, he told them that they were four Italians, but Henry corrected him. “They weren’t speaking Italian,” he said. “I think it was Russian.”
“Are you sure about that?” the cop asked.
“It was definitely an Eastern European language,” Henry said, his face suddenly filled with doubt. “But it definitely wasn’t Italian.”
Julia bit her tongue to keep from asking, Do you only know what Italian sounds like because ofThe Godfather? That kind of mindset wouldn’t help anyone right now.
ChapterEight
