by Mary Leo
Once I finally showered, dressed and assessed the damage, I realized there was no way either Giuseppe or I could fix my now destroyed door. Around six that morning I made a few phone calls and Uncle Benny, along with cousins Rocco and Maryann, came by to repair my front door, at least temporarily. A new one was ordered, and this time a double lock would be put on the door, something I never thought I would need while living on the orchard.
My poor little olive tree was now in shock, while it sat in the broken pot in the corner of my deck. I would have to repot the tree at some point, and hope that it didn’t die.
“What the hell happened?” Gianna asked as she poked her head into my apartment while I continued to sweep up dirt and glass that seemed to be stuck to my floor. By now it was almost eight-thirty and the orchard was coming to life.
“Long story, but someone broke into my apartment last night and tried to kill us by turning on the gas burners on my stove, and then tried to lock us in. Giuseppe broke my glass door so we could get out.”
“Wow,” she said. “Fast thinking on his part. Are you guys okay?”
I stopped sweeping and gazed over at her. Her pink short hair seemed extra spiky this morning. She wore a light gray sheath dress with cap sleeves, and white chunk-heeled booties. Gianna seemed to always wear white or off-white shoes. I didn’t know why, and didn’t care to ask. I didn’t know exactly why, but something about her annoyed me. Still, she seemed like a perfectly nice person who had been through a lot, so I knew I should give her a break.
She carried a brown paper bag.
I threw her a wide grin and hoped that might change my disposition. “We’re fine, but it was pretty intense there for a while.”
“Did you see who it was?” she asked, clutching the paper bag.
“No. They were dressed in black with a hoodie that covered most of their face.” I leaned on my broom as we chatted about the break in.
“Do you think it was the same person who shot Giuseppe in the shoulder? Sounds like whoever it was, is determined to take him down.”
I didn’t want to tell anyone other than Lisa and Jade my Angelina theory just yet. And besides, I didn’t know Gianna that well, so confiding in her wasn’t something I was ready to do.
“Fortunately, they aren’t very good at the killing game.”
Her face tightened for a moment, then relaxed. “Or maybe Giuseppe’s just lucky.”
“There’s always that,” I told her. “I don’t know who tried to run us off the road. We never got a look at the person. The windows were tinted on the car. But I have a feeling it’s all the same crazy person. Probably somebody from another mob family who’s mad at Giuseppe for trying to go straight. He may have to go into hiding for awhile.”
“Like I did,” she said.
“Exactly,” I told her.
“That kind of puts a damper on your wedding plans.”
“Didn’t you hear? He’s already engaged to someone else from Italy.”
“What?” she asked, looking confused.
“Yeah, Angelina Pisano. You might remember her. You did her hair the other day . . . The Audrey Hepburn do.”
She looked a little shocked for a moment, then she said. “Oh yeah. I remember her. Rude bitch. Stiffed me.”
“Well, they’re engaged.”
“Men! They’re such bastards.”
“Not all of them,” I said, not wanting to get into a male bashing game with her. I hated when some women lumped all men together and started bad-mouthing them as if they were all the same . . . bad.
“And you have no idea if whoever broke in here last night is the same person who shot him?”
She seemed way too interested in the details, which caused me to wonder if she suspected someone.
Still, I didn’t want to confide in her.
“No,” I said, lying.
“Scary for everybody who lives here, don’t you think?”
I didn’t exactly agree with her, considering everyone but me was armed to the teeth. For all I knew, she probably carried her own weapon.
I decided to change the subject. “Is that for me?” I asked referring to the brown grocery bag she clung to.
“Not exactly. I brought over some clothes and stuff for Giuseppe. I texted him last night and asked if he wanted me to bring over some of his things.”
“You have Giuseppe’s phone number?”
“Sure. Who do you think gave him his silver fox look?”
“That was you?”
“Of course. I’ve been cutting his hair since Italy.”
“You knew him when you were in Italy?”
“He was a regular in the salon where I worked.”
“Small world,” I said, as my inner sleuth triggered. Just how well did they know each other in Italy? I’d have to ask Giuseppe.
“Yeah, really small. Anyway, he gave me a short list, but I added a few things to it. Where is he?” She looked around. “This is really a small apartment. Why don’t you live in one of the bigger places? I mean, you’re the boss’ daughter, so to speak. You could live anywhere you want. Why this place when it’s so close to your mom? Kind of cuts down on your privacy, don’t you think?”
This woman had now stepped into the realm of getting under my skin.
I ignored her rude question, and continued sweeping. “Giuseppe’s taking a bath. He tried to help Rocco with the door this morning, but all it did was tire him out and make his wound bleed again. I thought a bath might help him relax.”
“Probably a good idea. Anyway, I can’t wait for him. I’ve got an early customer coming in, but tell him I stopped by. Okay? And if he needs anything else, he can text me. Oh and if he wants me to dye his hair back to brown, tell him I can fit him in anytime.”
I bet you could.
“Sure,” I told her and without another word she put down the bag and left. I picked it up and brought the bag of clothes and what felt like shoes over to the bathroom, tapping on the door. “Gianna left some of your things. Should I leave them by the door?”
The door creaked open and a haze of steam poured out as Giuseppe stood in the doorway wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair slicked back and still wet. He looked positively delicious as droplets of water shimmied down his arms and chest. “That was nice of her, but how did she get into my apartment?”
“She didn’t say, but she said you texted her a list of things you wanted.”
“I do not remember this, but the drugs you give me make my head foggy. I am grateful for the clothes.”
I handed him the bag. “Well, at least you have something to wear now.”
“Yes. Now you will feel more comfortable,” he said, grinning.
“Me? What does your having clothes have to do with me?”
He smirked, and I pulled the door shut. The man seemed to be able to read my sinful mind.
Just then Uncle Ray popped in to check on his patient and to inform me of the latest in his mayoral duties. Aunt Babe followed him inside dressed in her best forties outfit, complete with a brunette wig fashioned in the style of the era. She tended to keep her ruby red lips puckered for a kiss, which caused them to look even bigger than normal. I didn’t know who she was trying to emulate this morning, but I was sure at some point she would tell me.
It seemed that Uncle Ray had been in the process of setting up not only more security cameras around the grounds and shops, but also hiring a round-the-clock security team to keep us all safe . . . if that was even possible, given our history.
“Now that our village is doing so well, we need protection twenty-four-seven,” Uncle Ray said over the sound of hammering and buzzing electric saws. “I’m just sorry we didn’t think of this sooner. Maybe we could’ve avoided all of this rotten shit from happening. But we’ll catch the son-of-a-bitch. You can be sure of that.”
I had to agree with him there, even though I knew his means of capturing the lady in black would be quite different than my methods. I just hop
ed I could catch her first . . . and I had a good hunch of where to start looking.
Angelina would be my first stop. There was more to her than what Giuseppe had told me, I was sure of it.
Lisa would have insisted that I call the local sheriff, and part of me wanted to do just that, but I knew calling him in would be opening up a whole new can of worms. I wished Nick and his team weren’t stuck in Italy, and he was back here to help out instead. At least he would put some fear into the heart of whoever had tried to kill Giuseppe . . . and now me. Of course, I certainly didn’t like getting caught in his cross hairs.
Whoever this would-be assassin was, certainly didn’t know his or her business very well . . . thank goodness. Or if it was Angelina, she was still trying to scare him and now me. After all, I was sure she’d heard about my family wanting me to marry her fiancé. That couldn’t sit very well with her, despite what Giuseppe had told me about their engagement being fake. I had a feeling there was much more to it than that. And I also had the feeling that she cared about him much more than he thought.
A woman can tell these things . . . not that I ever could, but I was hoping my ability to read people was getting better.
Giuseppe had finally emerged from the bathroom, pulled out a chair and sat next to my table.
“We can all rest easy now that we have a proper security team,” Aunt Babe pronounced as if this was now gospel. I was sure she’d tagged along with Ray to change Giuseppe’s bandages and offer up some sympathetic beside manner. Uncle Ray lacked any kind of manners. He was more the in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is type. According to Ray, if the bullet had hit another inch to the right it would have shattered Giuseppe’s rotator cuff, causing a world of damage, and another inch higher it could have shattered his collarbone, and two more inches down and, well, the list of potential catastrophes went on and on. Good thing Babe was there to soften the blows or Giuseppe would never have been able to relax. I could tell he’d gotten upset over all of Ray’s potential death scenarios and if it hadn’t been for Babe’s reassuring tone, Giuseppe would have been out the door shooting up anyone who had looked at him funny, especially since our unwelcome visitor last night.
“Gas, on the other hand, can take a little more time to kill you, depending on your intake. Too bad about your front door,” Uncle Ray said. “But getting out was the best thing you two could’ve done. Opening a window wouldn’t have been enough.”
I caught the self-righteous smirk on Giuseppe’s face as he sat on a chair while Babe tended to his gunshot wound. He wore a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt that Gianna had brought by. She also must have brought by his toiletries, because he’d shaved off that great scruffy beard that had caused me way too many daydreams.
“Besides, the whole place could’ve blown up with you two in it,” Aunt Babe said. “Your mom would never have survived that, doll. Not to mention the cost to the orchard. Whoever this piece of shit is needs to be caught soon.”
“And dealt with,” Giuseppe said.
I knew what he meant, but at the moment I was too shook up to argue with him. All I truly wanted was for him to leave my apartment. I thought I would be a lot safer if the man who was attracting violence resided in his own apartment . . . back in Italy.
But part of me also wanted to protect him. After all, I was the one who heard the gas bandit first and not Giuseppe. The man slept like a hibernating bear.
Although it was tantalizing having an essentially naked man in my bed, at this point in my life, confusion and indecision were the only emotions I felt. Okay, and yeah, he turned me on, but I was mature enough not to act on it . . . yet. If he stayed too many more days, though, I couldn’t promise that maturity wouldn’t be replaced by raw lust.
Just sayin’.
ELEVEN
There’s Something Rotten In Winestock
Angelina never showed up for dinner last night nor did she show up today. According to Giuseppe, she also never called or texted, which I found curious considering all that fake fawning over her darling Giuseppe the previous morning. Mariateresa brought over four assorted paninis along with cups of hot soup and salad for lunch while I repotted my little olive tree in a container I found down in my mom’s garden shed. It was just a plain ceramic pot, but for now it would have to do.
She cursed whoever broke into my apartment, and sat with Giuseppe for about an hour or so, never mentioning Angelina. She had to leave around one-ish because she’d asked my mom for a tour of our orchard. That would take up the rest of her day, and probably well into the night. Mom liked to give a complete tour that included tasting most of our oils and vinegars and a detailed explanation of how we crushed our olives. I felt certain it was going to be much more than Mariateresa had ever bargained for.
Early that evening, after Giuseppe once again had fallen into his sexy snoring routine, I tip-toed out of my apartment, locking the makeshift door behind me, and scurried down the steps like a stealth little mouse.
“So, where are we headed?” Lisa wanted to know as she sat behind the wheel of the loaner BMW the dealer had given her while the scratches on her car were being eradicated.
“Winestock Inn,” I told her as I fastened my seatbelt. “I think we need to pay Angelina a visit. She never showed up last evening for dinner, and not today either--probably holed-up in her room drunk on my orange muffins.”
I’d already filled Lisa in on the muffin burglar along with my theory that it was Angelina who broke into my apartment and turned on all the gas burners trying to asphyxiate us while we slept.
“I thought you said there were only three left? She could hardly get drunk off of that.”
“I’d soaked those three in extra Grand Mariner . . . like a rum cake. They were special.”
“That’s cheating. Good thing she stole them, then.”
“I had no intention of eating them. I was going to give one to you, Giuseppe and one to Jade,” I told her, flat-out lying. I knew when I’d soaked them that I was planning on cheating.
“Yeah, and pigs can fly.”
“Let’s just go,” I told her, not wanting to argue. Fine, she was absolutely right, but that didn’t stop me from wanting a drink . . . any kind of hard liquor would do . . . even if it came in the form of a baked good.
We wore our sleuthing outfits. Not that we had ever compared notes about what to wear on one of these adventures, but we’d fallen into uniforms of black and gray without ever talking about it. Of course, Lisa always wore a pair of heeled, black designer boots, and high-end designer shirts and pants, while I wore sneakers, jeans and a T-shirt under a black hoodie, but hey, both outfits got the job done.
“And you’re sure that’s right? It’s not very high end and Angelina strikes me as a five-star chick, all the way.”
“Maryann did a little checking. She jams with a few of the local chapter members of Innkeepers of America, so she asked around to make sure.”
“A jam session with an accordion player . . . who knew?”
“Apparently the accordion is making a comeback. Maryann also belongs to Hot Accordion Chicks, International. They have a video on YouTube with over a million views.”
Lisa chuckled. “I love it. Go Maryann!”
“She’s on the board,” I told her, proud of my cousin. At one point in Maryann’s life, she was addicted to drugs, but the accordion saved her . . . much like the olive had saved me. As a member of the Spia clan, we all have our own paths, and at the moment, mine was fraught with bullets and babes.
“Do we have a room number?”
I nodded. “Room three-eleven, the best suite in the house.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“And I brought the gemstone I found next to Giuseppe on the road,” I said, pulling it out of my change purse to show her.
“That looks exactly like the rubies in her necklace. Could she really have taken a shot at her lover?”
“I have new details on their engagement.”
“Spill,
please.”
“It’s not real. Whatever’s going on Giuseppe won’t tell me, but he said everyone has to believe that our engagement is off, and their engagement is the real thing. He thinks it’s safer for me . . . and after what happened last night, I think he was right.”
“Ya think?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know. This whole thing is getting crazy. I don’t know what to think anymore. I wish Nick was here.”
“He gets back tomorrow. Why? Would you actually tell him about all of this?”
“I think I would. Yes.”
“Just tell me one thing. Are you more upset over your stolen orange muffins or the fact that someone tried to asphyxiate you and Giuseppe?”
I had to be honest. “My pinched muffins.”
“That’s good.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because that proves you’re still innocent in all of this, and not out for some kind of mobster type revenge.”
“I just want to make this all stop, and I think Angelina is the key.”
“Then what are we waiting for.”
“Let’s roll,” I said and we took off for the inn while I sent a quick text to Giuseppe. I wanted him to know where we were headed . . . not that I told him any of the details . . . but just in case he woke up, he wouldn’t think someone kidnapped me, or worse.
The good thing about Winestock Inn was I knew the owners, Jane and Brad Lucerne. A lovely older couple that used our oils in their kitchen, and touted the benefits to their guests whenever they had the chance. We each acted as cross-promoters. My family would recommend Winestock, and the Lucernes would recommend our Spia’s Olive Press. There were many establishments in the valley that did the same kind of cross-promoting. It helped us all.
The bad thing about the Inn was that Louie Lucerne, their son, still had a crush on me ever since we had sex during one of my more drunken states when I was in my mid-twenties. Now, every time I saw him, he had to remind me about that regrettable night . . . of which I remembered very little.