by Fiona Grace
Was she really going to tell him how pathetic her life had been?
Somehow, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “My job was with a bunch of doctors who thought they were better than everyone else. My apartment was a one-room closet, and I couldn’t even afford that. And my most meaningful relationship only wanted me for a tumble in a coat closet.”
He’d been looking at the ground, but his eyes snapped to hers. “Coat closet?”
“Yeah. I know. Pathetic. And part of me coming out here was wanting to do something different, instead of sitting in Brina’s shadow like a totally invisible nobody. Sometimes I think that might even be why I went to vet school. Not because I love animals, but to do something different, so I could at least be seen, for once.”
“Ah. Not pathetic. But you’re not getting me to buy that you don’t love every last thing about being a vet, especially the animals. You got the biggest heart I’ve ever seen, girl,” he said, motioning to a low stone wall. He easily lifted himself up on it and stood on the ledge, scanning the scenery. Then he turned around and extended his hand, wiggling his fingers at her. “Up you go.”
She took his hand, and he easily lifted her up his level. As she balanced on the wall, she gasped, looking out over the entire valley spread before her, with the ruins dotting the fields below. A cool sea breeze blew through her hair. “Hey, Boston?”
She turned to him.
He reached over and very gently, pulled a strand of hair that had blown into her face, tucking it behind her ear, and smiled. “I see you.”
Talk about knocking her absolutely speechless. She shivered, not because she was cold, but because she was next to Mason, and they were standing there in a silence that felt comfortable, and yet meaningful, too.
She averted her eyes and inspected the wide green valley, breathless. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“Glad you came?”
She nodded, shivering more as he wrapped his arm around her, squeezing gently.
Definitely.
CHAPTER NINE
Even though the situation with the clinic and her house was pretty dire, as Audrey walked to the clinic that Sunday morning, she couldn’t help smiling from ear to ear.
Yes, Mason was an ego. Yes, he was probably too attractive for his own good. And yes, she had more important things to think about than whether that little arm-around-the-shoulder had meant something … nevertheless, thoughts of it kept crowding her mind. She replayed that little incident on the stone wall again and again, like a record on repeat, still feeling the rough calluses on his hand as he took hers, the warm pressure of his arm around her. I see you.
Not that the rest of the day had gotten much more interesting. No, after that, they’d hiked through the hills a little, and then stopped off for lunch in the city proper. But he hadn’t touched her again, and they’d mostly just made small talk. Still, it was pleasant. More than pleasant. She’d gone to sleep last night with a warm, happy feeling bubbling inside her like champagne, wondering if one floor above her, he was thinking about her, too.
Not to mention that he’d volunteered to fix her mold problem, and was now collecting all the materials to do just that.
She smiled bigger, until she passed another expat on the street who looked at her like she was an insane person. She realized that she probably looked like an insane person, practically giggling at absolutely nothing. Wiping the smile off her face, she hurried across the street to find another cardboard box. Oh no. Please, no more strays.
She was so focused on it that she barely saw the young woman, maybe twenty or so, standing in front of the veterinary’s storefront, trying to peer in the windows.
“Ciao,” Audrey said to the girl as she went to the door and peeked in the giant box. It was full of cans of cat food and had a sign on it that said, donazioni. Donations. Eureka.
“Ciao,” the girl said, smiling.
As Audrey bent over, doing an inventory of the cans and checking their expiration dates, she could feel the girl’s eyes on her. She straightened. “Come posso aiutarla? So soltanto un po’ di italiano, but … sorry.” Can I help you? I only speak a bit of Italian …
The girl was model-thin, wearing faded capri jeans and ballet flats, looking effortlessly chic with her stick-straight black hair to her waist and big, horn-rimmed glasses. “That’s all right. I speak English,” she said, with only a little bit of an accent. “My name is Concetta Busillo. I live on the south side of town and was happy to hear of an actual vet here. I came to see it with my own eyes. Do you work here?”
Audrey nodded. “Yes, but I’m sorry. We’re closed to appointments today. Were you looking to adopt?”
“Oh, no,” the girl said, a smile widening on her face showing perfectly straight white teeth. “I’m actually a student at the Università di Palermo. I’m in my last year of veterinary school, but taking a break for the semester to make some money so I can go back.”
“Oh. That’s great. I love fellow animal lovers! What brings you here?”
“I’m from Mussomeli originally,” she said, tossing her long hair over her shoulder and pointing across the plaza’s fountain. “Born here. This is a good location. Very busy. It’s very good that this place is here. Mussomeli has needed a vet for some time.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that a lot.”
Concetta nodded. “I hope one day to do start my own practice here in town. But I have many years to go before that.”
“Well, if you ever need any tips or help with your studies, I’m happy to offer—”
“Do you know where I can find this Dr. Smart?” she asked, leaning in. “Is he nice? Do you think he needs another tech or intern to help out around the place?”
Audrey stared at her for a moment. She was used to this, since a lot of times, people thought she was much younger than her thirty-two years. Darn freckles. People always thought she was the tech, not the actual vet. “She’s pretty nice. Actually, she’s—”
“A she?” The girl clapped her hands. “Oh, good. Much easier to work for a woman. You think she needs help?”
“Definitely. Unfortunately, we don’t have the funding to pay for another—”
“That’s okay. To tell you the truth, I would do it for free. I’m in my last year of clinicals and every other place on this island has declined me. I need those hours in order to graduate,” she whispered conspiratorially, something Audrey understood. She’d been through that dance, too, ten years ago. “So do you think she’d be interested?”
“Well,” Audrey said, finally finding her keys in her purse. “Actually, I’m—”
She stopped when she realized something strange. The door to the front of the clinic was open.
She looked at the girl. “Why is this door open?”
Concetta shrugged. “I don’t know. It was like that when I got here.”
Audrey peered through the window, trying to see if anything was amiss. Everything looked just as she had left it yesterday morning. The laptop she used to make appointments was sitting on the reception desk, the lock didn’t show any sign of being tampered with or forced, and none of the windows appeared to be broken.
Then she realized that Concetta was still standing there. “I’m sorry.” She patted her chest. “I’m actually the vet, Dr. Smart.”
Her jaw dropped. Audrey might as well have told her she was Kim Kardashian. “You are! Oh my. My apologies. I—”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind at all. You had no way of knowing. Why don’t I take your information and I’ll be in touch if we need you?”
“Sure!” She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a business card with all of her information on it. “Here it is. I’ve been throwing these all over town trying to find a job to pay my tuition bill, not that it’s been doing me much good. But I promise, I want this so bad I would work here for free. Just call!”
Audrey had to admire her spunk. It reminded her, well, of herself, at that age.
When Concetta h
ad left, Audrey turned her attention to the door. She’d left the clinic yesterday morning, excited about the trip to Agrigento with Mason. Had she just spaced and forgotten to lock the door? Or had someone broken in?
Then she remembered Luca. The fifteen-year-old delivery boy for the hardware store was usually responsible and loved the taking the dogs on walks, but she’d only used him a couple times before. Maybe he’d gotten distracted and forgotten to lock up.
Likely. She’d have to remind him when he came by to drop off the spare key. But she couldn’t fault him. He was a volunteer, after all.
Pushing open the door and wedging her body between it and the jamb, she lowered her body and tried to pick up the box. But filled with at least a hundred cans of cat food, it wasn’t exactly light. She had to resort to propping the door open with her body, dragging the box in, and letting the door slam closed on its own. As she did, her purse fell off her shoulder. She hoisted it back up, her arms aching from the exertion. The box had to weigh at least fifty pounds.
Sweating now as she backed up, dragging the unwieldy package across the linoleum, she nearly tripped over a chair in the reception area. Instead, the arm of the chair poked her square in the butt.
“Ouch!”
She let out a groan, massaged the sore spot, and altered her course, making so much commotion that the animals down the hall began to join in, barking and howling at her arrival.
“One second, one second, I’m getting there!” she called to them as once again, her purse fell from her shoulder. It wasn’t much lighter than the box, truthfully, because of Audrey’s affinity for packing everything and the kitchen sink into it.
Pulling it off her arm, she sat it atop the box and continued dragging it, her back now aching.
Just then, one of the dogs let out a particularly ear-splitting howl. “All right! I’m coming!” she shouted, as a kink tore up the muscles of her lower back. She stopped for a second to massage it, and when she straightened and looked back down the hall toward the reception area, she saw something odd.
The chair she’d bumped. It wasn’t because she’d gone in the wrong direction of the hallway … it was because it was in the wrong place. Someone had put it out a few feet farther from where it usually sat against the wall, and now it was half in the hallway. No wonder she’d run into it.
“Luca, what were you doing? Arranging furniture?” she murmured, leaping over the box and heading that way to move it back into place. Then she remembered having slept in that area two nights ago, which had required rearranging the chairs. Had she done that?
When she got there, her breath hitched, and for a moment, she was sure she was still dreaming.
It was there in the middle of the reception area, so plain as day that she couldn’t believe she’d missed it.
An overweight, balding man, lying on his stomach on the tile floor, in the same place where she’d tried to sleep a couple days before.
Slowly, all her breath left her. That guy looked unnaturally comfortable, considering how cold and rock-hard that floor was.
She took a few cautious steps toward him, noting the clipboard under his body and the papers scattered about his head. Wait. That shirt looked familiar. White, short-sleeved, with a buffalo-plaid checkerboard pattern. Not exactly the height of fashion. Scuffed shoes, very worn.
Was that the inspector? What was he doing? Maybe he had his ear to the ground, listening for termites or something. “Um, hel—”
She froze when she saw her silver letter opener, sticking out from the space between his shoulder and his ear.
There was a small pool of blood on the tile underneath it.
Audrey screamed, and the animals in the back room joined in, louder than ever.
CHAPTER TEN
Audrey knew this drill.
She sat in her office, sipping from a paper cup one of the officers brought her from the water cooler in the break room, and trying to stop her hands from shaking.
Funny how she’d seen three dead bodies since she arrived here, and this never got any easier. Especially not now that it was right in her place of work. With her own—gasp—letter opener. She was sure opening her mail would never be the same again.
How brutal. And bloody. The other murders hadn’t been like this. They could’ve been accidents. But this one just seemed more barbaric. Someone had come inside, somehow, taken the letter opener, and …
Her stomach roiled at the thought. She looked up at her Puppies of the Year wall calendar, trying to recapture her Zen.
Fat chance.
Instead of cute little puppies, all she saw was poor Vito Cascarelli, surrounded by a halo of his own blood.
Just then, there was a knock at her door. She looked up to see her old buddy, Detective DiNardo. Okay, they weren’t exactly buddies, but he’d come to know her well over the last few cases. He had a no-nonsense, hard façade that made him seem like he cared for no one, but she’d seen his squishy, kind center. He was wearing his normal jacket and tie, as buttoned-up as one could imagine. She motioned him in.
He stepped inside and looked around. Was he looking for clues, even now? “Never a dull moment with you, eh?”
She shrugged. Originally, she’d been the suspect of the past murders, but eventually, her name had been cleared, and she and the detective had maintained a bit of a guarded friendship. Especially since she’d seen to his Persian, Luna. “I suppose not. Sit down, Detective. Please.”
He complied. “So you lead an exciting life.”
“Is leads an exciting life a euphemism for cursed?” she asked with a smirk. “Because if so, yes. I agree.”
He chuckled.
She tossed the cup in the garbage, laced her fingers in front of her, and placed them on the blotter. “So I suppose you’re here to ask me questions.”
“At this point, I thought you might already know what I was going to ask, so I wouldn’t have to.”
She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “I’m too tired to think. So just fire away.”
“All right. Let’s start with this. The victim, according to his identification, appears to be one Vito Cascarelli of the Mundo apartment complex on via Tripoli. Did you know him?”
She nodded. “Well, not well. But he’s the city building inspector. He came over a few days ago to inspect my house, and then the day after that, the clinic.”
DiNardo scribbled something in his book. “You pass?”
Audrey gritted her teeth. I bet this means he’s going to say I have a motive. Again. “No, I did not. Thanks for reminding me.”
“Yeah? What’s wrong with the place?”
“Ha-ha. Everything. You know that. But it was the hole in the floor that failed the house, and black mold that failed the clinic. I’m taking care of it.”
“They both failed?”
“Yes,” she muttered. “Stop rubbing it in.”
“Where have you been staying?”
“A friend’s,” she said. “On via Milano.”
“And this friend of yours will provide you with an alibi?”
“Possibly,” she said, thinking of how Mason had let her dangle like a worm on a hook before granting her permission to stay at his place. “Eventually.”
DiNardo raised an eyebrow.
“I mean, yes. Of course. I was probably with him when … uh, when do they think the murder happened?”
“Looks like sometime last night, as far as we can tell. When was the last time you were here before today?”
“Yesterday morning. I came by to check on the animals, locked up the place, and went to Agrigento for the day. Got back at around nine in the evening, and we were so tired, we went right back to the house and I went to sleep. Then I got in here at around eight, to find the door open and this guy lying dead in my lobby.”
“The door wasn’t forced. Anyone else have a key?”
She nodded. “Luca … I don’t know his last name. From the hardware store. I gave it to him yesterday because he walks the dogs for me when
I’m going to be gone for a while.”
DiNardo wrote more. “So you were with a friend all night … where?”
“His house. Via Milano.”
“And you were with him all night?”
Well, that sounded rather tawdry. Not to mention, wrong. “I was in his house. But …”
“But?”
She shuffled in her seat. But … was that good enough? He was upstairs, she was down. She could’ve easily slipped out to murder the guy. Not that she had, but she knew enough of the way Detective DiNardo worked to know one thing …
Her alibi wasn’t watertight. Not in the least.
“I wasn’t in the same room as him, no. So I’m supposing he’s not the best of alibis since I could’ve left the house without him seeing me. But the thing is, yes, it sounds bad that Vito Cascarelli flunked me, but really, I liked the guy. He was nice. I told him I’d fix everything right up so he could inspect it. I didn’t kill him.”
“Mmmhmm,” he said, not looking up.
Oh no, here we go with the mmmhmms again. “I have absolutely no idea what he was doing in here. I’m telling you. Or how he got in. It’s just bizarre.”
“Well … one theory is that he came to do another inspection, failed you again, and—”
“And I stabbed him with my letter opener? Really?”
“Oh, so you recognize the weapon?”
She stiffened. Had she incriminated herself? “Yes. Of course I do. It’s mine. Actually, it came with the building, but I took it as mine. It usually sits on the reception desk in a little pencil cup.” She shrugged. “I recognized it because it’s kind of distinctive, with that diamond shape on the top. But anyone there could’ve taken it and used it.”
“Yes, and with a weapon like that, a woman could’ve done the deed just as easily as a man.”