Chapter 13 JEMMA #2
‘Not going to argue with the neurotic lady.’ Tien chuckled. ‘But maybe check with your neighbours.’
‘Can’t. My apartment’s a single, above my dad’s cafe. No neighbours.’
‘A cafe?’ Tien planted both hands on her desk. ‘You mean a commercial venture that might have some kind of security surveillance?’
She stared at him, waves of relief rippling through her.
Of course. She hadn’t realised she was so stressed, yet now she was almost tearing up.
‘Tien, you are so wasted here. You should be solving crime for the cops, or hanging out with Batman, or something equally epic. If there’s a camera, I can get the footage, and mystery solved. ’
‘Actually, you probably can’t,’ Tien cautioned with an apologetic wrinkle of his nose. ‘Most places record on a loop, so the record would be long gone.’
‘Oh.’
Tien took her empty cup, stacked it in his.
‘But it’s something to bear in mind if there’s another note.
And you know what else? If it’s not kids, it could even be some kind of marketing campaign.
“You are being watched.” “You’re not as safe as you think you are.
” Maybe they’re leading to some conclusion like, I don’t know—’ He cast around, then snapped his fingers.
‘“Tired of getting unwanted junk mail from an unknown sender? Invest in our security system and always know exactly who is at your door.”’
‘Another calling you missed,’ she said, though she barely managed a smile.
The rapid cycle of tension-relief-tension had left her exhausted.
She regretted that she’d allowed the issue to fester, when Tien had so quickly dealt with it.
‘I’m catching up with Dad for dinner tonight, so I’ll ask him about the cameras then. ’
‘You’re cooking?’ Tien asked innocently, though he followed the question with a mischievous grin.
‘Not likely. No, it’s the usual family dinner at the trattoria.’
‘Perfect, you’ll get this sorted in no time.’
‘God, I hope so. I feel like I haven’t slept properly for weeks.
At least, not at the apartment.’ Bizarrely, now that Tien had offered not one but two entirely plausible stories for the threats, it seemed okay to admit just how much the issue had been preying on her mind.
She should have spoken with him straight after the second note arrived.
‘Doesn’t show. But I keep telling you a roommate would be the perfect solution.’
She chuckled at his relentless hinting. ‘I won’t share my space with even a cat. But seriously, I’d be lost without you, Tien.’
‘You know it.’ He grinned and held the cups up as he headed for the door. ‘And lost without my perfect caffeine pimping, right?’
A slight frown chased her smile. Dad liked to brag about the proprietary blend he used in the cafe, yet the coffee Tien picked up was every bit as good. In fact, it was identical. It looked like Dad’s supplier was double-dealing, selling the bespoke blend elsewhere.
‘Mangia,’ Nonna commanded as she set a tureen of minestrone in the centre of the kitchen table.
Only on special occasions did they eat in the restaurant itself, and even then, with their number increased tenfold by the inclusion of cousins, aunts and uncles, many of them would end up standing around the well-used workbench, swapping stories and food.
‘Bet you’re popular on buses, Dante,’ Jemma said as her uncle straddled a stool, forcing her to dismount and pull her chair further along the bench.
‘I don’t use public transport,’ he replied with a puzzled frown.
‘Manspreading,’ Dad said.
The explanation didn’t seem to help either Dante or her grandparents, but Jemma shot her father a grin. It was a game they liked to play, scoring points against Dante without hurting his feelings.
‘Taking up more than your share of the seating space,’ Jemma clarified.
Dante looked pleased, and thumped one of his thighs with the fist clenched around his spoon. ‘Bad boys, aren’t they? I’m squatting a hundred-ninety-eight kilos on five reps.’
‘Dante always looks good,’ Nonna said, determinedly oblivious to her son’s steroid use. ‘And Pierce, you are also looking well. Samanta must be feeding you.’
Nonno guffawed. ‘You think he suddenly cannot feed himself? He has his own restaurants, feeds hundreds of people, probably thousands, every year.’
‘Yes, but that’s different,’ Nonna said stoutly. ‘Does your cousin the plumber have tiles in his bathroom yet? Doesn’t your brother park his concreting truck on a mud driveway? And I still feed you, don’t I?’
‘Always, my Rosa,’ Nonno said, smacking a loud kiss against her cheek and presenting her with a glass of red wine as though it were a rose.
‘Jemma, though, she is the one with no one to feed her, no one to care for her,’ Nonna said, moving the conversation back to a tried-and-tested subject.
Jemma groaned. ‘Remind me why I look forward to family dinners.’ She’d only managed a couple of spoonfuls of the hearty soup, yet Nonno was already leaning forward to refill her bowl.
He winked. ‘It is the only way to escape your grandmother’s lamento,’ he said.
‘Lucky it tastes like home, then,’ she replied, accepting the plate of Parmigiano Reggiano from Dante and sprinkling the straw-coloured cheese liberally over her soup.
‘It is already seasoned, Jemma,’ Nonna reproved.
‘I know. And perfectly. But you can’t get too much of a good thing, right?’
‘Well, you can,’ Nonna said, patting her own stomach, apparently oblivious to the irony in having just exhorted Jemma to eat more. ‘You—’
A dull bang trembled the air, instantly perforated by a sharp crack.
Nonna gave a little squeal, knocking over her glass as she leaped back from the counter.
Nonno reached for her, instinctively wrapping her in a protective embrace.
Dante sank into a crouch, a pugilist’s squat, as he spun toward the trattoria.
And Dad’s arm shot out, tugging Jemma close.
Each action happened in the blink of an eye, yet it seemed Jemma’s heart had been stopped forever by the time she registered the tinny revving of a motorbike, followed by the squeal of tyres at the front of the building.
‘Stay here,’ Nonno ordered.
Everyone ignored him, crowding through the kitchen doors into the restaurant.
The half-dozen tables nearest the window, covered with white tablecloths and set for the next day’s service, were littered with shards of glass.
As Dad hit the light switch, the glass pieces twinkled as though they pulsed with life.
‘Che cazzo!’ Nonno said.
‘Rocco,’ Nonna warned. Though her grandmother could be relied on to scold them for cursing no matter the circumstances, she hung back in the kitchen doorway, her apron clutched in her hands, pressed to her heart.
A cold breeze swirled through the room, turning the hems of the tablecloths into dancing ghosts.
‘I told those coglione they’d scratched the window when they cleaned it last week,’ Nonno fumed, his shoes crunching in glass. ‘Now look. Shattered.’
‘Be careful where you walk,’ Nonna cautioned.
Jemma had started into the room, but changed her mind, placing her arm around Nonna’s waist instead. It was unusual to see her grandmother shaken.
‘We have to get this cleaned up,’ Dante said. ‘I’ll have to call someone in.’
‘Or, you know, we could clean it up ourselves,’ Dad said.
The three men walked further into the room. Dad and Nonno stood with their hands on their narrow hips, surveying the mess. Dante had his arms akimbo, as though his overinflated biceps made it impossible to bend them normally.
Thick window glass littered the floor and tables. Jagged shards gaped from the frame like shark’s teeth.
Another sheet of glass fell, exploding as it hit the floor and making Jemma jump and Nonna squeal as a spray of fine crystals ballooned across the room like a cartoon cannon blast.
Dad blew out a heavy breath. ‘Grab a brush and dustpan, Mum. Jemma, bring the big steel bin. Dad, you see if the insurance company has an after-hours number to call. If not, I imagine it’s a straightforward insurance claim, but we’ll have to take a photo before we clean up.
Dan, you find a plastic tarp or something similar, and some gaffer tape.
We don’t need the rain blowing in as well as all this mess. ’
He stepped forward, halting as glass crunched underfoot. ‘What’s this?’ He bent, then straightened, a smooth granite rock in his hand.
Jemma recognised it immediately: despite a barrage of notifications and fines from the local council for unauthorised use of the Crown land area, Nonno kept a forty centimetre–deep garden in front of the trattoria.
He filled the bed with bright seasonal flowers to match the baskets hanging from wrought-iron hooks either side of the windows.
The garden strip was bordered with the smooth, fist-sized boulders Nonna had collected from the beach—another transgression—and caused a trip hazard, according to council.
But it wasn’t the rock that made her heart stutter.
It was the distinctive, pale-blue aerogramme notepaper tied around the rock with butcher’s twine.
Paper that was a perfect match with the two notes she’d found in her letterbox.
Dad hefted the rock. ‘What the hell have you done this time, Dante?’ he growled. ‘I knew you’d bring shit down on the family.’
‘Not me, bro.’ Her uncle threw up both hands, palms out.
‘Jemma?’ Nonna said sharply as Jemma retreated, stepping backward into the kitchen.
She tried to speak, but no words came out. Why hadn’t she taken the threats more seriously, instead of being placated by Tien? ‘It … it’s meant for me. I think.’ It was absurd to hope that someone else had the lightweight blue paper that probably no one used anymore. Who wrote letters, nowadays?
Who, other than her stalker, that was.
‘What?’ Dad barked. ‘Why would it be for you?’
‘I got a couple … before,’ she admitted.
Dad looked confused, then held out the paper-bound rock to her as though he wasn’t certain whether the claim made it her property.
She shook her head. She wasn’t touching it. What had been a disconcerting mystery, an almost-imaginary focus for her ire and stress, was suddenly all too real.
Dante strode forward and grabbed the rock.
‘No, Dan, leave it—’ Dad started, but Dante had already snapped the string.
He unwound the note.
Jemma shut her eyes. One last prayer, one last hope that this had nothing to do with her.
‘“Three strikes, you’re out,”’ Dante read aloud.