The Italian Deception

by Darby Philips

  Tiffany nodded as if she understood.

  Erin wanted to tell her that what she wanted might change with age. But experience would always bring you back to being with the person who treated you the way you wanted.

  In the hallway, a girl’s voice called Tiffany’s name. Tiffany looked embarrassed and then said, “Thanks, Ms. Randolph,” and rushed out the door.

  Erin watched her go and wondered if she truly understood what they’d talked about.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Franco stood in front of a couple tied to thin chairs. The square clock on the white and brown striped wall read 2 a.m., and Franco knew no one in sleepy Newburgh, New York would hear the couple scream.

  Still, he had to be careful. This was America, not Italy. His family didn’t control the police here. The kitchen in the couple’s one-story house had was a mash of American styles: fake wood cabinets, heavy oak kitchen table, white tile floor, and metal-framed chairs with plastic seats. Franco hated the chaos.

  He’d flown into Canada on a fake passport, crossed the U.S. border at a little-known location, and driven to the address the informant had given him. He’d killed the co-pilot, who lived alone, and confirmed Shelly’s appearance: medium height, athletic build, blond hair. Nothing else. He’d provided proof of death and received the final address.

  Now, he stared at the civilian nurse who’d attended Paul during his overseas flight. She and her husband pleaded through their gags. They’d broken before he’d even tortured them. There had been no build up. No anticipation. And it bored Franco. Before he killed them, however, he needed to see what they knew.

  “Eight months ago, you flew with a blond woman and a tortured man from Italy. What do you remember about them?”

  He ripped the tape off her mouth.

  The woman kept quiet, but the man was delirious. “He called her Shelly.” The nurse stared up at him, mouth quivering. Eyes begging for mercy.

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “The drugs slurred his speech. I didn’t understand much, but he mentioned New York City several times. And North Carolina. I think he grew up there.”

  “What about the car they drove away in?”

  “Some kind of medical ambulance. A private contractor.”

  More information to give to Antonio. His brother had acquired the names and flight plan of the entire crew who flew Paul to America. Two of those names were the ones the informant had given. So far, everything the informant said had proven accurate. But timing was too convenient. Franco knew there was another game being played. He needed to figure out what it was. If Antonio searched for the medical ambulance, they might learn more or the informant’s plan.

  “Was there anything else you know about the people or the flight?”

  The woman paused. Her eyes flicked to the side.

  “What?”

  “I overheard the pilot and Shelly talking. The pilot had received orders not to take off. But Shelly convinced him to ignore it. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

  Franco inspected her face. He knew from long experience she had nothing left to give. He wondered about the orders to keep Paul in Italy. Could it have been the informant? If so, there would be a record of the call. Something Antonio could track. Franco smiled to himself. He was taking control of the hunt. But until he found Paul and identified the informant, he needed to be cautious.

  That meant he had to make sure no one connected these killings with the hunt for Paul. He whipped out a gun and shot them both in the stomach. It would take a while for them to die. Payback for them breaking so easily.

  Franco snapped their picture and texted it to his brother, along with the information about the medical ambulance and Shelly. He ransacked the house to make it appear as if they’d been robbed.

  His phone beeped and his hands shook with anticipation as he read the text. Paul’s full name was Paul Taylor, and he was at Hillcrest Academy in Vermont. Only a few hours drive away.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The dream started like it normally did. Paul saw the knife raised high above him like he had since the day he was tortured, but the scene shimmered like pavement in the summer heat and another image took its place. Portia was chasing Erin across Hillcrest’s campus. Portia’s face morphed into the huge jaws and red eyes of a monster while Erin ran for her life, her head cocked over her shoulder looking in fear at the gradually gaining Portia.

  He bolted awake—but he didn’t scream.

  He had the fleeting thought that if this was progress, perhaps it was best if he went back to the knife plunging into his shoulder. He got out of bed and went to his flipchart. So many pieces of a puzzle. A name here, an image there, and a lot of empty space.

  As he showered and dressed, he wondered why he’d had that dream. Did it have something to do with Erin? Erin was the first person he’d been romantically interested in since his torture.

  On the surface, however, both had similar qualities: they were intelligent, poised and playful, and seemed to have depth of character. But with either woman, he didn’t know what was beneath the surface.

  He remembered Erin’s comment from the previous night. How she thought he was too closed off. It was the same problem Portia had mentioned. Up until last night, he’d thought it was primarily caused by his years of undercover work. Now, however, he had to admit it might go deeper than that.

  He didn’t want to dwell on that now, so he pushed his thoughts down and grabbed his Grinch as Santa tie.

  He went into the hall and drifted over to the window. The rising sun illuminated one long cloud that covered the sky like a giant mountain range. The top of the clouds reflected shades of yellow that morphed into orange then a dusky purple. His mind drifted across the missing pieces of his memories.

  He saw Eric. They both were in a restaurant laughing and talking like they did after their FBI training in D.C., long before he went undercover. They were discussing Eric’s fascination with bookish women, and how he decompressed from the stress of being an agent by visiting museums. Suddenly, Eric started yelling at Paul like he was too stubborn to get his point. His voice sounded garbled, like a bad phone connection. He seemed desperate to convince him of something. Paul focused on his words but…

  His phone alarm rang and the scene winked out. Furiously, he punched the alarm off. That wasn’t a memory fragment. Paul knew nothing like that had ever happened in reality. He struggled to recapture the scene. He realized he was on the cusp of something important. After a few minutes, he couldn’t retrieve anything. Frustrated, he marched back into his room and wrote down, Eric, restaurant, yelling, and museum on the Post-it board.

  He woke up the students then headed to the main admin building, the cold wind whipping against his face.

  In the dining hall, he grabbed a Pop-Tart and refilled his coffee then went to his room where he finished grading the last assignments of the semester.

  Today was exam day. As students marched in, some apathetic, some confident, but most of them nervous, he wondered how David was doing.

  Paul monitored the students as they worked. When the students left, he graded papers.

  Once classes finished, he went to see David and Kevin in the in-school suspension room.

  As he walked down into the basement of the female dormitory, he heard voices in the furnace room. He peeked inside and saw Kevin and David lifting a large wooden wardrobe chest. It looked old and rotten and one of the doors had been ripped off.

  Ralph Chapel stood behind the large metal door to the furnace room, trying to pull it all the way open. The rusty hinges groaned and screeched in protest.

  Kevin remarked, “This is crazy. My parents would sue if they knew I was doing this.”

  “You need to pull from the bottom of the door to get the most torque,” David said to the custodian.

  “I know how to open a damn door,” Chapel yelled, grunting with the effort. The door didn’t budge.

  All three were wearing jackets and s
weating despite the cold weather.

  “Looks fun,” Paul said, glancing around the antiquated furnace room. The cement walls were dark with soot and the old furnace stood in the center. All manner of discarded furniture and bric-a-brac were strewn about the room.

  “Hey Mr. T,” David said.

  Kevin scowled.

  “Ralph,” he said, “need some help?”

  He muttered comments under his breath and kept pulling the door. Paul moved next to him and grabbed the bottom of the door. “One, two, three,” he counted, then yanked.

  The door groaned and protested but finally opened wide enough for the wardrobe chest to get through. Chapel gestured for the boys to move the furniture out through the doorway.

  “Looks like you’ve cleared some stuff out. Been at it awhile?” Paul said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Since noon,” Chapel said. “Clearin’ out the big stuff,” he gestured at the boys. “Now that I have help.”

  They followed the boys as they moved the wardrobe down the hall.

  “Dammit, Munchkin, carry more of the weight,” Kevin said. “I can’t hold the whole thing.”

  “It’s too heavy,” David replied.

  “Quit your ‘bitchin,” Chapel said.

  Paul winced at his language in front of the students, but they’d heard a lot worse.

  “You know they have a semester exam this Friday,” he said.

  Chapel shrugged his shoulders.

  “They really need to study. How about after they finish this piece, you send them back to the ISS room?”

  “They’re mine ‘til 5 p.m.”

  He put on his best can you do me a solid face. “I get it. But they really need to study for the exam.”

  “Been needin’ to do this since August.”

  He leaned toward him and whispered, “I’ll get you a bottle of scotch.”

  Chapel smiled at that. “Um’ kay. But I’ve got one more table that I need help with. Then I’ll send them to study. Shouldn’t take long.”

  Paul nodded. “Great.” Then he moved closer to the boys. “You both know about the final exam. The study guide is online. We’ve covered a lot of stuff this chapter. You must study.” His eyes focused on Kevin, who glared at the floor. “Kevin, you understand?”

  He knew he was in danger of failing. He looked at him. “Yea,” he sneered. “I get it.”

  “Good. If you have any questions, see me.”

  Paul left and hurried across campus. When he entered Conference Room C, he was still thinking about David. Jacob Li was already there, as usual. He had a Diet Coke in one hand and was flipping through a thick stack of files. Paul assumed they were his. Jacob glanced up as he entered and immediately asked, “You’re concerned about something.”

  Paul gave him a weak smile. “That obvious?”

  Jacob smirked.

  Paul thought that a year ago, the mask he wore in his undercover life would have hidden everything he felt. That mask kept him alive. He must have been adjusting to his civilian life more than he thought. “It’s that student I was telling you about, David.” He told him the whole story about David’s detention.

  “Why do you think you felt sad for him?”

  “He shouldn’t have to be punished for someone else tripping him.”

  “I think that’s certainly part of it,” Jacob said. “But I think there’s something else.” He pulled out a file and shuffled through the papers. He handed him one sheet. “The FBI gives all their agents a battery of tests.”

  “I know. It was like all my college exams rolled into one monstrous test.”

  “Correct. There are more than a dozen different tests, but you’re never shown your score. You only receive a label of ‘meets qualifications’ or ‘does not meet qualifications.’”

  He felt his face scrunch up in a question. “That’s…”

  Jacob held up his hand. “Every agent knows this, but one of those individual tests assesses your ‘Empathy Quotient’—your ability to empathize with other people—and you made the highest score on record.”

  Paul glanced over the sheet and saw the 80/80 score. “And you think my empathy quotient is why I want to help David so much?”

  “I think it’s more complicated than that,” he said. “When you were undercover, you had to temper your empathy with your determination—another test you made a perfect score on. But you hated keeping your empathy caged. Hated the way you had to turn a blind eye to bad things for the greater good. You see this boy as someone truly innocent, and you have the power to help him. I think helping him is a proxy for you not being able to help all the Grimaldis’ victims when you were undercover.

  Paul squirmed in his chair.

  “And I think it’s part of the reason you’ve kept yourself distant from people your own age.”

  Paul felt thunderstruck. His comments dovetailed Erin’s from the previous night. Yet he hadn’t always been that way. “You said partly.”

  Jacob’s manner changed. He became tentative, like a man about to walk on eggshells. “You file mentions what happened to your parents, but I’d like you to tell me in your own words what happened.”

  Paul hesitated. It was an issue he’d had in the back of his mind since Erin mentioned he was closed off. He stared at Jacob, who nodded encouragement. Paul then said, “From an early age I remember my mom and dad yelling at each other. It was always behind closed doors, but I’d seen the bruises on her face. When I was fourteen, he hit her in front of me. I snapped. I lunged at him and fought him. Neighbors called the cops. The police took us both away. The years of abuse my mother suffered came out and I testified against my father. He went to jail. I never saw him again.”

  “And soon after that your mother was diagnosed with dementia and committed to the Westview Sanitarium, correct? Does it scare you that amnesia might be an early sign of dementia?”

  He was right, and it unnerved him to realize Jacob understood him so well. Paul’s eyes closed as he imagined a caricature of Sigmund Freud speaking in a German accent. “Zand now, class, we zschall zee the subject’s zyche,” he said as he poked a finger into Paul’s brain. He suddenly, desperately, wanted to change the subject. “Where did we leave off last time?”

  Jacob frowned, as if he’d expected them to talk about his present problems longer. Then he leaned back and said. “You’d just realized the Grimaldis would go after Portia.”

  Paul’s throat became dry and he slouched in his chair. “Doc, I don’t know if…”

  He held up his hand. “I know this is difficult. Perhaps the most difficult part of your whole experience in Italy. But you must face it. If you don’t, the Grimaldis win.”

  It wasn’t the hard sales pitch he’d given him the past two days, but Paul knew he was right. He’d been over and over this event ever since he remembered it and it was still as painful as the first time. He rested his elbows on his knees, sank his head into his hands, and started talking.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  ***

  Paul slammed his foot down on the accelerator and dodged in and out of traffic. He glanced at Eric. His head lolled from side to side every time he turned the wheel.

  A police car passed them going the other way. “Shit,” he said, remembering any officer could be working for the Grimaldis. He took the nearest onramp and slowed, resisting the instinct to drive at top speed.

  “Focus, Eric!” he screamed. That seemed to bring his partner back to semi-consciousness. “Did you tell them the escape routes?”

  “Don’t know,” he said weakly. “Think so.” Fresh blood ran down his face.

  “Fuck,” he yelled in the car. “Then our only option is to drive to the U.S. Consulate in Naples.”

  He knew he shouldn’t go to Portia’s home. Eric was hurt badly and time was short. But he couldn’t call her and warn her about the Grimaldis now that he’d tossed his phone out the window. Also, going to Portia would allow him to switch cars, which would give them a big adva
ntage on their drive north.

  With luck, they could make it in two hours. “What about the raid tonight? Can you reach the assault team?”

  His head slumped to the side.

  “Eric?” Paul shoved him while keeping an eye on the road, but he didn’t respond. He was passed out. He downshifted and turned off the highway and headed to Portia’s. She should still be home. He checked the rearview mirror every few seconds, but didn’t think anyone followed them.

  He drove down Portia’s street twice, making sure no one was lying in ambush, then parked in an alley behind her apartment. He jumped out and ran up the back stairs. Portia would know which neighbors might not miss their car ‘til noon. He could ‘borrow’ one. That was all he needed. A few hours and all of them would be safe.

  He used his key and burst through the back door. “Portia!” he yelled, scanning the apartment. She was sitting in her favorite chair, talking on her cellphone. Her laptop was resting on the coffee table beside her. A perfectly normal sight. One he’d seen a dozen times since they’d started dating. He felt crushed knowing she’d have to leave it all behind. He rushed to her, grabbed the phone, clicked it off, and tossed it onto the coffee table.

  “What are you doing?” Portia asked, leaping up from her chair.

  “We need to go,” he said as he dashed into the kitchen and grabbed towels and scissors and anything else he could use to bind Eric’s wounds.

  Portia stood up and said, “Calm down. What are you talking about?”

  “No!” he yelled. “We have to go. People are coming for me, and they’ll torture you.”

  He put all the materials he’d scrounged into a discarded grocery bag and set them on the counter. He rushed back to Portia and put both of his arms on her shoulders. “You have to trust me. We have to leave now!”

  She tried to push him away. He held on tight. He wanted to tell her everything. But that would take too much time. Every second they waited was one the Grimaldis and their police contacts could use to catch them.