by Karen Dodd
Everybody Knows
A Nicolø Moretti Crime Thriller - Book 1
Karen Dodd
First published in 2021
Copyright © Karen Dodd, 2021
All rights reserved
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ISBN 9781775122166 (paperback)
ISBN 9781775122173 (e-book)
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a purely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Contents
Also by Karen Dodd
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgments
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2.Scare Away the Dark
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To Laura, “Hans” and Steve,
hand in hand, float with the otters.
“You don’t lose your soul all at once. You lose it a little bit at a time, incrementally. Tiny imperceptible steps. Before you know it you’re doing things you never thought you would do.”
—Jordan Belfort
Chapter One
May 4, 2019
Gozo, Malta
* * *
The early-morning sun streamed in through the leaded-glass windows of the weathered farmhouse. Ariana Calleja rose from the child’s bed and walked over to a dressing table under the wooden sill. She pulled a sweatshirt from a drawer and held it to her tear-stained face, inhaling the scent. It smelled of the sea. With temperatures well into twenty degrees Celsius, under different circumstances she might already have been at the beach making castles in the sand, listening to the whoops and cries of the little boy with the dark mop of hair and chocolate eyes.
“Omm, come and see what I’ve made,” he’d shout over the squawks of the gulls that sailed back and forth across the lapis sky. They would hover, waiting for the time Ariana would unpack a picnic, and five-year-old Max would oh-so trustingly hold up pieces of bread for the birds to swoop down and snatch in their orange-spotted beaks.
“Be careful, darling, or you’ll lose a finger,” she would call to him. “Put it on the sand and they’ll come for it.”
Each Friday, Ariana caught the ferry to Gozo, or as the old-timers would say, Għawdex. She would stand on the deck as the boat pulled into Mġarr Harbour and feel the stress of her sixty-hour week melt away. As she breathed the fresh, salty air, it was as if she’d shirked off the ties that bound her to another life. One of never-ending legal cases that, even if she won, barely seemed to make a dent in the mainland’s impervious underbelly of corruption.
A haven for tourists, the archipelago’s beauty concealed a secret that locals knew but outsiders seldom saw. Instead, they erected a polite façade, like you might do when bringing an old college chum home for the weekend, not wanting them to see how dysfunctional your family really was.
Yet here she stood, alone in Max’s room, surrounded by his things, as if oceans away from that life. The smell of him mingled with the sea and sand and sun. She wiped her eyes and looked down at the garden below. There was his blue plastic wading pool that he’d sit in and play for hours. He was a happy, carefree little boy. And though homeschooled for reasons of security, he was bright and social. For that, she had Francesca to thank. A friend since boarding school, she lived on Gozo with Max during the week whilst Ariana was working on the mainland, and then went back to her apartment in Valletta on the weekends. Francesca had witnessed the increasing vitriol and death threats Ariana had received following her bold statements to the media. Accusing senior government officials and heads of Malta’s most prestigious corporations of corruption, didn’t bode well for her safety. It was something she’d learned to live with. But when Max had become old enough to see what was being said about her on television, she’d agonized about whether to send him away until this investigation and prosecution—the biggest case of her legal career—was resolved. But how would she tell Francesca what she’d just done?
* * *
When dinnertime rolled around, Ariana wasn’t hungry, but she knew she should eat something. As she often did, Francesca had left her a casserole that just needed heating in the oven. Although it filled the kitchen with the delicious fragrance of rosemary and other smells she couldn’t identify, she hardly touched it.
She took her plate to the sink, poured herself a glass of red wine, picked up the bottle and took it out to the garden. The coarse crabgrass—the only type that grows on Gozo—tickled the underside of her toes. Everywhere she looked was evidence of Francesca’s green thumb. Since Ariana had bought the house almost five years ago, her friend had turned it into an oasis of color and scents that aroused the senses. No doubt she’d used herbs freshly picked from the garden in the casserole she’d just pushed around her plate. Such a shame. Ariana sighed at the thought of her friend. By the following night, she would have to call her and tell her not to come. And why.
But before that, she needed to steel herself for an even more important call. The longer conversation would have to take place in person. In fact, she’d already booked her flight to Calabria. That part had been easy. But what she’d been putting off for five years might be worse than the threats of any criminal she’d faced down in court.
She poured herself another glass of wine and braced herself to make the call.
* * *
“Ovviamente! Of course, I’m not too busy,” Nicoló Moretti said. “How could you even ask such a thing, Ariana? I always have time for you. How long can you stay?”
“Only a couple of days, I’m afraid. I have to be back by midweek, but if you have Monday evening free—”
“Si, si! I’ll take you to the new ristorante that’s opened up ahead of the season. It’s vegetarian, but you’ll love it. What time should I make reservations for?”
“No, I’ll cook,” she said. “I’ll have time to go to the market while you’re at work. Shall we say eight o’clock at my place?”
&nbs
p; “No, no. You’ll be tired. Per favore, let me take you out.”
There was a pause in which she said nothing. While Nico sounded delighted she was coming, they both knew her schedule rarely allowed for such spontaneity, let alone an offer to cook him dinner.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s just that . . . I need to speak with you about something important. Alone.”
“All right, can you tell me—”
“Nico, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you Monday at eight.”
And she was gone.
* * *
Sunday was busy for Ariana. She had to tackle the mountain of laundry before starting her packing for Tropea. The fridge needed cleaning out for the week no one would be there—something she’d still not told Francesca about. She went back into Max’s room to put his clean clothes away, and once again, wondered if she’d done the right thing. She tried not to dwell on the decision she’d made five years ago that she could never take back. The one that would soon change everything. What loomed ahead, pushed and strained at her heart like the buffeting wind of an incoming storm. In less than twenty-four hours, she prayed to God that somehow, Nico Moretti wouldn’t hate her more than she hated herself.
* * *
May 6
Calabria, Italy
It was early morning, and the tiny seaside town in which Special Prosecutor Nicoló Moretti had been born and raised hadn’t yet fully awakened. This was the time of day he loved most, where the streets were still but nature was just starting to come to life. Situated on a reef in the toe of the boot known as the Calabria region, travel brochures referred to Tropea as “La Costa degli Dei”—the Coast of the Gods. With its fortress-like cliff, towering fifty meters above sea level, every angle boasted spectacular views of the azure water of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Nico’s hair—what was left of it, anyway—was still damp from the shower, and the taste of the first espresso of the day lingered on his tongue. Eschewing the modernity of electric machines, he still made his own the traditional way, using a metal moka pot on top of the gas stove. It was simple, the way he liked his personal life.
With his leather satchel slung over his shoulder and the scarf around his neck rippling in the breeze, he walked the same route every day. He could have shortened the time it took to get from his apartment on Via Santa Domenica to his government office—there was a labyrinth of lanes and back alleys that led to the main square known as the Piazza Ercole—but then he’d miss the sights and sounds that calmed him before he tackled the onslaught of work that awaited. It was his opportunity to savor his surroundings and remember why he’d chosen to spend more time at his Tropea office rather than the one in Rome.
The cobblestones were slick with water from the nightly hosing by the Piaggio Apes, the little three-wheeled utility trucks that cleaned the streets at night. Produce and flower vendors murmured among themselves as they set up their carts for the day. He made a mental note to pick up a bouquet for Ariana and some wine. As was typical for this time of year, the outdoor merchants were quiet, their only business coming from the locals who wouldn’t emerge for another hour or more. When they did, they would be unhurried, stopping to visit with each other, and possibly share a coffee and cornetti in one of the cafés that surrounded the square. But as the end of the month approached, the laid-back ambiance in the historic town would give way to a familiar scene of chaos.
In a few weeks, the shop and restaurant owners would unlock their metal shutters and spruce up their premises to prepare for the tourists that would soon infuse the town with energy. It was a short season in which to make money, and they would have to make every day count. Then, as the hot days of summer sputtered to a close, the entire town would brace for the annual jazz and blues festival in September, when everyone from the small towns and villages that dotted the hills surrounding Tropea came down to let their hair down and enjoy the music. But then, all too soon, by October, the shopkeepers would once again draw their shutters and settle in for the wet winter months ahead.
As the muted conversations of the traders fell away behind him and the light of dawn emerged, Nico considered his conversation with Ariana the night before. He’d slept poorly. Her terse tone and reluctance to go out for dinner weighed on his mind. Though they’d spoken by phone once or twice over the past few months, their last conversation hadn’t gone well and he’d hung up on her following a heated argument. Ariana was always right. For her, there were no shades of gray. He resolved to try harder; he didn’t like the wedge that had come between them.
They’d met in law school in 2013. After years of being thoroughly miserable managing his father’s cheese business from the age of twenty-five, Nico applied to every law school in Italy, and several abroad. At twenty-eight, he was finally accepted as a mature student at the Bocconi University in Milan. Similarly, Ariana applied in the last year of her undergraduate degree in political science and, much to her parents’ chagrin, was immediately accepted. They’d hoped she’d settle into a nice government job in Malta, get married and raise a family.
Though there was a six-year age difference, he and Ariana became a couple. But a year after graduating, when Ariana took a junior position with the prosecutor’s office in her native Malta and he was traveling back and forth between Rome and Tropea, their romance fizzled, but they remained friends. Occasionally, when she came to visit him, she’d let her guard down after too much wine, and they’d made love. Nico felt the same electricity he had in their college days, but he suspected for Ariana, sex was just a release from the tension of her job.
In spite of that, he would have been happy to carry on a long-distance romance, but in true Ariana fashion, she’d stated that she only had room for one relationship: that of representing the citizens of Malta against the corruption they’d become inured to. As in Italy, organized crime in Malta, though not spoken of openly, still had a broad and pervasive reach and Ariana was a passionate soldier in the fight against its influence, always had been. Many of the shops Nico walked past daily were a reminder of the tentacles that still gripped his own country, where anti-Mafia stickers littered windows declaring their owners’ refusal to pay protection money. However, the reality was that shopkeepers knew their leases were only a wink and a nod away from a crooked city official. Many were on the Mafia’s payroll and wouldn’t hesitate to shut down a business for some ridiculous offense.
Six years on from their graduation, Ariana had become a legal superstar. That was the spark that ignited the argument the last time they spoke at any length. She’d announced that she’d been asked to take the job of chief anti-corruption prosecutor.
“I hope you said no,” Nico had replied.
“Why would I? I’ve already accepted.”
“For God’s sake, Ariana, what would possess you? Do you want to end up like your predecessor? Shot to death in a restaurant in front of your friends and family?”
“How dare you! I, at least, have the courage of my convictions.”
Normally slow to anger, Nico recalled the hot bristle of rage that started at the base of his neck and crept across his scalp. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
But he’d known all too well what Ariana was referring to. He’d just lost a huge money-laundering case that had been two years in the making—the first loss of his career. As it involved both their jurisdictions, he and Ariana had collaborated on it, only for him to lose when it went to trial.
“That’s unfair,” he’d said. “You know the defendant’s connection to the ’Ndrangheta. And I didn’t have a prayer in front of that judge. What more would you have liked me to do?”
“Big deal, you lost a case. Rather than feeling sorry for yourself, you could have applied to have the judge removed and demanded a retrial, but you didn’t,” she’d shouted.
Her venomous tone had taken him aback.
“Where do you think I’d be now if I gave up every time I lost a case or I was ridiculed?” she’d sai
d. “I kept at it and now I have the opportunity to play a major role in blowing this thing wide open. To bring an end to the corruption that is a cancer on your country and mine.”
“For what, Ariana? So you can find another eviscerated animal on the front seat of your car? So you receive another death threat? Don’t you understand, this is bigger than us. It’s been happening for years—”
“Like losing your soul, Nico. It doesn’t happen overnight. You lose it one day—one case—at a time.”
He’d had enough. Shaking with rage and disbelief, he’d hung up on her. How dare she speak to him like that?
Time passed, and Nico was the one to break the ice—it seemed he was always the one to make the first move —but eventually, they spoke again. There were no apologies; without discussion, they’d agreed to disagree.
Chapter Two