Chapter Twelve
Dante
“Knock knock.”
“Pretty sure you’re supposed to say that before you’re fully in the house,” I said, moving out of the kitchen to find my mother in the center hall, arms loaded down with several plastic containers full of food.
“Your doorbell isn’t working.”
“Great,” I said with a sigh, reaching out to take some of the containers from her arms.
“One thing always leads to another with home renovation,” she said. “Remember when I just wanted to put in a new range hood and suddenly I had to have the foundation reinforced? Someone probably just crossed some wires somewhere.”
“Yeah. I’ll call the electrician back in. So what’s all this for?”
“Well, I figured you still don’t have a working kitchen to cook in. And I don’t want you ordering in all the time. So, I made you things you can just heat up in the microwave or toaster oven.”
“And by that,” I said, leading her into said kitchen, “you mean you wanted to drop in and pester me about Hazel.”
She didn’t even try to deny it. When I turned back from putting the food in the fridge, she was shooting me a smirk.
“You know me too well. So how is it going?”
“Let’s talk about something else. How are things with Dr. Sheldon?”
“Let’s talk about something else,” she said, brushing some dust off the counter. “This looks almost done,” she added, turning around.
“Yeah. Just the backsplash now. And a good cleaning. That’s what I was about to do.”
“You?”
“Yeah. Why not me?”
“Because you have a cleaning lady. It seems like you’re trying to distract yourself.”
“From what?”
“Your feelings for a certain pretty newcomer to town.”
It was pointless to deny it.
“It’s complicated.”
“Why is it complicated?”
“I can’t talk about that.”
“I’m assuming it’s the same reason I noticed someone following me whenever I leave the house.”
“Saw that, huh?”
“Sweetie, you forget that I’ve been in this Family longer than you,” she said, shrugging. “I can always tell when something is going on. Even if I know you can’t tell me about it.”
“It’s a precaution right now,” I assured her.
“I know. If there were an active threat, someone would be standing at my front door. And you boys would be hanging around a lot.”
“Can’t get anything past you.”
“So, whatever is going on, Hazel is somehow involved.”
“Sort of by proxy.”
“So something happened at the garden center.”
“Something like that.”
“Let me guess, this something required you needing to… lie to her.”
“Yeah, it did.”
“And now you feel bad about lying to her, so your feelings are, as you said, complicated.”
“That about sums it up, yeah.”
“I’m going to venture a guess that Hazel doesn’t know who you are. Who we are.”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“She hasn’t had questions about the guards at the garden center?”
“Not that Dom has mentioned.”
“She’s too fastidious not to have noticed.”
Therein lies the problem.
She knew they were there.
She knew they arrived right after she found the body that I told her wasn’t a body at all.
I didn’t know Hazel well, but she wasn’t dumb. She had to be having some reservations about believing me.
Honestly, for a moment or two when I showed up in the shop that night, I’d been wondering if she was staying behind late to try to snoop around in the work computer or our files.
Then, well, I’d gotten a little distracted.
I’d meant to poke around the day before, ask some questions, but when I’d caught her in the haunted house alone, well, it felt wrong to let a perfect opportunity go to waste.
Unfortunately, she rushed out afterward and made herself scarce, so I couldn’t ask her anything that might let me know where her head was at.
“Listen, your brothers and cousins have had some really complicated beginnings with their women. And look at them now. Happy. Married. Making babies.”
“Don’t get your hopes too high, Ma. It’s not like—excuse me,” I said when my phone rang in my pocket.
Dom.
“What’s up?”
“Yeah… you’re going to want to get down here.”
“What happened?”
“Well, no one’s dead. So there’s that. But it’s a good thing the place is closed for the night.”
“Alright. I’ll be over in a few. Are the others there?”
“Hazel is. She’s who called me.”
“Is she okay?” I asked, watching my mom mouth Hazel’s name and press a hand to her heart.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Good. I’m on my way.”
“She’s okay?” my mom asked.
“She is. But something is up. I have to get going.”
“Of course. I’ll see myself out.”
She didn’t make an immediate move to do so, but I was too worried about what might be going on to really care. Besides, this was Giulia Grassi we were talking about here. If she wanted to be in my house, she would be.
I flew down the highway, wondering if there was another body at the garden center, if there would be another corpse to deal with, and another death to grieve.
I could see the problem, though, before I could even turn into the parking lot.
The corn maze was ripped down. Hay bales were unwrapped and strewn everywhere.
It was hard to tell at such a distance, but it looked like the pumpkins in the patch were all smashed.
“The fuck?” I said to Dom as I climbed out of my car.
“It’s worse than it looks,” Dom, never one to sugarcoat anything, said.
“How?”
“The decorations in the woods,” he said, nodding toward where Hazel was coming out of the woods with two lines between her brows, her lower lip pouting.
“Before she gets back, what are you thinking? Kids? Some early mischief night shit?”
“It’s possible. But if it was kids, they made sure to fuck with the cameras before they did the damage.”
“Did the footage catch them before they painted the cameras?”
“No, they didn’t spray them. They shot them out.”
“Well, that’s not good,” I said, raking my hand through my hair. “We have to get someone on new cameras. A fuck-ton of new cameras. And tell the other capos to amp up the security on any establishments.”
“I called Luca after you and told him. He’s working on getting in touch with everyone.”
“Dante,” Hazel said, getting closer. “I’m so sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? You had nothing to do with this.”
“I know. It’s just… God, they messed up everything.”
“We can fix it.”
“I don’t know if you’ve, you know, done the math. But it’s going to be incredibly expensive to fix this. I mean, the pumpkins alone…”
“The money doesn’t matter.” The place was a front anyway. And it had been incredibly profitable already. “I’m more worried about not being able to get enough supply.”
“I’ve already found a dozen separate places to draw supply from. And that’s just local. There are probably hundreds of places across the state if we need to keep reordering.”
“You’re on top of it already.”
“I’m trying. The straw is easy. But the decorations might be a little harder.”
“I can get on that,” Dom said, giving me a look.
“Yeah, if you could get started on that. And getting someone out here to redo the security system.”
“Got it.” He turned and made his way to his car.
“I can get started on hitting up all the different stores to get the pumpkins.”
“No, that won’t be necessary.”
“But we—”
“I will get some people on that. They can spread out and hit all the places. I think I need you here.”
“It is bad,” she agreed, looking back toward the field.
“I know it’s your day off…”
“No, I’m here and on this. I know this is your place, but it kind of feels a bit like mine too. I’m here more than I’m home.” She paused to kick a flake of hay. “I hate this.”
“On the plus side, we have plenty of hay for the scarecrows,” I said. “Has anyone checked the haunted house?”
“It was the first thing I did when I pulled in. The inside of the building is untouched as far as I can tell.”
“Speaking of, why were you here on your day off?”
To that, her gaze skirted away, glancing past me toward the lot. Following her gaze, I saw her looking at her car.
“I was, uh, passing by. And I saw the damage.”
That… felt like a lie.
But why would she be lying about that?
“Well, I think I’m going to go grab a rake. All the pumpkin guts need to get dealt with before the animals start sniffing around.”
“Good idea. I’ll grab the wheelbarrow.”
“Really? You don’t have people for this?” she asked. “I mean, aside from me.”
“I’m not above some manual labor. Though, yeah, this might be more than a two-person job,” I said, eyeing the sprawling field of destroyed pumpkins.
As we worked, I couldn’t help but wonder what the chances were that this was just a coincidence.
First Big Ed, then someone destroying the place. That said, if it was some sort of professional, why wouldn’t they have broken into the shop? Gone through the records? Found the stashed money?
It could just be a scare tactic.
Someone with a vendetta.
“You okay?” Hazel asked sometime later, reaching to wipe the back of her hand across her damp brow.
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure? You look really serious.”
“Just wondering who the fuck would do something like this,” I admitted as I raked the last of the pumpkin guts into a pile, then used one of the snow shovels to drop it into the wheelbarrow.
“People suck,” she said, exhaling hard. “But we did pretty good.”
“What are you doing?” I asked as she shoved her hands into the wheelbarrow, digging around.
“I’m saving some of the pumpkin seeds. Those green and white pumpkins are kind of expensive. I figure it would be smart to save our own for the planting season.”
She shook her guts-covered hand into a five-gallon bucket I’d missed before. She had it mostly full of seeds.
“Good thinking. Though that looks like a lot of work still.”
“It’s fine. I have no plans for the rest of the day. Looks like reinforcements are here,” she said, nodding her head toward where my brothers were making their way down to the field.
Not far behind them was my mother.
“Let your brothers take over for a while,” my mom said. “I brought dinner for you two.”
Hazel shot me a smirk.
“That’s so thoughtful, Giulia,” she said, reaching down for her bucket of seeds and slop. “I hope you’re joining us.”
“Oh, no. I have to pick up two of my grand babies for a sleepover.”
I had a feeling she’d set that up after she heard what was going on just so she had an excuse not to hang around with us.
When we finally made it to the picnic tables, I saw her vision really coming into focus.
Because she’d not only draped one in a tablecloth, set up nice dinnerware, and lit two hurricane lamps I was pretty sure came from the stockroom of the shop.
“Giulia! You should open a restaurant,” Hazel gushed before making her exit to go wash her hands.
“Mom, this is as subtle as a brick.”
“Oh, hush. Every woman loves a little romance.”
“Ma…”
“It never hurts to share a meal with a beautiful woman. Now go wash your hands then come back and be your charming self. Oh, and remind Hazel that she is invited to Sunday dinner again.”
“Mom—”
“Dante, she is all alone in the world.”
“She has a family.”
“In Florida! She’s all alone in this world. She needs us.”
She was laying it on thick, even for her.
“Is Dr. Sheldon coming?” I asked.
“Well, I have to get going!”
“Geez, what’d you say to her?” Hazel asked, making her way back.
“I asked her about the guy my sister set her up with.”
By the time I finished washing up, Hazel had all the food spread out. And had my mother’s plan for an intimate meal thwarted by inviting several of the guys over to share it with us.
The bone-deep disappointment I felt at not getting to be alone with her followed me all the way home.
But as I was in bed trying to sleep, the memory of her lie drifted back to me.
I couldn’t help but think that any hopes for some sort of relationship between us were doomed from the jump if we were both being dishonest with each other.
The thing was, I knew what I was lying about and why.
And I had no idea why she was lying to me.