Deception, page 18
“Worst-case scenario, we come back with berries,” I muttered.
Santino ignored my comment and opened his door. He was wearing sunglasses, so I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. He wasn’t happy we were here, but tough luck. I had to do this.
Shelves filled with jams, boxes of berries and other farm produce lined every available shop space. It was a big room, but we had to duck and wind our way to the register where a woman about my age stood.
“Welcome to Hills View Berries. Anything I can help you with?”
Santino stayed behind me like an ever-present shadow, but I’d given up telling him to relax. He didn’t agree with me going off without a plan. But we were on a berry farm, for heaven’s sake.
“Do you have any special offers today?” I asked, glancing around the store. It resembled any other shop, though maybe a little messier.
The woman came out from behind the counter and walked up to a table off to the side. “We have a ‘buy one, get two’ honey pot offer. We also give a discount when you buy more than a pint of berries. Or if you’re looking for cakes, you get a 20 percent discount if you buy the entire cake.”
The girls would love all of it. Since I hated wasting my time, I got one of each. Most expensive berries and honey I’d ever purchased since they came with a plane ticket.
She wrapped it all up for me, watching Santino out of the corner of her eye. We couldn’t bring our guns on the plane, so at least he wasn’t flashing his piece at her, making her even more nervous than she already was. But driving would have taken too long.
I paid, and she handed me two bags. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve never been here before.”
She shrugged. “Maybe you have one of those faces.”
I gave her a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe. Have a good day.”
“You too.”
We left the shop, and it was hard to hold the disappointment at bay. I’d not only wasted a day away from Everleigh and Sofie, but I’d gotten no closer to finding out what was going on.
I put my sunglasses on, glancing back at the shop. “Maybe we should leave it be. They’re just selling berries, not trafficking guns.”
We’d never know for sure what they were doing unless we went inside all the other buildings. But short of breaking in, that wouldn’t happen.
Santino opened the trunk. “Want to stay the night? I can come back once it’s dark and have a look around.”
It was a tempting offer. But was I getting too paranoid? Their grounds were well maintained. The few animals I’d spotted looked well fed. And the berries were a legitimate business. Maybe I’d never find out what was going on.
I needed to let this rest and concentrate on what mattered: finding a job and convincing Everleigh to marry me. I wanted to make her mine completely. There would never be another for me. This I knew with absolute certainty. And it was time to make it official.
A chicken squawked, and then something dropped to the ground. “Dios mio,” a voice called out.
I looked up at an older woman, her hands clutched to her chest, broken eggs all around her. She was staring at me with wide eyes, trying to say something but no words coming out.
The woman from the shop rushed past me. “¿Qué pasó?”
They had a whispered conversation, and then the younger woman’s head snapped up.
Santino shifted from foot to foot, his eyes flitting around the grounds as if he expected someone to jump out from behind the goat.
The older woman approached on shaky legs, supported by the shopgirl, who had an arm around her.
When they reached me, I could see tears in her eyes. She didn’t stop until she was almost toe-to-toe with me. Reaching out, she cupped my face.
Santino made a move to rip her arm right off me, but I held up my hand. “No. It’s okay.”
She must have been in her seventies, and the last thing I wanted was to give her a heart attack.
“You’re Eliana’s boy.”
Her English was accented but clear. Though it wasn’t so much her familiar voice that threw me but that she knew my mother. “I am. Did you know her?”
She started crying. “She was my sister. I’ve been waiting to see you again for a long time. I’m Moni, your aunt.”
I didn’t know my mother had any siblings. She had died when I was seven, and Maurizio never talked about her. It was as if she’d been erased from my life.
“My cousin sometimes sent me pictures of you. She told me what a great man you turned out to be. Nothing like your father. But she hasn’t been in touch in at least two years.”
I was reeling from the revelation of not only having an aunt but also another relative. “I didn’t know I had any family left.”
“Neither did Maurizio. But Mariana was smart. She married young, changed her name, moved away. And when her husband died and then Eliana, she knew she had to take care of the scared little boy my sister left behind. She always looked out for you as much as she could while that bastard was around.”
She spit on the ground when she said the last word.
Mariana taking care of me made so much more sense now. “He’s dead. And Mariana is safe in Georgetown.”
She made the sign of the cross, and a smile split her face. She had the same dimple in her right cheek as my mom. The same one I had. I remembered my mom very little, but I remembered that. I had one photo of her that I always kept close to me. It was of her holding me as a toddler, a big smile on her face.
“Did you…?” Moni trailed off, leaving the question unspoken.
I shook my head.
Nodding, she stepped back. “Doesn’t matter who it was. He deserved it. Most evil man I’ve ever met. When Eliana first went out with him, I told her he was bad news. But she wouldn’t listen. Told me she was in love.” A wistful look came over her face. “And in the end, she was too scared to leave.”
She turned to who I recognized must be her daughter. “Where are my manners? Ava, close up the shop and grab some cake. We need to celebrate.”
Moni led us to a table in the yard behind the house, surrounded by apple and cherry trees.
Santino took a reluctant seat, still not believing we were completely safe. It was hard to erase a lifetime of conditioning. I knew he wanted to poke around the house and then stand guard instead of eating cake and drinking lemonade.
But that was what we ended up doing. Even Santino couldn’t stop himself from eating two slices.
Ava kept stealing glances at him. Santino ignored her, but I knew he was aware of everything going on around him. He’d have noticed her attention straying to him.
I’d introduced him when we first sat down, but other than a nod at the women, he hadn’t acknowledged them.
Moni told us stories from when Mom was younger, careful to avoid any parts that included Maurizio.
“How did you end up here?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Maurizio wanted us out of the way. But at that stage, my husband was too high up for him to get rid of us like he did with any other problem. He made a deal with him. Immigrate to the States, never contact him again, and he’d pay us.” She looked down at her lap, shaking her head as if to change the memory. “I had nothing left but grief. Eliana had died the previous summer, and I wasn’t allowed to see you anymore. And my husband had always been ambitious. He took the deal.”
“How come Maurizio never backed out? Or didn’t kill you anyway?” Maurizio was greedy and selfish. He’d have tried to get out of paying them.
“My husband did at least one thing right in his life. He took evidence with him. Correspondence between Maurizio and the Prime Minister of Guyana at the time. It was enough to make him comply.”
That must have been some pretty condemning evidence if it held up all these years later. But it didn’t matter now. Maurizio was gone, and with him, any threat to them.
We stayed outside for hours. And while I wanted to hear more stories about my mom, I wanted to get home more. I needed my girls now more than ever.
“We should go, or we’ll miss our flight.” I stood up, the others following.
Moni hugged me, holding on for a while as if she were afraid I’d disappear if she let go. “Promise you’ll come back. And bring your family. I can’t wait to meet them.”
“I’m sure they’d love to meet you.”
We drove back to the airport, my mind reeling from the revelations. The need to see my girls made me drive straight to Thea’s as soon as we were back in San Diego.
Chapter 29
Everleigh
“Finally,” Thea greeted us at her front door, which was made for giants. “I’ve been waiting for hours for you to get here.”
“It’s eight in the morning. I’m surprised you’re up already.”
She poked her tongue out at me. “I’ve been getting up at five every morning. I’m trying out a new routine. First meditation, then yoga.”
“Sounds exciting,” I said, unable to stop my nose from crinkling. All it sounded like to me was exhausting.
She pushed me out of the way and kneeled in front of Sofie.
“What do you want to do first? We can swim in the pool, paint, or play cards. Ever said you love card games.”
Sofie had met Thea a few times, but was still shy around her. My friend was a tornado, nothing quiet or unassuming about her. And despite her best intentions, Sofie wasn’t too sure about her yet.
But today seemed to be a brave day for her, because she took the hand Thea held out and followed her inside.
I grabbed our bags and dropped them near the entrance. I’d sort them out later.
“Grab the swimsuits,” Thea called over her shoulder. “Sofie wants to start with a swim.”
We spent a perfect day at Thea’s mansion, playing in the pool until we all turned pink. Thea had organized an art instructor to come in and paint with us. Sofie loved doing arts and crafts and kept painting until it was time for dinner.
“How about a movie night?” Thea asked once her housekeeper had cleared the last dish off her table that seated about twenty people. We’d crammed into a corner so we could have a conversation without shouting at each other.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Sofie cheered, racing to the theater room. She’d been here before and remembered the room that resembled a cinema. It even had drink holders and a projector screen.
I grabbed our champagne glasses, and Thea the bucket, and we followed Sofie’s shouts. She was already working on the popcorn machine when we walked inside the large room that housed four rows of plush seats that you couldn’t help but curl up in.
Thea plopped down in a chair, topping up her glass. “What do you want to watch, pipsqueak?”
Sofie immediately shouted, “Moana.”
She jumped into the chair next to mine, putting up the footstool. The movie turned on and we hunkered down in our seats. Sofie was asleep by the time Moana sailed away from her island.
We turned the movie off but stayed where we were, the seats comfortable and the refills within reach.
I felt like we were teenagers again, stealing Dad’s drinks. He never noticed because he never remembered he had kids in the first place. But it allowed us to get drunk during my parents’ dinner parties. Archer once threw up in one of Mom’s flowerbeds and then passed out. They never found out.
We weren’t sneaking the alcohol any longer. But sitting in the dim light of the movie theater almost felt like we were back in high school.
Thea was drunker than I’d seen her in a while, giggling and spilling her drink all over herself.
“Why didn’t you ever have kids?” I asked, too drunk to care about decorum or hurting anyone’s feelings. Thea adored kids. And she was great with them. I always thought she’d have some as soon as she was married.
“I would if I could. But it’s not in the cards for me.”
I sat up. She’d never said anything before. “What do you mean? You can’t have kids?”
She let out a sad laugh. “Biologically, I’m perfectly capable of having children. I always wanted them. But that’s hard to do without someone getting me pregnant.”
I frowned, not following. “What do you mean? Is William not able to have kids?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
My head wasn’t able to follow. “Didn’t either of you get tested when you didn’t get pregnant? Or try IVF?”
Thea emptied her still half-full glass. “You can’t get pregnant from a vibrator. And William doesn’t want kids so no IVF.”
I reeled from the revelation. I always thought they had the perfect marriage. “You don’t sleep together?”
Thea refilled her glass, a grimace on her face. “He’s gay.”
I sputtered, thinking I must have heard her wrong. “What? When did you find out? Why didn’t you get a divorce?”
“He told me when we first met. Asked me to marry him and get half of everything if I stayed married to him for ten years. I have two years left.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to think less of me. I know what this looks like. Gold digger who’s waiting for a payday. But we’re good friends. He’s a great person.”
“You don’t need the money.”
She scoffed, waving her full glass around, spilling more champagne. “I have no degree, no skills, and barely made it through high school.”
Thea’s family never had much money, and I knew she always thought being rich would solve all her problems. I could see why she’d have jumped at the chance to marry someone who had everything she’d ever desired.
“You can still go to college now.”
“I tried. But I’m just too dumb. I started three different courses but couldn’t hack any of them.”
“But—”
She waved me off. “I need to pee. Be right back.”
I gnawed on my bottom lip, trying to figure out a way to help my friend.
My phone vibrated where I’d set it next to me on the armrest. It was an unknown number. I wouldn’t usually answer, but if someone called me at nearly midnight, I picked up.
“Ever?” the voice on the other end said timidly.
Instead of a reply, a sob escaped. The phone dug into my ear from my tight grip.
I wiped my cheeks, but the tears kept coming. “Archer?”
“I’m sorry for not calling sooner, but it wasn’t safe. I still don’t know if it is.”
“Where are you?”
“Listen, I can’t talk long. I don’t know how any of this works, but if they tap the phones, we have to keep this brief.”
I scrambled to keep him on the line, but my throat was so tight, I struggled to breathe.
“Where are you?”
He sighed. “I can’t tell you.”
“You have to come back. We can help you.” My pleading tone verged on desperate, but I didn’t care. I wanted him back with me.
Thea came back in, frowning when she noticed my tears. She mouthed, “Who is it?”
When I mouthed, “Archer,” back, she went stock-still.
“Nobody can help me out of this mess,” he said resignedly. “But I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about me. I always land on my feet.”
“Contact Locked Security. If anyone can help, they can. Please. Ask for Gunner. And tell them Everleigh sent you.”
“I don’t know, sis. I don’t want to drag anyone else into my mess.”
Another sob escaped. “Just tell me what happened. I’m sure we can figure something out.”
“I love you. And I’ll be fine.”
“I love you too. Please, you have to—”
The phone was silent. He’d hung up.
Thea was still rooted to the ground. “Is he okay?”
“I don’t know.”
Neither of us was up for more talking. Thea looked like I felt, face ashen, arms wrapped tight around her body. “At least we know he’s still alive.”
“Yeah.”
We sat together in silence, my thoughts drifting to ways I could help Archer. But it always came down to the same thing: if he didn’t want help, there was nothing I could do. I had no idea where he was or why he was in trouble in the first place.
I wished Lucius were here. I always breathed easier with him around, my worries seemingly less important.
Thea got up, looking pale and fragile. “Let’s get some sleep.”
I knew she loved my brother. We were both older than him, but that hadn’t stopped us from taking him everywhere with us. And whenever I couldn’t get through to him, Thea always could. His disappearance hit her as hard as it did me.
“You want to stay in our room tonight? Have a slumber party?” I asked her on our way back to the entry hall. She’d go to the wing to the right, and I’d go to the left. I was carrying a sleeping Sofie, her soft snores providing the soundtrack for our walk.
“I need to be by myself for a while.” She hugged me around Sofie who didn’t stir. “Thanks for being the best friend I could hope for.”
“Right back at ya. We’ll figure this out.”
She nodded and shot me a forced smile, then stumbled off to her room.
After putting Sofie down on the bed, I changed into my sleep clothes and brushed my teeth. Exhausted, I sank under the sheets. But I couldn’t sleep until I’d talked to Lucius. I wanted to know how his trip had gone. Wanted to hear his voice.
He didn’t answer when I called, so I texted instead.
Me: How was your trip? Miss you xx.
He didn’t respond, and after a few minutes, I drifted off.
Chapter 30
Lucius
I saw Everleigh’s missed call and message as soon as we landed and turned my phone back on. It was two in the morning by the time we made it back to San Diego, but I had to see her. Hold her. Tell her I’d met my family. A family I didn’t know I had.
“Can you drive me up to Thea’s house?” I asked Santino, who was once again driving. This time because it was his car, an old Jeep he’d picked up for cheap and fixed up.
