Release: A gripping, fast-paced thriller

by Karen Moore

  He got back in the car and waited a few moments. The gates slid open slowly, allowing them to pass through. Hanna half-expected the house to have been transformed, but the exterior was just as she remembered it. Built of warm honey-coloured stone, with a heavy oak front door, wooden shutters framing the windows, surrounded by a garden ablaze with colour, it oozed the same rustic charm as before. But any charm quickly vanished as the memory of having been abducted by Luciano’s men came flooding back. That was the last time she’d been here.

  Nevertheless, she felt slightly reassured that the meeting would be on familiar ground. But her pulse quickened, and her stomach felt queasy at the prospect of confronting Luciano in the flesh.

  Roberto pulled up in front of the house alongside a silver Mercedes C class cabriolet with the roof down. Probably the lawyer’s, she thought. Roberto turned to her. “Ready?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go before I change my mind.”

  He patted her hand and smiled. She opened the car door and got out. As they approached the house, the front door swung open and a stern-looking elder-statesman-like figure appeared, dressed in a three-piece suit despite the heat, with a pair of half-moon glasses perched on the end of his nose.

  “Gaspare Benedetto, l’avvocato di Signor Cortazzo,” he introduced himself, shaking their hands in turn, po-faced and unsmiling. “Please come in.”

  He led the way to a room at the back of the house which Hanna remembered as being a playroom when Eva was little. A massive glass and chrome desk now dominated the room, behind which a bookcase filled the entire wall. In its new guise as an office, it was almost completely unrecognisable apart from the French windows that stood open leading out onto a patio area in the garden.

  The lawyer indicated a pair of matching cream leather sofas positioned around a glass coffee table. “Please sit down. Signor Cortazzo will join us shortly.” Hanna and Roberto took a seat next to each other, the lawyer perching on the edge of the other sofa.

  “Can I offer you coffee, or tea if you prefer?” he asked.

  Hanna was about to refuse when Roberto replied, “Coffee, thank you.”

  “Same for me, too, please,” she relented.

  “If you’ll excuse me for a minute…” He rose and disappeared, quickly returning and resuming his place on the sofa.

  “The paperwork is all ready for you to sign. That is, if nothing has changed since your conversation with my client yesterday?”

  Hanna steeled herself to respond. “No, nothing has changed. My only stipulation is that permanent custody of our daughter, Eva, should remain with me. I have no interest in any other assets or financial support of any sort.”

  Avvocato Benedetto raised an eyebrow as if to acknowledge the rarity of such an occurrence. “So I understand from my client, who has instructed me to prepare the paperwork on this basis. I trust you will find everything in order.”

  Despite his words, he made no move to show them the documents; he seemed to be waiting for Luciano. A few minutes passed with no further conversation, the silence between them hanging heavy in the sultry air. Then the door slowly opened and a pretty young girl, who looked no older than seventeen, entered the room carrying a tray which she set down on the glass table.

  “Grazie, Silvana,” the lawyer said, dismissing her and handing them tiny cups of espresso.

  More silence as they sipped their coffee, waiting for Luciano to arrive. Roberto consulted his watch in a deliberate gesture as if to provoke a reaction.

  The other lawyer shrugged. “He won’t be long.” No apology.

  The atmosphere in the room was decidedly frosty despite the searing summer heat. Frosty and claustrophobic. All this waiting was making Hanna nervous. Beads of sweat broke out across her forehead. The only sound was the loud ticking of a clock somewhere in the room.

  Roberto opened his mouth and was about to speak when Luciano swept into the room, and with a cursory glance at the three of them, he took a seat in the soft leather chair behind the desk. A cold shiver crept through Hanna’s body. Despite this, she couldn’t help stealing a surreptitious glance at the man she had once loved so unconditionally. He looked much the same as she remembered, except for a little greying at the temples. Still a handsome brute of a man. But still a brute.

  Luciano eyed them dispassionately. Dispensing with any greeting or other niceties, he said coldly, “Let’s get this concluded. Avvocato Benedetto, please hand out copies of the document so we can all check that we’re in agreement with the terms and that nothing has been overlooked.”

  With a slight deferential bow of his head, the lawyer got up and retrieved the copies from the desk, handing one to each of them. Hanna stared at hers, trying hard to concentrate, but found the Italian legal terminology difficult to follow. She was conscious of Luciano’s steely gaze.

  “Perhaps we could have a minute or two on our own to study this and talk it over between ourselves?” Roberto asked.

  “You can go out into the garden if you like,” said Luciano. “We’ll wait here.”

  “Grazie,” said Roberto, rising from the sofa. “We won’t be long.”

  He extended a steadying arm to Hanna as she rose, feeling slightly shaky, and led the way to the table and chairs outside on the patio.

  “We should be okay to talk here. We’re far enough away to be out of earshot. But we need to keep our voices low,” said Roberto. “Let me read the document through first, then we can discuss it.”

  Hanna nodded in agreement. “I’ll try and do the same, but I’m struggling a bit with the legal jargon. You may have to translate some of it for me.”

  “No problem,” he replied. “It’s important that we get this right. There won’t be a second chance.”

  “No pressure, then,” she muttered, turning back to the document, trying to ignore Luciano, whose gaze, she was convinced, was still fixed on her even from within the confines of his office.

  ***

  “Everything seems to be in order,” said Roberto when they returned inside. “I note that there is no mention of a visitation order for the daughter.”

  “My client has no interest in seeing his daughter,” said Avvocato Benedetto, his mouth twisted into more of a snarl than a smile, his lips parting to reveal a set of unusually white teeth. He reminded Hanna of a shark.

  “Ever?” asked Roberto.

  “Ever,” the older man confirmed.

  “Then there needs to be a clause to clarify this.”

  “Let us agree the wording then so it can be added. We can still conclude everything today. Does the rest of the document seem satisfactory?” The lawyer glowered at them, as if expecting a further challenge.

  Roberto looked at Hanna. They had already agreed there were no other areas of contention. Hanna nodded, shocked that Luciano still wanted no contact with his daughter, but relieved too.

  “Yes, we are happy to sign once the visitation issue has been addressed,” he said.

  Luciano rose from his throne behind the desk. “Prego, Avvocato Benedetto, please use my PC to make the necessary amendments.”

  Another obsequious nod of the head from the lawyer as they swapped places. He began to tap on the keyboard, added in the missing clause, and printed copies for them all to approve.

  Luciano was the first to speak. “That’s fine by me.”

  “And you two, are you happy now?” the lawyer asked with a sneer.

  Hanna and Roberto exchanged glances. “Yes, we are,” said Roberto.

  “In that case, all that remains is for both parties to sign the document. I’ll call Silvana to act as witness,” said the lawyer, rising from his chair to summon the girl.

  “Excellent work, Avvocato,” said Luciano with a frosty smile. “After the signing, each party will be free to go their separate ways.”

  Hanna’s heart skipped a beat. Somehow, he made this sound like a threat rather than the conclusion she had been hoping for.

  Lucia
no turned to Hanna and fixed her with a penetrating stare. “By the way, I heard about Ceri on the news. What a terrible thing to happen. And on her wedding day, too. Please send her my best wishes.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Hanna couldn’t believe her ears. What a callous bastard! She gazed at Luciano coldly, not trusting herself to respond. It was all she could do to stop herself from blurting out that the police knew he was behind it. Instead, she remained tight-lipped, reassuring herself that if everything went to plan, he’d find that out soon enough. She stood up, quickly followed by Roberto. Avvocato Benedetto showed them out.

  The front door of the villa closed behind them with a thud. They hurried back to the car, the precious divorce document clutched tightly in the lawyer’s grip. Roberto swung the car towards the electronic gates which parted slowly as they approached.

  The confrontation with Luciano had left Hanna with a throbbing head. Although the meeting had gone without a hitch, for her it had still been an ordeal. But now, hopefully, this period of her life was at last behind her, and they would never have to meet again.

  Back on the road, she took in a series of deep breaths, trying to fight back the waves of nausea that threatened to engulf her. She ended up in a fit of coughing and spluttering. Roberto pulled over, a look of concern on his face. He reached into the glovebox and handed her a bottle of water.

  “Here, take a sip,” he said. “Slowly does it, you don’t want to choke.”

  Hanna did as she was told, and the coughing gradually eased. She opened the car door and swivelled sideways, splashing her face with the remaining water.

  “Feeling better?” Roberto asked gently.

  Hanna nodded. “Yes, thanks. Sorry for reacting like that.”

  “You don’t have to apologise.” He started up the car again and manoeuvred it back on the road with one hand, adjusting the air-con with the other.

  Hanna relaxed back into the passenger seat and closed her eyes. She was coming round now, almost back to normal. When she opened them again, she realised that they must have come some way.

  “Did I doze off?” she asked, embarrassed.

  Roberto turned to her with a smile. “Only for a few minutes. At least, it’s all over now. Mission accomplished. Stage One, at least.”

  “Stage One?”

  “As far as the police investigation is concerned. We’ve managed to track Luciano down. Now, we need to step in and arrest him before he gets wind that we’re ready to detain him. We don’t want him disappearing on us.”

  Hanna swallowed, her throat suddenly like sandpaper. “How quickly do you reckon you’ll be able to act?”

  “Just as soon as we can. We need to make sure we have good reason to question him and obtain a warrant to search this, and any of his other houses, for further evidence of his involvement in the shooting and/or trafficking. We can’t afford to take him in for questioning and then not have enough evidence to make any charges stick. And all the arrests of the other traffickers in the network need to be done simultaneously. This time, we mean business.”

  His face grew increasingly serious as he talked. “I’ll let Vincenzo know we’re out of there and that everything went okay,” he said, searching the touch screen on the dashboard for the number.

  As the two policemen engaged in conversation, Hanna gazed out of the window and tried to make sense of her jumbled thoughts and emotions. Ideally, she would have liked to get on the next plane home and put as much distance between her and this damn island as possible. But her best friend was still here and recovering from a gunshot wound. Whether she was the intended victim or not, no way could Hanna turn her back on Ceri and leave. Ceri was like the sister she’d never had. And until Luciano was in custody, the police might still need her help.

  She tried to relax but could feel knots forming in her stomach and her shoulders tense. Suddenly, she became aware of the heavy silence in the car.

  “You okay, Hanna?” Roberto asked with a flicker of concern. “You seem miles away.”

  If only, she thought. “No, I’m fine. Still a little shaky, I guess.” She forced a wan smile.

  “Understandable. Vincenzo reckons we should be in a position to make our move in the next few days, all being well.”

  “So soon?”

  Roberto nodded. “He needs to confirm that everything’s co-ordinated with all the police forces involved and that Sergio’s ready with the media story. But otherwise…” He left the sentence dangling in mid-air.

  Realising she might be able to return home sooner than she thought sent a warm glow of joy coursing through her body. Back to Eva, her amazing little girl, and Rhys, her fabulous partner, both of whom she was missing so much. Back to some semblance of normality.

  ***

  Roberto was taking the bends along the winding road that led back to the coast at his usual speed. Feeling increasingly nauseous, Hanna was on the verge of asking him to slow down when he abruptly pulled into a layby where there was a makeshift bar.

  He turned to her and grinned. “I thought you could do with a break.”

  “Too right,” she muttered, flinging open the car door and stepping out into the merciless afternoon sun.

  She immediately understood the reason for the bar – no more than a small trailer and a few tacky plastic chairs – being there. From the layby, there was a clear view over the sweeping bay of Cefalù and its rocky promontory.

  “Wow,” she said, “that view’s simply stunning.”

  “Isn’t it just? We’re lucky to have the place to ourselves. It’s usually busy with tourists on their way up to the nearby Gibilmanna sanctuary.” He steered her towards the bar where he ordered two fresh lemonades. “Local speciality,” he explained.

  The stocky vendor proceeded to fill two tall glasses with cloudy lemonade and chunks of fresh lemon and ice from an enormous jug. He set them down on the counter of the trailer with a smile. Roberto grabbed the drinks and headed for a nearby table. Hanna took a seat, grateful for the shade provided by a pair of lofty umbrella pines and the gentle breeze that rustled through their boughs. She took a massive gulp of lemonade. Its icy sharpness was like a shot to the system.

  Roberto was watching her reaction. “Better?”

  Hanna nodded. “These roads…” she gesticulated with her hand.

  “Yeah, I know. They take some getting used to. Fabulous view up here, though. And it’s slightly cooler than down on the coast.”

  They sipped their drinks, taking in the view, enjoying a brief moment of calm. But it wasn’t long before Hanna’s thoughts returned to the present.

  “So, what happens now? With the divorce, I mean?” she asked.

  Roberto stretched his legs out in front of him. “Well, I’ll give the papers a final once-over to make sure nothing is missing. Then I’ll need to file them with the Commune so they can be registered and made legal and binding. We can’t rely on Luciano’s lawyer seeing it through to the end. Drawing up the paperwork, getting it agreed and signed off may have all been a charade for them.”

  Hanna felt a prick of alarm. “But it should all go through okay, though?”

  Roberto shrugged. “Yes, don’t worry. The circumstances are quite unusual, in that it’s a no-quibble divorce with no division of assets, but I’m not expecting any problems.”

  Hanna stared out towards the horizon and the blurred shape of a passing ship. She felt as if a weight was about to be lifted from her shoulders.

  Roberto drained his glass and stood up. “Andiamo. We’d better make tracks.”

  He rummaged in his pocket and drew out some crumpled notes and a handful of coins, leaving a selection on the table. Hanna finished her drink and followed him back to the car. They re-joined the road down to the coast, Roberto driving at a slower pace than before. Despite the continuing bends, they were back at the apartment in less than half an hour.

  But as Hanna let herself in through the front door, Roberto in her wake, she could sense something was wrong. They
found Sergio and Ceri sitting in silence in the kitchen staring at the screen of Sergio’s mobile phone, the tension between them almost palpable.

  “What’s wrong? Has something happened?” asked Hanna anxiously.

  Ceri looked up, her face puffy and drained of colour, her eyes red-rimmed. “I don’t ever want to get one of those messages again,” she said, passing Hanna the phone with trembling hands.

  Hanna stared at the screen, feeling her blood turn to ice as she read the message:

  “Heed the warning. Next time, you won’t be so lucky.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Roberto snatched the phone from Hanna and quickly read the message, his face clouding over, before handing it back. He delved in his trouser pocket for his own mobile, searched for the number he wanted, dialled, then turned and walked out of the kitchen, waiting for a response.

  Hanna sank onto a chair next to Ceri, reaching for her hand. “Are you okay?”

  Ceri nodded, still visibly upset, her hands still trembling. The sound of Roberto’s voice drifted through from the hallway. He was speaking to someone in hushed tones.

  “It came about ten minutes ago,” said Sergio, his face pale. “Looks as though the whole shooting incident was deliberately planned. Judging by that message, we could all still be in danger.”

  With a whimper, Ceri pushed back her chair and hurried off as best as she could. Sounds of retching came from the direction of the bathroom. Not exactly tactful, thought Hanna, giving Sergio a dirty look.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” he said. “I don’t want to make the situation any worse than it already is, but we all need to understand the score here…” He ran his hands through his hair, his expression a mixture of anger and bewilderment.

  Hanna sighed. “You’re probably right. It’s just that—”

  “Anyway, how did your meeting go?” Sergio interrupted her, as if he’d only just remembered where she’d been. “Any problems? Did Luciano sign the divorce papers?”