Chapter 40
EMILY
“Biscotti! Biscotti!”
I push deeper into the shade. Though the café patio is barely twenty yards behind me, the trees here grow thick and close together, and the gravel path quickly dissolves into dirt and overgrown roots.
I don’t know this part of the park. Low-hanging branches catch at my jacket. The light is different here—filtered and dim, making this small patch of The Ramble feel isolated and eerie despite how close we still are to the café.
I call his name again and stop to listen. Nothing comes back.
Bile rises in my throat. Something shifts in the undergrowth. “Biscotti!”
But it’s only a raccoon, gray-brown with dark markings. It hisses at me before crawling back into the brush.
I cup my hands around my mouth and scream until my throat aches. “Biscotti!”
It’s then that I hear it. A weak whimper. Barely a sound at all.
A small, frightened dog.
I move slowly, trying not to snap any twigs underfoot. I hold my breath between his cries so I can hear the next one clearly.
When it comes again, thin and trembling, I follow the sound toward a dense wall of shrubs just a few steps off the dirt trail. I push through them with both hands.
When I see what lies within, the scream tears out of my chest before I can stop it.
Biscotti.
He’s strapped to a wooden butcher-block platter hidden among the bushes—staged just yards from where I’d been sitting moments ago. His black fur is matted and clumped with blood.
For one horrible second, I think he’s dead. Then his terrified brown eyes find mine, and he lets out a weak yip.
“Ernesto!” I scream.
Branches crack behind me as Ernesto comes running. I turn away, unable to look.
“Those fuckers,” he growls, dropping to his knees beside the board. “He’s alive, Mrs. Ricci. Look at him.”
Biscotti struggles against his restraints, fighting with every ounce of strength in his tiny body.
“Stand back while I get him loose,” Ernesto says.
His fingers move surprisingly gently as he works at the ropes. Only then do I realize the blood isn’t coming from Biscotti. Though his pink tummy is soaked red, there’s no wound on him at all.
The blood belongs to something else.
A few moments later, Ernesto lifts him free. I drop to my knees beside them. Biscotti immediately presses himself against me, trembling so hard I can feel it through his wet fur.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, clutching him against my chest. “I’ve got you.”
I lower my ear to him and listen. His heart is still beating. Fast. Frantic. But beating.
“I’d better call Dante,” Ernesto says, standing. “I left my phone in my jacket by the restaurant. I’ll be right back.”
I nod without looking up. Right now nothing matters except holding Biscotti. I wrap my arms around him and sit there in the dirt, trying to calm his shaking body.
Minutes tick by.
Where is Ernesto?