16. Vinnie
16
VINNIE
I returned several days ago, my new bride in tow.
Mario was pleased with the results of my trip, even though I wasn’t able to complete the negotiations with Agudelo. One part I did complete was taking Daniela as my wife.
With her father’s permission, we were married in Colombia the day before I left.
Daniela and I had already agreed that the marriage would not be consummated. She just wanted to get out of Colombia, and I was her ticket.
Declan McAllister won’t be pleased, but that doesn’t matter much to me. The marriage to Daniela is in name only, and once she has legal status in the US, I will be annulling it.
These are the terms she and I have agreed to. They’re not the terms set by her father, but I don’t care.
However, I’ve come across some information that has me on edge.
Raven’s life is in danger. Not from Mario or from Declan McAllister. Not even from Jacinto Agudelo.
From someone else.
And as I think about it, I still can’t believe it.
One week earlier…
My negotiations on the territory for the cartel are nearly complete, and earlier today, with Agudelo’s permission, I took Daniela as my wife.
The last couple of nights, though, the shuffling and banging that seems to be coming from my ceiling has become louder and more persistent.
It’s got me on edge, and with this entire place surveilled all times, I can’t exactly figure out where the sound is coming from or what it is.
Agudelo is gone a lot, overnight trips nearly every other day. But he’s always back here for lunch, where we continue our negotiations.
He left again this afternoon for another overnight trip, and I’ve decided that surveillance be damned. I’m going to figure out what is going on above me.
And Daniela is going to help me.
I knock on the door to her room.
“Yes?” she says through the door.
“It’s Vinnie. May I come in?”
“Of course.”
I open the door. Daniela is in her sitting area, working on her laptop. Over the last few days, I’ve found out she’s quite intelligent. Of course, I already knew that her love of cooking knows no bounds, and she really wants to study at the Cordon Bleu in Paris. But her knowledge expands outside of her culinary interests. She’s never left Colombia, but she knows so much about the culture and politics of Europe and the Americas. She and I have had many a late-night conversation about my overseas days, and her broad understanding of the way the world works is impressive, especially for someone of her young age.
A lot of that knowledge was gained from her shitty upbringing, which makes me sad. But I’m going to do my damnedest to help her make a better life.
I walk into her room and close the door. I look straight at her, deliberately avoiding the gaze of anywhere on the ceiling where a camera might be mounted.
“May I speak freely?” I whisper.
She takes my hand and mouths, “Let’s go outside.”
A few moments later, we’re out on the back veranda, taking a walk down a stone path.
When she feels comfortable, she turns to me. “What is it?”
I lean in, keeping my voice low just in case. “Since I got here, I’ve heard some strange noises coming from above my room,” I say. “Do you know what’s above the second floor?”
She wrinkles her forehead. “Just the old attic. It’s probably just the house settling.”
“That’s what I thought at first as well.” I stroke my chin. “but the noise almost has a rhythm to it. It comes and goes.”
She frowns. “What are you asking me, Senor Gallo?”
“Call me Vinnie.” I can’t help a small smile. “We’re married. I think we’re on a first-name basis at this point.”
“Sure.” She returns my smile. “Vinnie.”
“How would I get to the attic?”
“There are stairs at the end of the hallway. But the door is always locked. No one’s been up there in… I’m not sure how long.” She purses her lips. “When I was a little girl, I always wanted to go up there and explore, but my father forbade it. He told me stories of ghosts that haunted the old attic.”
“And you believed him?”
“I was only a little girl, Vinnie. Of course I believed him. If you ask me if I believe him now, obviously I don’t.” Her gaze darkens. “But now that I know more about what my father and his colleagues do for a living, I figure there are things up there that I’m not meant to see. Things I don’t want to see.”
I grab her hands. “I want to know what’s up there, Daniela. Can you help me?”
She takes a deep breath, looking into my eyes. “If you’re asking me if I can unlock the door, the answer is no. I can’t. Only my father has those keys.”
“What about Morehouse?”
“Morehouse has keys to everything. But he would never betray my father.”
“Do you know where Morehouse keeps the keys?”
She bites her lip. “How would I know that?”
Apparently she’s not going to be any help at all. I let go of her hands and turn away from her. “Thank you for your candor, Daniela.”
“Wait.” She runs around me and plants herself in my path. “Just because I can’t help you with this doesn’t mean you’re not going to help me, does it?”
I shake my head. “Men like me don’t go back on their word, Daniela.”
“Oh, thank God.” She sighs in relief. “I really do want to leave. I just know there’s a much better chance of a good life for me in the United States.”
“I’ll see that you get that chance.” I look toward the horizon. “You’re not the first young woman I’ve come across who is intelligent and talented but is being placed in a box.”
She takes my hand. “Yes, the girl you’re betrothed to.”
“Not only her. My own mother.” I inhale deeply and let it out on a whoosh. “She could’ve made so much more out of her life.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Daniela pats my hands gently.
“Thank you. I appreciate that. At least I know my mother is at peace now.” I grit my teeth. “Meanwhile, my father’s rotting away in a prison cell.”
Technically not my father, but still the man who I think of as my true father.
“There’s nothing you can do for him?”
I sigh, shaking my head slightly. “Not at the moment, anyway.”
“Listen,” she says. “You’ve been so kind to me. Let me try to help you.” She looks up toward the roof of the house. “I have to admit I’ve always been curious about the attic myself. I’ll see what I can do.”
I lean forward and give her a kiss on the cheek. She really is a lovely girl. “Thank you. Please let me know what you find out.”
“I will. Do you want to go back to the house now?”
“Yes, I suppose that would be best.”
She places a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about these walks we have, the talks we have outside the house. When my father asked me about them, I told him you were courting me.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And he bought it?”
“Yes, but not in the way you think.” She looks down. “He knows you’re in love with another woman, Vinnie.”
I jerk backward. “Oh?”
“Yes. He told me so. He asked me if that mattered to me.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told him that it didn’t matter. That this was a business deal, an alliance, and nothing more.”
“Good. Thank you.”
She presses her lips together. “There is one thing you should know, though.”
“What’s that?”
She swallows. “Alliances are forged through marriage, but they’re maintained through children. My father will expect grandchildren, Vinnie.”
“You’re still very young.”
“That doesn’t matter to him.”
“I’ll get you back to the United States. After that, we’ll figure things out from there.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We walk in silence back to the house.
An hour later, there’s a knock at my door.
I open it, and Daniela stands there. She grabs me into a hug and presses her lips to mine.
It feels all wrong, and I’m about to push her away when I see her eyeing a camera in the corner. She’s putting on a show, of course. I feel her slip something in my pocket as she pulls away.
She then smiles at me and leaves without a word.
Back in my room, I look at what she shoved into my pocket.
It’s a key, along with a note.
Midnight. You have two hours. All surveillance will be off.
I nearly drop my jaw. How did she manage that? I shudder to think of what—or, God help her, who —she had to do. I never wanted her to help me that way. But I have the key now, and I have the cover I need.
I must take this opportunity.
At midnight, in the darkness of the hallway, I pad lightly toward the end of the hallway where the door to the attic stairs is. I unlock it and open it, stealing quietly up the creaky stairs.
I inhale the smell of a musty attic. Mothballs, cobwebs, dust.
I don’t dare make a sound. Are there cameras up here as well? Microphones? Are they part of the main system? I have no idea. If I’m caught, it will be the end of my time here and of the deal with Agudelo.
But my curiosity is piqued, and I need to know what he’s hiding up here.
He must be hiding something. Why else would he lock the door?
I’ve been here for over a week now, and I’ve never seen anyone go near this door.
I don’t have a flashlight on me or my phone. I didn’t want to take the chance of anything alerting any possible cameras.
No lights have come on, so there are no motion detectors.
Good.
I keep walking, and every time a wood board creaks beneath me, I stop, my body going rigid. Did anyone hear that? Did anyone see that?
Agudelo isn’t home, but Morehouse is, as well as the housekeepers and other staff.
I keep walking, walking, walking…
Until I finally hit a wall, nearly stumbling.
I put my ear up to the wall.
No sound, until?—
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The rhythm.
The same rhythm. And then more slowly.
Tap… Tap… Tap…
And then quickly again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Oh my God. Why didn’t I notice this before?
It’s Morse code. SOS. Three shorts, three longs, and then another three shorts. Someone is in this room.
Do I knock on the wall? Do I dare make any noise?
I fumble around in the dark, moving against the wall, looking for a doorknob.
There isn’t one.
“Who’s there?” I whisper as harshly as I can.
But no way are they going to be able to hear me.
So I knock on the wall. Lightly at first.
Nothing.
Then I knock again, this time louder. Knock. Knock. Knock.
And then…
“Is…someone there?”
The tone is weak, and the voice is scratchy. It’s female, and it sounds like an older woman. An elderly woman, even.
Perhaps the old woman whose photograph has haunted me since the plane ride to Colombia?
How do I respond?
“Yes. I’m a friend. Here to help you out.”
She doesn’t respond. Maybe she didn’t hear me.
I walk along the wall until I get to the back of the house. And?—
“Yes!” I whisper.
It’s a door. A slider, and it’s locked, of course, but at least I know how I can get in.
On a whim, I try the key Daniela gave me. It doesn’t work.
“Hello,” I say. “Can you hear me?”
“Are you really here to help me?”
“Yes, I am. Can you open the door?”
“It’s locked,” she says.
I sigh. Of course it is.
I look around with something to unlock the door with. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and I spy a rusted toolbox. I approach it and crack open the lid. The tools are as rusty as the old metal box. Pliers, a hammer, lots of screws and nuts…and a long screwdriver. I can use it to jimmy the lock.
I return to the door and kneel to start working the lock. The faint sound of metal grating on metal fills the air as I gently maneuver the screwdriver, attempting to unlatch the bolt that seals the door shut.
“Are you still there?” the woman’s voice pierces through my concentration.
“Yes,” I whisper back. “I’m trying to open the door.”
I return my attention to the stubborn lock. Just as my patience begins to wane…a soft click. Tension eases in the door as relief washes over me.
“I’ve got it,” I whisper to myself. I slide the door open and look into the dim room. Only a bed and a chair, and on the bed lies a frail woman, her hair white as snow and her eyes shimmering.
It’s her. The old woman from the photos.
Her eyes widen as she looks me up and down.
“Mario?”