Chapter 2 #2
There was no way to explain why bad people did bad things… or why someone like Angelo Vertucci would step between her and danger without a second thought. Before she’d realized it, a full hour past and it was around nine o’clock at night. She had nowhere to be, no one to worry about her….
“Oh god!” She gasped.
Angelo’s family. Surely someone was waiting for him to come home. A wife…a girlfriend, or at least some family? How could she find them? Then it struck her, the answer so obvious.
She dug around her pocket where she’d tucked Angelo’s cell phone, which she remembered had no screen lock. She scanned the contact menu until she found the list of recent calls.
Mom was the one of the recently dialed contacts. She had to call someone for him. His family had to know what happened.
It rang three times, then a woman answered with a bright and husky laugh. “Angelo, where are you? Have you left the soup kitchen yet? We’re ready for dinner! I pulled everything out of the oven. We’re waiting on you.”
Kara’s chest crushed in on itself as she forced herself to breathe. The sounds of happy voices in the background threatened to drown her because she knew she was about to destroy it all.
“Mrs. Vertucci?” Her voice wavered.
“Yes?” The woman’s voice softened slightly. “Who is this?”
“You don’t know me. My name is Kara Gallagher. I was with your son tonight at the soup kitchen. He’s been hurt… H—he’s in surgery at the hospital. You need to come here at once.”
“What?!” His voice came muffled, probably covering the phone with her hand as she shouted for everyone to be quiet. The muffling stopped and she said, “Where is he?”
Kara gave her the hospital name and address. “I’m in the waiting room. I have Angelo’s phone if you need to reach me.”
“We’ll be there right away. We just need to get a neighbor to watch the grandchildren.” The call ended and Kara sank back into the uncomfortable hard wooden chair, suddenly overcome with exhaustion.
Half an hour later, four people burst into the waiting room in a flurry of voices.
Kara knew immediately they must be related to Angelo because of their looks.
An older man in his late sixties with a face much like Angelo’s was holding the shoulders of an older woman with dark hair and light brown eyes the same shade as Angelo’s. His parents.
The younger man was perhaps his brother—he looked close to Angelo’s age—accompanied by a blonde haired woman. They moved as a group to the check-in desk. Then the attendant pointed at Kara.
“That is his fiancée over there,” the attendant said helpfully. Kara wanted to disappear into the floor, but there was no way to avoid this. All four turned toward her, their mouths open in shock. Had the situation not be so dire, she would have laughed at their comical reaction.
“Fiancée?” The older man murmured to the older woman, who just shrugged helplessly, her eyes filled with tears.
Kara swallowed hard and stood up.
The man she assumed was Angelo’s father came forward. “Are you Kara? The one who called us?”
“Yes, I’m Kara Gallagher.”
“Kara…” The man’s voice held a hint of Italian, faint but definitely there. “And you are Angelo’s… fiancée?”
She never should’ve said that. But if she hadn’t, she might have had to talk to the police, and she couldn’t have kept her promise to stay with him. And who knew how long it would be before someone contacted his parents? Now what was she supposed to do?
Thinking quick, but not thinking straight, she replied, “Yes… I’m so sorry he didn’t tell you about us.
Our relationship is really new. And our engagement is a still a bit unofficial.
” That would help explain why she didn’t have a ring on her finger.
Later, when she knew Angelo was going to be okay, she would find a way to fade into the background and never be seen again.
The parents exchanged a glance and then Angelo’s mother was suddenly hugging Kara tightly.
“Oh…you are so beautiful. Think of the beautiful little nipotini they will have, Matteo.” The woman was grinning, now, wiping away her tears but Kara could see how worried she was.
“Yes, yes,” Matteo said, but he focused on Kara. “What happened to our boy? You said he was hurt? How?”
“We were leaving the soup kitchen and a man tried to grab my purse. Angelo fought him and… he was stabbed.”
Angelo’s mother paled.
“Stabbed?” The man she assumed was Angelo’s brother now stepped forward.
“Yes. I kept pressure on the wound and called 911. We came straight here.”
“Were you hurt, Kara?” Matteo asked.
“No, not really,” she reassured them.
“But your hands…” Matteo gestured to her hands. She glanced down at the blood staining her fingers and palms. She kept forgetting she was covered in Angelo’s blood. The blood of their son.
“I’m all right, I promise.”
“And Angelo?” his mother asked. “Is he all right?”
“Angelo is in surgery. I haven’t heard any updates yet.”
Angelo’s mother put an arm around her. “Let’s wash the blood off your hands.”
“Wait,” Angelo’s brother said, looking at Kara. “Have you talked to the police yet?”
She shook her head, and fresh fear crept back under her skin. The police. She couldn’t talk to the police… but she had to now. There was no way to get out of it without lying, and she’d lied enough to today.
The younger man offered her a tense smile. “I’m Dante, Angelo’s brother. This is my wife, Alessia.” He nodded at the woman standing at his side who smiled in sympathy. “These are my parents, Matteo and Francesca.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Kara said, her tongue a bit tied by the unexpected introductions.
“Right. Let me find the police. They usually have someone working in the building.” Dante was gone for only a minute. When he returned, he had an officer with him. “I told him what happened and how you came here with Angelo in the ambulance.”
The officer looked at her, his eyes gentle. “I heard the call on the radio. I’m glad I can get your statement. Do you mind stepping into the hall with me, ma’am?”
She swallowed hard and nodded, following him into the whitewashed hospital hallway.
He pulled out his notepad and clicked open a pen. “What’s your name?”
Her mother’s voice screamed in her head to lie about anything she was asked, but she couldn’t.
They’d check her current fake ID. She’d get caught now if she tried.
“Kara… Gallagher.” Gallagher was the latest fake last name she went by.
She had a name changing protocol, using Kara only once every few years since it was her real first name.
“All right, Kara. What happened tonight?” he asked her.
She walked through how she’d left the soup kitchen, the attack, Angelo’s intervention, how he was stabbed and the man fled.
“You said the man wore a mask? Did you see anything on him, or anything about his face or voice that might help us narrow down a search?”
“His eyes were blue…” She shut her own eyes, trying to picture everything happening again. “The mask was one of those things that covered everything but his eyes. I honestly couldn’t see anything else.”
The officer wrote down the details and collected her address.
“No phone number?” he asked, a little incredulous.
“No. I don’t have a cell phone.”
The cop shook his head. “How anyone can go without a phone these days? What about an email address?”
“I do have that.” She had an email address that she changed every six months, and gave him her current one. The officer added it to his report notes.
Then he pulled out a contact card and wrote a number down on the back of it before handing it to her.
“If you think of anything else we need to know about the incident, call my cell. I’ll be the officer writing up your report. If you want to come by the station and write a more official statement, you can do that anytime.”
“Is it okay to wash my hands?” she asked, showing him the blood.
“Sure. Let me take a few pictures of them in the hallway first, okay?” He escorted her in the hall where there was a blank wall for her to stand against.
She imagined pushing the cop away and making a run for it. But she couldn’t do that. She’d promised Angelo she would stay which meant facing the cops and dealing with the risk that came with it.
The officer snapped photos of her bloody sweater and her hands. They also took one of her face because she had a few scrapes and bruises. Her mother’s words kept ringing in her head, never let the cops take your photo.
Tonight, she’d just risked putting herself in the path of her father’s men.
They had contacts everywhere, and if her name came across the wrong person…
She shivered. No, don’t think about that right now.
Kara was used to planning for the worst scenarios possible, but she didn’t want to do that right now.
Not when she was so worried about Angelo.
Once Angelo was out of the hospital and she knew he was okay, she’d have to move again. Get as far away from Chicago as she could… Maybe Arizona this time, she’d always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. She’d start preparing tonight.
“We’ll email you a copy of the report once it’s written up,” said the policeman.
Kara tucked the officer’s card in her jeans pocket. “Th—thank you.”
The police radio his shoulder beeped and someone started talking through it. The officer lifted the radio off his shoulder and held it to his mouth to answer. He gave Kara one more polite nod before left down the hall.
Kara returned to the waiting room, where she was swarmed by Angelo’s family asking how it went.
“I gave him my statement, and he took some pictures of my sweater and my hands. He said I can wash them now.”
“Yes, now we can get you cleaned up,” Francesca took Kara’s arm gently in hers.
“I think I have a sweater in my car that will fit her,” said Alessia. “I’ll grab it and call the neighbors to check on the kids.” She kissed Dante’s cheek and left the waiting room.
“Kids?” Kara asked.
“Our kids,” Dante said. “We had Angelo’s next door neighbor come over and keep an eye on them.”