Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
By the time I got there, I had worked myself up into a lather. And not the sweaty kind; I’m in good enough shape that a quarter mile walk along a winding road isn’t going to tire me out. I exercise, thank you very much.
No, I had remembered that in leaving my phone in the car, I had given up contact with the rest of the world during the time I had been snooping around Sal’s place, and anything could have happened while I’d been incommunicado. An arrest, a mob hit, the zombie apocalypse.
Or none of the above. There were two new texts and a number of frantic phone calls when I finally got back inside the Lexus and had fished my phone out of my bag, but none of them applied to any of the above.
The calls were all from Zachary, so I opened his text message first. Sal is on the move, it said. I’m following.
And then every panicky voicemail after that said the same thing again, with increasing volume and anxiousness.
Three minutes later: “He got a phone call or something—he was looking at his phone—and then he left the Body Shop like a bat out of hell. Megan looked worried—she watched him go, then she went back in the office and made a phone call, too.”
Probably to Mendoza. Or to Lieutenant Copeland.
“He’s headed west on Charlotte,” Zachary added. “I think he might be going home. If you’re there, Gina, I hope you’re not doing anything stupid.”
Too late for that. I had done something very stupid, and something about it had, it seemed, alerted Sal that I was here. Maybe he had one of those security systems that Mendoza had recommended, that sent breaches directly to his phone.
Ten minutes after that came another voicemail in Zachary’s voice. “We just passed Sawyer Brown Road, so it doesn’t look like he’s going to Nick’s. I really think he’s going home, Gina. And I really hope you’re not inside his house. Call me.”
Six minutes after that came another. “We’re on the interstate now, and he’s definitely headed to Pegram. If you’re there and you get this, you have to get out ASAP.”
Four minutes after that came another: “We’re off the interstate. It’s definite. He’s coming home. If you’re there, Gina, get out of sight.”
That one had arrived just a few minutes ago. I was ready to call Zachary back, but before I could, my phone rang again and it was him. “It’s me,” I said.
“Oh, thank God.” He sounded as frantic in person as on all the voice messages. “He just turned the corner onto his road. If you’re there, Gina—”
“I’m out of the house,” I interrupted. Not that I’d been in it in the first place. “Or off the property, I should say. Sitting in my car about a quarter mile up the road.”
“Well, get out of there. Something alerted him to something going on, and it must have been something you did, because he went straight home. Don’t let him find you.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I said, and tried not to let his panic infect me. “Where are you?”
“I’m up on the main road. I didn’t turn when he did. I’ve been directly behind him ever since we got off the interstate, so I figured if he was just going home anyway, there was no point in me blowing my cover any further. Why? Do you need help? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just sitting here, like I said. I just got back to the car. I left my phone inside while I snooped.”
I could hear the eyeroll. “Stupid. I was about two minutes from calling Jaime and reporting you missing.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. There’s nothing wrong.”
“Yet,” Zachary said darkly. “Do you see him?”
I didn’t, but then I was parked nose in and watching two horses graze lazily.
Before I could say so, I heard him, though. Or at least I heard the roar of an engine coming down the road fast.
“I think that’s him now. If it is, he’s speeding.”
“He sped all the way here,” Zachary said. “It was a miracle that I could keep up. I need a better car.”
The truck came around the curve just as my eyes hit the mirror. Sal’s truck, the same one I’d seen at the Body Shop, came barreling down the road like he was being chased.
“That’s him,” I said.
He shot past me—I breathed out—but then he hit the brakes hard enough to make the entire truck shudder. There was the screech of rubber on pavement, and the smell of burning tires.
“Shit,” I said, eyes glued to the rearview mirror. “I think he saw me.”
Zachary caught his breath. “Dammit, Gina—”
The truck reversed back up the road toward me, and I sank down in my seat. “He definitely saw me. He’s reversing. He’s stopping—”
“I’m on my way,” Zachary said grimly. “Just hang on.”
I hung on. It was all I could do as I watched the truck idle on the road directly behind my car. After a moment, the driver’s window turned down—I saw Sal’s face—and then something flashed.
A second later the truck had accelerated again, and a second after that it was gone.
I breathed out. “He took a picture of my car—the license plate, I guess—but then he left. I guess he didn’t realize I was sitting here. Abort the mission.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I said. “All I need is a few seconds to get out of here. Or actually—”
“Yes?”
“Drive past—past me; you’ll see me parked to the left of the road—and then go all the way down to the end of the road and turn around. Don’t draw attention to yourself by stopping or slowing down, but see what he’s doing.”
Zachary made an agreeable little noise. A moment later I saw him zip past where I was parked.
“I’m going now,” I said, “but tell me what you see.”
There was a pause, just a few seconds, and then, “The gate’s open. Sal’s truck is on its way up the driveway to the house.”
Another few seconds passed, and he added, “I’m past the property. I’ll find somewhere to turn around and come back the other way.”
“It’s not far to the end of the road,” I told him. “I’m on my way out now. I’ll head for the interstate and then the office. We’ll reconvene there.”
“Just stay on the line until I’ve gone past again,” Zachary answered. “Just in case. I’m getting close to the end of the road where I can turn around.”
I said I would, and then I drove while I kept the phone next to me and the connection open.
A couple of minutes later Zachary was talking again.
“I’m approaching the property from the other direction.
Sal’s truck is parked in front of the garage.
The gates are closed and there are two dogs running around in the yard.
Or one of them is running, the other is sniffing the trash cans.
Two big German Shepherds, or maybe they’re Malinois. Scary brutes, whatever they are.”
Definitely. “Any sign of Sal?”
“He must be inside, or somewhere in the back. I don’t see him, and the front door is closed.” He waited a beat. “Can I please leave now?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Drive carefully. I’ll see you at the office.”
I got there a few minutes before he did, just enough time to read Rachel’s text from earlier and confront her about it. “Costanza? Really? Coco Miller’s name is Costanza?”
“Her first name,” Rachel confirmed. “Her maiden name was Peruzza, so she’s definitely Italian, but there’s no connection that I could find to the Gomorras, or the Spataros or Abruzzis. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one—”
No, of course not. Absence of evidence, etcetera.
“But her first name is Costanza?” The same as Nick’s last name. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“One wouldn’t think so,” Rachel agreed.
“She must be at least seventy, though. And he’s—what, twenty-seven? Twenty-eight at the most? She would have been in her early to mid-forties when he was born.”
“It does happen,” Rachel said. “And if he wasn’t Henry’s son, there would have been more incentive to get rid of him.”
“I’m surprised she carried him to term.”
“Catholic,” Rachel said. “Most Italians are. Can’t have an abortion.”
No, of course not. “So Nick might be Coco Miller’s son. She told me she and Henry didn’t have any children, but that doesn’t mean she might not have had one she gave up for adoption.” Or into foster care.
“It would take a DNA test to find out for sure,” Rachel said, “but I contacted Jaime and let him know. He didn’t sound surprised, so they may have dug up that bit of speculation on their own.”
The door opened and Zachary walked through in time to hear that last. “What speculation?” he wanted to know.
Edwina, who had wagged her tail politely when I came in, went into transports of ecstasy at the sight of Zach.
He scooped her up mid-jump and dropped onto the sofa with her.
“Yes, it’s good to see you, too. Such a pretty girl.
Not like those big monsters I just saw. They’d take your head right off. Yes, they would.”
A trickle of dread went down my back, but I forgot it when he prompted, “What coincidence?”
“Coco Miller’s first name is Costanza. The same as Nick’s last name.”
“Oho!” Zach said. “So Mrs. Miller might be Nick’s… what, grandmother?”
“We were thinking mother,” Rachel said, “although I suppose grandmother isn’t out of the question.”
She glanced at me. “Maybe she had a teenage pregnancy—before she married Henry—and gave the baby up for adoption. And then that baby, probably a girl, became Nick’s mother.”
I nodded. Either way, Mrs. Miller would have been able to claim, without outright lying—which was probably also frowned upon if you were Catholic—that she and Henry hadn’t had children.
“That’s interesting,” Zachary said and turned to me, “but what I want to know is what you discovered at Sal’s house. He was off like a shot when he realized someone was on his property, so he’s either got privacy issues, or he has something to hide.”
“If he does, I didn’t find any of it,” I admitted.
“The dogs were roaming the house, so I couldn’t go inside.
There’s what looks like red paint in his garage, and a gun cabinet in the great room, in full view of anyone coming in there.
If I could see it from the backyard, Lieutenant Copeland must have seen it when she was there the other day. ”