The Shooting Star, page 13
With jerky movements, she used her hat to wipe away the beads of sweat on her upper lip and walked back to Roberta. Peering down the hole, she was surprised to see Roberta had dug down about one foot. “Man, have you done this sort of thing before?”
Roberta stopped for a minute and reached for her water bottle sitting on the grass. She splashed some water on her face and used her hat to wipe it dry. “My mum has a huge garden. Say no more. By the way, where did you run to and what’s with the frown?”
Liz explained how she thought she’d seen someone watching them.
Flexing her fingers as she drank, Roberta said, “Don’t stress; probably some of the local kids spying on us, or,” she said with a grin, “maybe it was a ghost.”
Liz wasn’t so sure, but she wanted things to move faster, so she reached for the shovel and took over the digging.
Within a matter of minutes, a blister formed on her palm, but she ignored it and gritted her teeth. She made slow, steady progress, determined to do more than her share. Using the sleeve of her shirt, she wiped her face as beads of sweat rolled down her back. Pooling at the top of her shorts, she reached back to flap her shirt and released the sweaty moisture.
“Here, let me do some more.” Roberta playfully shoved Liz out of the way and snatched the shovel. “I’m eager to see some rocks, and we’re not too far from the two-foot mark.”
Liz used the bucket to remove some of the dirt away from the hole as Roberta continued to dig. “What will you do with dirt under your nails?”
“Hold you accountable, of course.” They chuckled despite the humid conditions. Watching Roberta’s arms strain under her sleeves, Liz couldn’t believe how one single letter had sent her halfway around the world in search of lost family jewels. You wouldn’t read about it.
She leant over for another bucket full of dirt when she heard a loud thud. Roberta groaned as she lay sprawled across the hole, face down near her feet.
Confused, a movement blurred her vision. A second blow. Something hard smacked against her head.
CHAPTER 19
Connor spied the time on his phone, showing nine am, and couldn’t believe how long he’d slept in. Wide awake, he lay on his back with his arms crossed behind his head. He had long since flung off the quilt, the loose cotton sheet tantalising his body, blood rushing to his lower half.
With eyes closed, he enjoyed the moment, wishing Liz was beside him. He wanted to stretch his length along hers, hold her in his arms and kiss her long enough to leave him in that mindless space where time meant nothing. I should be out digging.
Instead, his thoughts were stuck on the previous night and how he’d opened up to someone for the first time. He couldn’t tell Liz everything. He didn’t want to spoil the night with talk of his father or his family, which was well and truly coming apart at the seams. There was still so much he wanted to say, but not all at once.
He rested his hand on his chest, his heart beating faster than normal. The ease with which he opened up to Liz had his body on full alert, his heart doing extra time. But time was precious and fast running out. The more of it he spent with her, the more he craved it.
Later that day, when Liz was free of Roberta’s clutches, he would tell her. It was time she knew of their connection, time to let her know he knew of the jewels. For some reason, his confidence didn’t waver. She would understand his reasons for not saying anything earlier.
With a racing heartbeat and all, he swung his feet to the side of the bed, eager to get up and start the day.
He made his way to the old cemetery after borrowing a shovel from Zia Maria. His motives for needing one were vague. It was a flimsy excuse of being interested in plants and shrubs and keen to take some samples back home. He hoped his broken Italian conveyed the right message and his reasons were plausible enough not to warrant too much gossip throughout the small village.
He checked his pocket for his grandfather’s letter, anticipating he could estimate by eye well enough as he was not prepared with a compass or measuring stick.
The old cemetery was a good ten-minute walk from the centre of the village. With the sun well on its way to midday, he shifted his cap to angle it against the hot rays.
As he approached the only building near the fontana, he hoped it was the same one his grandfather had sketched on the letter. When he was nearly there, a man was peering around the corner with his back to Connor. He slowed his steps, suddenly suspicious about the man’s behaviour and whether he should turn tail and return later.
Liz and Roberta’s laughter in the air had his voice jamming in his throat when he tried to shout a warning. Dropping the shovel, his walk turned into a run when the man, unaware of his approach, sidled up the building with what looked like a piece of metal in his hand.
Confused about what the man was doing, he forced his feet to move faster. With fifty metres still to go, the man disappeared around the corner of the building, holding the metal bar as though ready to strike.
Nearing the building, Connor’s nostrils flared. Don’t you dare, you bastard. With noisy breath and his heart pounding against his ribcage, he reached the corner of the building and heard Roberta’s scream. Running at full pelt, the blow to Liz’s head left a sickening taste in his mouth. Only after she dropped to the ground did a piercing scream sear his throat as a rage so totally out of his control had him ramming his body into the man. The man fell with the impact and grunted. The offender’s foot became trapped in the partially dug hole, and Connor threw a punch in the general direction of his nose. Blood spurted out.
His arm froze midair when Roberta screamed beside him. Connor’s other fist was still hanging onto the man’s shirt, clenched tightly around his top left-hand pocket. In the space of seconds, his hand came into contact with something in it. The criminal roused himself, shoved Connor off and fled the scene. Connor looked down at his hand, holding what looked like a folded letter.
He shoved it in his trouser pocket and fell to his knees beside Liz. He should have held the man in a tight grip and bound his arms and legs until the police arrived, but Roberta’s screams had given him other priorities.
“Oh, my God, Liz, oh my God,” Connor repeated, cradling her in his arms. Unable to comprehend why they were attacked, he looked up. Roberta rose on unsteady legs with tears coursing down her face.
“We need an ambulance,” she cried. “My God, what just happened?” She fumbled with the pocket of her jeans as tears streamed down her face. “Where the hell is my phone?” With shaking hands, she finally retrieved it from a mound of soil and contacted her aunt.
He drew Liz closer, rocking her back and forth, speaking incoherently. Blood pooled near her left ear where a bluish bruise was forming. He lost sense of all time until the paramedics prised him from her body. They took control of the situation, wheeling Liz and Roberta on gurneys to awaiting ambulances.
Connor remained rooted to the ground, too dumbfounded to understand the violence he had just witnessed and the reasons behind it. He barely managed to register the flashing lights of the departing ambulances and the two police officers approaching him. On shaky legs, he rose as they came closer, using every ounce of strength to curb the well of emotion that butted against his chest and threatened to spill over into tears. Liz is badly hurt.
As he straightened his back, the overhead sun glinted on a piece of metal about a metre away from where he stood. Instinctively and without a thought, he walked towards it. He stooped down, picked it up and gasped. Liz’s lucky charm. Thrusting it into his jeans pocket, he had every intention of fixing it back onto her backpack.
Four days later, Liz continued to lie in an induced coma in the hospital. Four whole days where Roberta declined to speak to him, adamant he was somehow responsible for what happened. Connor refused to let Roberta’s suspicions stand in his way, and he drove the distance between Falerna and the hospital at Lamezia Terme every day. When visiting hours permitted, he held Liz’s hand and begged her to come back to him, hoping his words were decipherable through a throat constricted with fear that she might not recover.
His stiff body rose from the uncomfortable hospital chair, and he stretched the kinks out of his legs. Nothing could release the bunched-up muscles around his chest. This situation reminded him too much of sitting beside his grandfather’s bed in his final days. Liz was too young, and they’d only just connected. Was he cursed?
He bent to kiss her cheek and gave her hand a final squeeze. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he whispered.
On his way out, Connor left the hospital his credit card details and instructed them to cover all her costs. With weariness pressing down on his shoulders, he approached the sliding entrance doors as Roberta entered.
“Roberta, wait.”
She tried to sidestep around him, but his arm came out and halted her progress.
“What?”
Anger spurted through his chest. “You’ve got this all wrong.”
“Leave her alone, Connor. I’ll handle this, thank you very much.”
“What about her family?”
“I’ll sort it out.”
He didn’t know enough about Liz to be able to contact her family, and this didn’t help his state of mind. He only had her phone number. Breaking into the house next door to secure contact details from Liz’s belongings had crossed his mind for a fleeting moment before he flicked it away. It wouldn’t help the situation.
He straightened and folded his arms. “Blackening my name with the police won’t help. You’ve got no idea why I’m here.” She tried to move on, but he gripped her shoulder, unwilling to end it this way. “The thief who stole her letter in Rome is behind this.”
“And you know how?” She ripped his hand off her shoulder and made to walk off. “There’s too much going on here that’s sus. I didn’t trust you the first day we met, and I still don’t. Go away. Go back to wherever you came from. I’m taking care of Liz now, and I’ll get her home in one piece.”
“I’m not leaving, and the police were more than happy with my version of events.” He’d decided not to show them the letter he had secured from the thief. He knew only too well how it would appear once Roberta learnt he had the original one the thief stole at the airport. He was under no illusion that the thief had followed the instructions in the letter to a tee and had followed Liz to Falerna, hoping to unearth the jewels himself. What concerned him, though, was that the thief was still out there, somewhere.
“Yeah, you use whatever power of persuasion you like. Throw all the money you can at the police and corrupt them too, but I know something smells off here. You’re connected somehow, and I don’t like it.”
Roberta had no idea how connected he was, and he wasn’t about to enlighten her. She stalked off towards the elevators, leaving him frustrated that she should view him this way when it was so far from the truth. But he had to tell Liz the truth first. Roberta would have to wait.
Back in Falerna, the breeze rustled both letters he held in his hand. His heart twisted as he studied his grandfather’s style of writing and Uncle Ben’s. For the years they had spent apart, their handwriting appeared identical.
Reading them again, it amazed him that their memory of that night was identical when it came time for them to record it. He looked up from where he sat on an old concrete pillar on Il Ponto, the old bridge in Falerna. He watched old men with pipes hanging from their mouths, their hats askew, playing friendly hands of poker between friends. He took in the weather-beaten buildings, some a testament to the hundreds of years they had withstood time. With a start, he realised his grandfather was once here with these same buildings.
He rose and meandered along the bridge. Inquisitive eyes followed his every step. He smiled and acknowledged their curiosity with a slight wave of his hand. Stopping to appreciate the half-mooned tiled roofs in a sea of sunburnt orange, his gaze drifted towards the endless horizon of the ocean in the distance, tears pricking his eyes. The memory of watching the sunsets with Liz was as vivid as the day itself.
When he looked down towards the meandering river under the bridge, wild prickly pear grew along its banks. Immediately, he was reminded of his grandfather’s love of the exotic fruit and the lengths he would occasionally go to obtain them. Fico d’India is what his grandfather called the fruit, and Connor had often enjoyed their soft, sweet flesh.
For the first time since arriving in Falerna, his chest constricted at the connection between the grandfather he had loved and the young boy who was raised in this small village.
“Benito. Benito.”
Connor swung around at the familiar name. An old, stooped man approached him in what looked like an agonising effort to walk the short distance. Each step an Olympic hurdle. Connor rushed closer to the hunched man and helped him towards a concrete seat near the bridge’s rail, all the while his heart thumping against his chest.
Looking into watery, red-rimmed eyes, gnarled hands gripped Connor’s arm. He used every scrap of energy his tired brain had left to make sense of what the man was telling him.
“You remind me so much of Benito. We were good friends.”
Connor recalled his grandfather’s words on his last night and, in an instant, knew this kind, old man was talking about his grandfather’s missing twin. Connor seated him as gently as he could, the old man refusing to release his hold on his arm.
The man took a few moments to rest, his breathing laboured. “You’re looking in the wrong place for the jewels,” he revealed.
Connor gripped the edge of the concrete seat with his spare hand. Oh my God, someone else knows about them? In halting dialect, he asked, “How do you know about the jewels?”
The old man smiled with missing teeth, those remaining, blackened with time. “I was there that night. I watched them dig the hole in the rain, but I hid well behind Fetuletti’s old house.”
Seeming to relax, the old man released his hold and reached into his jacket pocket. With tobacco-stained fingers, he pulled out his pipe and lit it before taking a couple of puffs. Connor inhaled the strong smell, curbing the need to cough it out of his lungs, waiting patiently for him to continue.
After a couple more puffs, he asked, “Who are you?”
In dialect, Connor replied, “I am Nicolo’s grandson, and on the night he died, he asked me to come to Falerna and retrieve his mother’s jewels.”
The old man nodded, continuing to smoke. “It was a tragedy when their parents were murdered. I was so scared the same people would murder my family. I never told a soul about seeing Benito and Nicolo that night.” He paused and turned his wrinkled face towards Connor. “I’d forgotten the memory until I heard strangers in town were looking for an old fontana dei poveri. When I saw you today, the memory rushed back to me, and I knew I had to finally tell someone.”
Relief swept through Connor. Something hadn’t clicked when he’d compared his grandfather’s diagram to the water fountains he’d inspected. But why is there no record of this other fountain?
He snapped back to attention and concentrated on the old man’s next words. “The fontana where they buried the jewels was already old and disused back then. Fetuletti’s old house was eventually used as an orphanage after the war. If you didn’t know about the fontana, you’d never recognise it today. The building is now used for childcare during the week, and the old fontana faces the outdoor play area. On weekends, there is no one around.”
The old man patted his hand. “I missed my friends after they disappeared, and nothing was ever the same. Do you know if Benito survived the war?”
Connor smiled. “What is your name?”
“Saverio.”
In halting dialect, he told Saverio what he knew about Benito and a little about his grandfather’s life.
When he finished, Saverio rose to leave. In a panic, Connor quickly asked, “Where is the old orphanage building?”
“Four streets back from the café on the corner.”
Not wanting Saverio to leave, Connor asked if he needed help walking back home. Saverio waved him away as though insulted by such a request.
Saverio took a few slow steps, then stopped as though already puffed and turned back with a smile. With the skin around his eyes sagging and wrinkling down onto his cheeks, he said, “Benito was a good friend, and in his memory, I will not tell anyone what I have told you.” His hands shook by his side. “God can take me now. My duty is done. I hope you find the jewels your family deserves to have. I know they are still there. Benito and Nicolo never came back for them. People assumed the parents were killed for them. I hope they bring you good luck instead of the bad luck that destroyed their family.”
When he turned away again, Connor only just caught the rest of what Saverio said as he waved goodbye. “It does my heart good to learn they both survived the war.”
CHAPTER 20
As Saverio painstakingly walked back across Il Ponto, Connor’s legs grew suddenly weak. Lowering himself onto the concrete seat, he knew he’d never forget Saverio’s genuine, kind face. I know exactly where to find the jewels. I have to tell Liz.
The doctors had told him they hoped she would come out of her induced coma today. Would he find her awake if he left to visit her now? He jumped up with every intention of having a quick look at the childcare centre before racing down the mountain to Lamezia Terme.
He barely reached the other side of Il Ponto when his mobile phone vibrated in his top pocket.
His frown deepened when Phil’s number flashed across the screen. “Phil, hello, how are you?”
“Connor, I’m glad you answered immediately.”
A flash of fear moved across his chest. There was no reason for Phil to call unless something was wrong. They’d exchanged messages during the past two weeks about business, so it didn’t bode well that he was phoning.
