Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
Consciousness brought pain.
Touching her bruised windpipe, she rasped out a difficult “Hello.”
Her father’s voice boomed: “Ciao, bella!”
It was like her childhood when he would bound, singing, into her bedroom in the predawn hours, flipping on the lights.
Nikki groaned.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Izzy tells me Preston’s awake. How is he?”
“Better than they’d hoped,” she said.
She recounted what the doctors had said.
“Good, good,” he said. “When are you coming back?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’m on duty in the afternoon.”
“I’m at your place,” he told her. “I can get in through the gate but my key for your door isn’t working.”
“What are you doing at my flat?”
He coughed, and made that little humming noise he used whenever he didn’t want to explain himself. “I don’t want to bother you…. I’m looking for something your mother may have left behind.”
Until the flat was bequeathed to Nikki last year, her mother had owned the place for decades. There were still boxes, and cabinets full of papers and files Nikki hadn’t taken time to sort through yet.
“I changed the locks,” she said.
She’d never told her father about the home invasion that had necessitated this. Her mind flexed as that memory merged with the immediacy of Teddy’s attack last night, triggering tension and filling her mouth with the tang of fear.
She sat, and felt for the light switch, squinting in the sudden glare.
“Oh.” He sounded deflated.
He was silent a long moment.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“If you don’t have the key for me, you don’t have the key,” he said, sounding irritable. “Fine. You should give Massimo a copy, though. He’s watched over this place for decades. A man can be offended when he gives such loyalty and you shut him out!”
Nikki sighed.
“Valerio has the spare,” she told him. “You can always give him a call.”
He hummed again, the sound of deliberation.
“You’ll be back tomorrow?” he said. “I’ll come tomorrow.”
—
Unable to recapture sleep, Nikki stomped to the toilet and then to the kitchen.
Tension and aggravation twitched through her body, and she wished she could work into her punching bag.
—
Izzy and Preston’s home, usually tidy and welcoming, needed cleaning: dishes stacked in the sink, books and papers on tables and chairs. Nikki made coffee, set the porridge on to cook, chopped an apple, then cleared a space on the table and sat.
While the coffee brewed, she iced her throat and worked from her phone, writing an email to her students about the fire in the studio. Classes were canceled until she could find another location.
On Instagram, Sally had accepted her follow request.
Nikki typed a private message: You told me about Claire’s blog last night. Can you share a link?
Sally wrote back immediately: What did you do? Teddy is fuming about you.
Nikki exhaled, throat suddenly tighter. She didn’t answer.
Sally wrote, Seriously. He thinks you’re a supervillain. He’s trying to find out everything about you.
She sent a photo from the memorial where Nikki and Sally could be seen seated at a table together. Then a series of screenshots from a group chat where Teddy called her a “stalker bitch” and demanded information about her.
What did you tell him? Nikki asked.
As a security investigator, Nikki had careful social media practices; her accounts gave no clues to her actual identity. She was grateful for these protections now, although she didn’t remember if she’d shared her full name.
Sally’s response came almost immediately: Don’t know anything, do I? Who are you? I won’t tell.
Distrusting the proffered discretion, Nikki wrote, a friend.
—
She texted Izzy, asking if she needed anything from the house, then sipped coffee and ate, thumbing through the sparse notes from last night. Her brain was sluggish: a heavy press of ennui dulling her sharp edges.
The notes from her conversation with Teddy were especially unsatisfying. This annoyed her. Nikki thought about it for a few minutes, then searched her phone for a contact she hadn’t used in a long time. It was doubtful the number worked after all these years, but she tried anyway.
Hi Ethan. It’s Nikki, she texted. Back in London for the day. Need your help with something.
A few minutes passed before he wrote back: Good god! Nikki! Haven’t seen your name for an age. I take it you’ve joined the Foreign Legion, or started a cult. Would I say no to you?
Nikki smiled, and told him what she needed.
—
It was nearly 08:00. She did the dishes, swept and wiped down the kitchen, showered, dressed, and headed out the door.
On her way to the station, Nikki’s phone rang.
Not recognizing the number, she answered in Italian. “Who is this?”
“Hello,” a male voice said in English. “This is Mac van den Berg…from Friday night. I think I made a bad impression. I’d like a chance to start over.”
“How did you get this number?”
“Gianni gave it to me.”
Nikki exhaled, hands flexing. Gianni had never respected her privacy. “I’m in the middle of something. So, whatever this is…”
“I know,” said Mac. “Your uncle. London. Sorry about that.”
“Gianni’s sharing a lot,” Nikki snapped.
“Oh, you shouldn’t blame your brother,” he said with a jovial chuckle. “I work in intel, remember? I have ways to get what I need.”
Nikki stopped walking, irritation transforming into anger.
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” she said.
“This is what I do.”
“What the fuck?” The words exploded. “Are you monitoring me? You think this makes me trust you?”
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” Mac said. “Listen…I want to ask you something. Professionally. You’re a security investigator. You track threats. You understand Naples. You know how power shifts when certain people are…out of the picture.”
He paused, then coughed.
“If you have something to say, say it,” she said.
“I just think sometimes…” He breathed heavily. “We’re so sure we know the game, we forget to ask who benefits when a piece is removed…from the board.”
The words, thick with implication, fed Nikki’s anger. “What the fuck are you talking about? Is that a threat?”
He laughed. “No, no! God, no. Just an observation.”
“I’m hanging up,” she told him.
“If I needed to find someone,” he wheedled, “someone powerful…where would you say I should start?”
“Not my problem.”
She hung up.
—
Back in the hospital, Preston was serenading Izzy.
Nikki heard his voice as she walked the corridor to his room, a crooning love song she didn’t recognize.
“This is the love of my life,” he announced to Nikki when she came into view.
Izzy was by Preston’s bedside, holding his hand in both of hers: tired but happy. Preston’s expression was an ecstasy of love, his white hair spread across the pillow like the wisping tendrils of an undersea plant.
“How are you feeling?” Nikki asked.
He chuckled. “Feels like I fell down the stairs. Brain’s a bit mushy. If you quizzed me, I’m sure I couldn’t tell my Tacitus from my Pliny.”
“I know the difference,” said Izzy. “I put arthritis cream on your Tacitus every morning!”
They were like children, cackling and hooting in laughter.
—
About an hour later, a nurse came to take Preston for another scan, and Nikki walked Izzy to the hospital canteen.
The tea scalded Nikki’s mouth.
Izzy didn’t drink. Instead, she stared, fingers flitting around the edges of the paper cup.
“Preston and I have been together four decades,” she said with a sigh. “You’d think that was enough time. That I should count myself lucky. But I’m selfish. I want more. He has good days—I live for those. And even on the bad days, he still remembers how much he loves me.”
Izzy reached across the table and took Nikki’s hand in both of hers.
“I’m so sorry about Enzo. Is it too soon? May I ask…is there anyone else?”
The words were ice, pressing into Nikki.
Izzy continued, squeezing her hand. “I do want someone for you, sweetheart. To have something of what I’ve had.”
To love like that, you needed trust and openness. Those didn’t exist for Nikki anymore. In their place, she found the aching echo of a dark cave, the choking black smoke of a building ablaze.
She implicitly understood the dimensions of the loss—as if a vital organ had been cut from her body, the pain of severed nerves to tell her where it should have been.
Pressure built in her chest; her heartbeat ached against it. She wanted to bolt.
“Oh, I’m a nosy old woman,” Izzy said, releasing her hand with a pat. “You don’t need to tell me anything.”
—
They spent the next few minutes discussing Izzy’s plans for moving Preston’s rehabilitation.
Nikki had researched a few options online, and tried to get her aunt to consider different scenarios—in case Preston didn’t recover as quickly as Izzy hoped.
But with the immediate danger passed, her aunt didn’t seem interested in revisiting the fear of the past two days.
“You’re so much like your mother,” said Izzy, her gaze soft. “If you could only see how alike you two are.”
“That’s a nice way of saying irrationally stubborn,” Nikki said.
Izzy laughed.
“No. I mean—practical, logistical. And clever enough to bury the pain. Clever enough to distract us. To keep us from the truth. Beatrice hid inside her games, her intrigues…so that we wouldn’t see her grieve.”
“I saw her grieve,” Nikki said.
She would never forget the howling, the rage, the fierce isolation.
If the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness!
“Too late, the dam finally broke,” Izzy said. “It had to, didn’t it? And when she lost Adriano…oh, Adriano. Beautiful boy!”
Her eyelids fluttered and closed, her right hand moving in the air as if to music, before coming to rest on her heart. She stayed like that for several breaths, then shook her head.
Her eyes glistened as she examined her cup.
“Beatrice always covered her pain,” she said. “Always. You know, she was only seven when our mother left.”