by Fiona Grace
She groaned. No thinking of Mason. Or G. Or anyone male. She had bigger things on her mind.
She went into the back room, stopping first to check on Bambino. Right away, she saw why Concetta likely hadn’t slept well. The poor pup was sleeping now, but he’d clearly had a rough night. He felt warm, and his heart rate was too rapid. Concetta was efficient and clean, but the area around Bambino’s crate looked like a war zone, with discarded paper towels and ripped newspaper everywhere. The scent of pine cleaner only partially masked the stench of vomit.
Maybe it isn’t an allergy, she said, petting the dog’s small side. What else? Intestinal blockage? Or something entirely unrelated to the pinecone? It looks like poisoning, but from what?
She went through, checking all of his other vitals. Unfortunately, he was no better than when he’d been brought in, and the thought made Audrey feel sad and powerless. Her job was to know, to fix things. There was nothing she liked less than having to tell an owner that she didn’t know what was wrong with their beloved pet.
Maybe I should call Dr. Carey, she thought, thinking of her last supervisor, the Medical Director of the Back Bay Animal Hospital in Boston. Though Audrey had walked out on that job, Dr. Carey had been one of the good vets there. She’d been in practice at least two decades longer than Audrey, so she’d likely seen a lot more. The last time they’d spoken, months ago, Dr. Carey had told her not to hesitate to call if she needed anything.
No. This is your practice. You can figure this out yourself.
She decided to draw blood and send it in for some tests. Then, she’d have to call Bambino’s owner and tell her that he wouldn’t be released today. As she was working on getting the materials ready, Concetta wandered into the room, yawning. Despite what must’ve been an awful night’s sleep, she looked as fresh-faced as a skin cleanser ad. “How was your date?” she asked, her eyes falling on Audrey’s face. “Oh my God. Did you two get in a punching match?”
Audrey shook her head. “That was from renovations, not the date. It hardly hurts at all,” she lied. It’d given her a terrible headache last night. Or maybe that was the wine, or the decision she’d soon have to make.
“Okay. So the date with G?”
“It was very nice,” she said, motioning to the dog. “What—”
“That sounds very anticlimactic, Doctor!” she said with a pout. “Was it that bad?”
“No! It was . . . like I said, nice. Now, what happened here?”
“Oh, he was up all night, just whimpering in pain. I don’t think the shot did anything for him,” she said, reaching into the kibble bucket to start filling the food trays. “But at least he’s resting now and seems to be comfortable. I’m hoping he’ll just pass whatever it was in his stool today. So tell me how the date went! I want details! Is he the one?”
Audrey frowned. She’d rather talk about the dog’s poop.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I guess I’ll know better after I go out with Mason, tonight.” She shuddered. “I know I should be feeling weird about it, but I do. I feel like I’m being deceptive.”
Concetta opened a kennel filled with kittens and took one out, stroking it as she held it to her chest. “You’re not being deceptive! You’re being careful. And don’t worry—there is no wrong decision. You don’t have to worry about G. I told you, my dad knew his dad. He comes from a good family. He’s good looking and successful and everyone just loves him. He is like a big teddy bear!” Then she licked her lips. “But that American . . . yum.”
Audrey wrinkled her nose. “Mason is . . . okay.”
“Come on! He’s so dreamy. I do not think I have ever seen a man that good looking, even on television.” She giggled.
Audrey finished extracting the blood and shook her head. “You know, you don’t have to stay around here. Go home and get some sleep.” And stop hounding me about the two men I vowed not to think about today.
“All right, all right,” she said. “But I’ll be back tonight so you can go on your big date! What time is it, anyway?”
“Seven,” she muttered, wondering how awkward she’d be with Mr. Dreamy. Even if she was doing no wrong, this two-timing was exhausting.
“I’ll be back at six!” she said, grabbing her sweater off the hook by the door. As she did, the phone began to ring. “I’ll get that, first.”
“Thanks,” Audrey called as she went to check on the bunnies. Six of them. She’d gotten them a few weeks ago, and now they were just about ready to be put up for adoption. The little bundles crowded around each other, twitching their noses, nibbling the fresh hay she supplied.
A few moments later, when Audrey was sure she had left, Concetta called to her from the reception desk. “Hey, Dr. Smart? I think you should take this.”
That didn’t sound good. “What is it?” she called back. Rather than wait for an answer, she decided to find out herself. She picked up the line from the phone in the kennel room and said, “Dr. Smart.”
“Doctor?” the low, gravelly voice of someone who’d smoked too many cigarettes said. The person also sounded far away, as if they were speaking in a wind tunnel.
“Yes, speaking. Can I help you?”
“You’re the new American doctor who just moved into Mussomeli, right?”
“Right,” Audrey said, suspicious, now. The voice sounded more male than female, but it felt eerie that this person knew so much about her, when she knew virtually nothing about them. “What can I help you with . . . I’m sorry, who am I speaking with?”
“I uh,” the voice rasped. “I uh, prefer to remain anonymous.”
Audrey felt goosebumps popping up on her arms. There was something wrong and sinister about the man’s voice. “Do you have an issue with an animal that I can help you with?” she repeated, now just as exasperated as she was creeped out.
“Yes . . . yes. There is an injured animal outside of town.”
“Animal. What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not yours?”
“No. No it’s not. I don’t know where it went. But it’s somewhere in the orange groves. You know the place?”
Orange groves. The estate. Audrey gripped the phone tighter. “I do. But that’s a very large place. You’ll have to be a little more specific than that if you want me to track down—”
“Just follow the trail of blood.”
Then the line went dead.
Audrey stood there, stiff, listening to the utter silence, replaying the speaker’s words in her head: Just follow the trail of blood.
It sounded like something from a horror flick.
She was so freaked out about it that she didn’t notice someone entering behind her. When a hand fell on her shoulder, she jumped nearly to the ceiling.
Then she spun, ready to lash out with a right hook. She stopped mid-punch.
“Concetta!”
Her eyes were wide. She patted a hand against her heaving chest, clearly as surprised as Audrey was. “What! I thought you heard me!”
“No! I was on the phone. I thought you left.”
“Sorry. But that was creepy, wasn’t it? He sounded like a heavy breather. Was it a crank call?”
Audrey nodded. “No, but it was super creepy. Did he say anything to you?”
“No, other than that he wanted to talk to the veterinarian because he had an emergency. But he sounded like he was gasping for air. I thought he was dying, himself. What did he say to you?”
“He said there’s some injured animal in the orange groves and I have to follow a trail of blood to get to it,” she said. “I think that’s how most horror movies start.”
“Wow. Are you going? If you are, you shouldn’t go alone!”
Audrey grabbed her medicine bag and shrugged. “I don’t think I really have a choice. If there’s an animal in need, I’ve got to go to it,” she said, looking around the clinic, her eyes landing on poor Bambino. “I guess this little guy will be okay if I’m gone an hour, max.”
“
I’ll stay with him,” Concetta volunteered.
“Oh, no!” Audrey said, though she had to admire the woman’s enthusiasm. But she’d gone above and beyond. “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you. I can’t ask you to—”
“Stop. I want to.”
“Then fine. I guess I’ll have an excuse to miss out on the date with Mason, then, to—”
“No. You. Don’t!” she said, jabbing her finger at Audrey. “You’re going to that, too. I’m going to make sure it happens, if I have to drag you to his front door myself.”
“All right, fine!” Audrey said with a frown as she headed to the door. “There are no appointments this morning, anyway. So please, chill as much as you can. Order breakfast in. My treat. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
As she headed out the door, she saw Nick, waiting patiently for her. “Hey there, just the fox I was hoping to see,” she said to him, hurrying down the street as he stayed close to her heels. “Want to come with me and use that nose of yours? An animal is in trouble. Let’s go and find it.”
CHAPTER SIX
The rolling hills of orange groves looked lovely and picturesque from her bedroom window, stretching on and on, in perfect rows.
But once she was on the street, outside them, Audrey realized it was more like a jungle. A vast, dark, frightening one. As in, People go in, but they don’t ever go out.
As she stared at it, a bird cawed overhead, a raven of death, singing out a warning. She put the heat index at eighty, maybe ninety, since her shirt was already drenched with sweat, even after the short walk down the hill, to the grove. Going back up would be hell. A fly or mosquito nipped at her neck, and she smacked it, then studied her fingertips. A gross black insect body and blood stained her fingers. She wiped it on her shorts and looked down at Nick. “Ready, Bub?”
He was already padding around the soft grass on the shoulder of the road, sniffing with interest.
It was Audrey who didn’t feel ready. She’d asked for more definite directions because she knew how massive this place was, but now, finding anything within these thousands of trees seemed like folly. The orange tree leaves rustled in the breeze above her, and the sunlight slashing through made strange shapes on the ground, making it difficult to see anything at all. Though the sun was bright, it felt eerie, knowing what she was here for. She didn’t even know where to start searching for the trail of blood. And Nick might’ve had a nose, but he wasn’t that good.
All right, whatever, she said as she took a step and felt another little insect climb under her shirt, skirting down her collarbone. The feeling was both ticklish and terrifying. She swatted and looked down. This time, no doubt about it, it was a mosquito.
“I am going to look like one giant mosquito bite for my date with Mason,” she muttered under her breath as she stepped through the grass. “He’s gonna love me.”
If you even make it out alive! A sinister voice inside her said. One that sounded remarkably like the man on the phone. He’d had very little Italian in his accent, but he hadn’t sounded American, either . . . he’d sounded almost otherworldly.
Yes, this would be the part where the unknowing stupid girl traipsed off alone, into certain disaster.
In the shade of the trees, she walked down one row as long as she could, following Nick, who seemed to be on the scent of something. All she could smell were oranges—the scent was so thick here that it was almost overpowering. Not unpleasant in the least, but still, the hair on the back of her neck stood up.
After a few minutes, Nick stopped, looked around, sniffed again, and tore off in a direction perpendicular to the route they’d started taking.
“Wait!” she called, rushing after him. If she lost him in this, she’d probably never find him again. The place was huge. When she turned around to check the way she’d come, she could no longer see the road. I wish I had a compass. Does my phone have a compass?
She pulled it out and started fingering through the apps. No such luck. Then she turned on the Maps app and tried to see if that was any help. Nope. It put her in the middle of an empty orange blob.
I am going to get screwed, I’ll bet, she thought, imagining herself becoming so hopelessly lost in the grove that she wound up getting her only sustenance from oranges and then being found, a veritable skeleton, months later. She’d read news stories about people who trekked into the wilderness on a simple day-hike, only to be found months later, delirious shadows of their former selves.
That can very well be me. Of course, with all this Vitamin C, I probably won’t have a cold, she thought, ducking under a branch of a tree and turning her head this way and that, hoping to spot Nick.
Nothing. He was gone.
“Urgh,” she growled, bending over to slip under a low-hanging branch. As she did, her head began to pound again. That awful welt had eventually settled on a sunrise pink, with a bit of purple, that even concealer hadn’t been able to hide. When she moved her head too fast, she also felt dizzy, which was why her vision swam as she straightened. She spun around, getting even more hopelessly lost.
“Nick!” She whispered it, because she was aware she was probably trespassing. Also, if the rumors were true and the Tivoli Estate had been sold to the mafia, who knew what kind of security they had? Probably big, burly men who ripped people limb from limb merely for looking at them the wrong way. Trespassing? She’d probably disappear, never to be seen again.
She didn’t want to end this day, sleeping with the fishes. That would really put a damper on things.
Good thing there was no one around. It seemed like she was the only person about for miles. The mansion itself wasn’t visible from here. In fact, she hadn’t seen a single soul since she left the town proper.
Pushing her hair back into a ponytail, which said she meant business, she walked up another row, looking for anything that could even resemble blood. How would she even follow a trail of blood? The grass was thick, blowing in the breeze. The ground was uneven. This was like finding a bloodstain in a haystack.
I bet it was a crank call, she told herself once she came out on a clearing. She whirled around in a three-sixty, getting nervous. Now I guess I need to find out where I am, and how to get out of here.
Easier said than done. In every direction, the scenery was the same: acres and acres of lush orange trees. Her pulse skittered as she looked up, trying to find the sun, as if that might give her a clue. But it seemed to slash down through the branches, from everywhere, hiding its true location in the sky.
She walked to the middle of the clearing, still trying to determine which way to go. There was a large rock there, so she climbed atop it and looked around, shielding her eyes from the sun, which was now straight overhead. As she spun, she saw the tops of trees, the tile roof of the villa in the distance, but absolutely no sign of life whatsoever.
Except . . .
She squinted when she noticed a flash of red among the trees. It wasn’t animal, for sure, unless the animals around here had taken to wearing clothing. It was too big to be simply a collar. She looked closer, making out an arm, and legs.
Human arms and legs. Someone was walking in the grove, weaving through the trees. From the position of the red, over the person’s arms, she assumed it was a hat. Maybe a scarf. The red was in a polka-dotted pattern, bright and gaudy.
Hat or scarf, that is the ugliest piece of clothing I’ve ever seen. But whatever. Maybe whoever that is knows the way out! I’m saved!
She slipped from the rock and followed after the figure, but then thought better of it. Luigi had been pretty serious when he spoke of the Sicilian mafia. He’d told her not to get tangled up with them. And what if this person was mafia? What if he wasn’t happy to see her? What if he shot her for trespassing?
She stared after the form until it disappeared from view. When it did, she realized her hands were slick with sweat. She wiped them on the sides of her shorts and scratched at something on her hand. A bump rose up as she did.
Perfe
ct. Another mosquito bite. I am so blessed to have sweet blood. Mason will love the way I look . . . if I ever get out of here to make it to our date.
She checked her phone. It was almost noon. She had to get back and relieve poor Concetta, who’d been working far too hard, and too much.
“Nick!” she called in a hushed whisper.
Nothing.
The moment she straightened, thinking that subsisting on oranges for the next few weeks was her future, a shadow descended over her, and a heavy hand fell upon her shoulder.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What the—”
Audrey jumped, then stumbled backwards, sure she’d see a man in sunglasses and a zoot suit, with a machine gun. For some reason, when she thought mafia, that was the first thing that popped into her mind. Ridiculous, she knew.
It seemed even more ridiculous as she found herself falling backwards. Her feet slipped out from under her, and she was just about to hit the ground when a strong, tanned hand reached out and grabbed her wrist, yanking her forward.
She came face-to-chest with an impossibly tall, built man in a white linen shirt, rolled up to the elbows. In her shock, she inhaled sharply, catching the manly smell of soap and leather over the sweet scent of citrus.
“Easy, now,” he said, as she looked way up into two impossibly dark eyes. Chestnut hair curled romantically around his face, making him look like a statue of David. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”
“Oh, I uh . . .” A thousand thoughts flooded her mind, but of those, one battled its way to the forefront. “You speak English? How did you know . . .”
He chuckled, and with barely an accent, said, “You were muttering to yourself in English.”
“Ah.” Her face flamed. Was I? Probably. “I was looking for something.”
“Something?” He stroked his strong chin as she looked down, unable to meet his eyes. He was wearing khakis, loafers and a heavy, expensive-looking wristwatch. Definitely not the attire one would wear, working in the grove. “Can I help you find it?”