Gia Santella Crime Thriller Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (Gia Santella Crime Thrillers)

by Kristi Belcamino

  She pushed a phone on the desk toward me and stood. “I will give you some privacy while you call them. When you have finished, open the door and I will come back in and we can get started. I think I will need to speak to them. If they are ready to do so now, I will be right outside.”

  The phone rang a few times before Mrs. Kostas answered.

  “Good morning!” Her voice was so chipper, so happy, I was struck speechless. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  “Mrs. Kostas?”

  “This is she?” Now, she’d grown wary. Maybe expecting a sales call.

  “This is Gia Santella.” Pause.

  “Can I help you?” The name didn’t register at all.

  “I’m Bobby’s girlfriend ...” A sob escaped.

  “Yes?” Now she was really wary.

  “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but Bobby is dead.” Tears were streaming down my face now.

  “No. Oh God no. No. Who are you? What is this? Oh no.”

  I heard the phone drop and then a man’s voice in the background.

  “Who is this?” It was the man I’d heard.

  I repeated what I had told his wife. The noise he made, the guttural sound of agony was too much.

  “Hold please. I’m getting the woman here at the funeral home.”

  I ran out into the hall and couldn’t form the words, just pointed toward the desk with the phone on it.

  Monica went in, closed the door behind her. I collapsed into a chair along the wall, holding my head in my hands. The images from the hotel courtyard flashed back. Bobby. Matt. Dante. Mrs. Marino. The woman speaking Italian to me.

  Monica opened her office door, holding the phone away from her ear.

  “Mr. Kostas wants you to know they will be on the next flight to Naples.”

  “Thank you.” For some reason this made me feel better.

  A few minutes later, Monica came out. The Kostas were planning on bringing Bobby home within days. They were going to arrange a funeral mass at a cathedral in San Francisco for the following week, she said.

  I listened, blinking. It all seemed too sudden, too much. I didn’t understand how they could be planning a funeral mere moments after hearing their son was dead.

  “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  “Can I see him?” I’d been steeling myself up for this moment since I walked in.

  “I’m sorry. Not yet. He is not ready yet. It’s still so soon.” She looked apologetic. “Maybe when the Kostas arrive, you can all do it together?”

  That made sense. I imagined me and Bobby’s mother clinging to each other in comfort. If I were alone, I might lose it. Having his parents there would force me to keep it together.

  I turned to go, but then paused. “There was a woman. She was beside Bobby. Before she died she said something to me. She kept talking about her dead mother or something. Like she wanted me to do something. She said, ‘mia madre è malata e sola.’”

  “Not dead,” Monica said. “Sick and alone.”

  She tilted her head after she spoke.

  “What?” I asked.

  “That would explain why I can’t get ahold of the woman’s family,” she said. “I’ve been asking around town but nobody seemed to know her. She was only hired by the hotel for this event and there was no formal application. All we have is her name. And there’s nobody with that name here in town. Luisa Giuseppe. What else did she say?”

  My eyes widened. “She kept saying Tropeo. She said it three times.”

  “That makes more sense. I’ll have my assistant look for Giuseppe’s in Tropeo. Thank you.”

  “It’s a town?”

  Monica patted my arm as she said goodbye to me at the door. I glanced at my watch. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Bobby and I had been in bed together, me dreaming of a life with him.

  As I stepped into the sunlight and the door closed firmly beside me, I collapsed onto the ground. I slumped against the door. It opened behind me. Monica stood there.

  “Come.” She took my arm and helped me back inside and then down some steps to a small garage. “I’ll take you to your hotel.”

  “It’s a villa.”

  “Your villa,” she said, starting the engine on her car. “What’s the address?”

  I started to dig around in my bag for the slip of paper with the address on it, but then shook my head. “I need to go to the hospital. My friends are there.”

  During the drive, I thought about the woman who had died at the hotel. She had been an employee. “Do you think her mother is really sick and alone?” I asked, staring out the windshield.

  Monica knew who I was talking about.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “I don’t have the manpower to go to Tropeo to check on her. All we can do is call. It’s too bad.”

  “I can go.”

  She gave me a skeptical look.

  “I can.”

  “You are going to be busy yourself. You have enough to deal with.”

  I swallowed. She was right. I was trying to distract myself. To think about anything except the fact that Bobby was dead.

  At the hospital, nothing had changed. Dante had sent his mother back to the hotel with a guard he had hired to watch her. Dante, who looked like a walking zombie himself, took one look at me and ordered me to go sleep. I shook my head, but he said something in Italian into his phone. Not long after, a man in a sweater vest came into the room and took my arm, saying something in Italian.

  “He’ll drive you,” Dante said. “Get some rest. I’ll call you if ...”

  We both looked at Matt. The beeping noises. The tubes. The paleness. Nothing had changed.

  “What about you?” But I knew he wouldn’t leave or sleep. He couldn’t.

  I slumped in the corner of the cab, eyes unfocused, making the scenery a blur during the drive. The cab driver drove away before I let myself in. I stood outside the villa, afraid to go in.

  A vivid memory came back. Was it only yesterday we stood here in the driveway, filled with excitement over the wedding?

  Finally, I unlocked the door. The caretaker had left fresh fruit and a stack of newspapers on the counter, apparently unaware that we hadn’t slept there last night—we. Even in my thoughts, I stumbled on the word. We. There was no we. Not anymore.

  I glanced at the stack of newspapers and froze. The top story was about the shootings. “Slaughter at Hotel Rizzoli: four dead, ten injured.”

  The stack contained American papers. The shooting had made international news. Along with Bobby, three other people were dead. One was a Republican, Sen. Stan Larkin. On the other side of the health care plan. Someone Matt had been trying to woo and talk into coming over to his side. They were friends, but diametrically opposed on health care. Dante had said Sen. Larkin might not support the bill, but that he and Matt would remain friends. It seemed to squash Dante’s theory that Matt had been targeted for his politics.

  Sinking onto the bar stool, I read the newspaper accounts, one by one. They all essentially said the same thing.

  “Witnesses said four gunmen in black with black sunglasses burst into the courtyard and began firing semi-automatic weapons slaying four people instantly. Ten others were taken to the hospital. Three remain in critical condition.

  “Authorities say that they are investigating the shooting, which targeted a wedding reception for United States Senator Matt Stinson. He had wed his longtime boyfriend, Dante Marino, earlier that day. The thirty-one-year-old senator was targeted last week in Washington, D.C., by a group that opposes his new health care plan and authorities are investigating whether factions of this group traveled overseas to assassinate the senator. The CIA and possibly the FBI may become involved if that is the case. Investigators are heading to Italy.

  “Witnesses speculate that the target of the shooting was the senator. It seemed that the motorcyclists paused in the doorway until they located Sen. Stinson and then began to fire, according to one witness, who asked
that her name not be used. The woman, a resident of Positano, said the men looked like La Cosa Nostra and she feared for her life if her identity was revealed.

  “A source from within the police department said investigators are looking at a possible organized crime connection. But the source says he cannot fathom any reason the mafia would target the senator. It would be a risky move and uncharacteristic for the crime organization to go after tourists.”

  A source within the police department? Maybe it was Inspector Brossard who refused to take my sighting of the woman seriously. As I thought this, I realized who the woman might be. Leaping up, I grabbed the recycling bin out of the pantry and tossed newspapers onto the floor until I found the one I was looking for. The one about the Queen of Spades.

  She was a mafiosa.

  I quickly read the newspaper account again. There was no physical description for her. They said they didn’t know her age or anything else about her. But still.

  My phone’s internet connection was spotty, but I searched for the Queen of Spades.

  The only description I could find was a brief mention in a Paris newspaper during fashion week saying the Italian designer Federico Marcelli had dedicated his new line to the Queen of Spades. I scrolled through the runway show. All the women had long dark hair and dressed in black. Some wore black leather leggings with black silk shirts. Others wore sleek black dresses that hugged the body from neck to ankle. Another model wore a black miniskirt with black over-the-knee boots and a tight black long-sleeve T-shirt. The outfits all had two things in common: they were black and they hugged every curve.

  That was my main impression of the woman I had seen. I’d only caught a fleeting glimpse of her but she had long dark hair and black, body hugging clothes.

  The Queen of Spades had killed my boyfriend.

  I THREW THE NEWSPAPER down on the counter. “I don’t know who the fuck you really are, but I will find you. I will find you and I will destroy you.” I seethed the words.

  My anger seemed to strip the last remnants of my energy. I headed for the bedroom, planning on falling into bed. I pulled off the sweatshirt the police officers had given me and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The bodice of my dress was crimson with Bobby’s blood. Looking down in horror, I wadded the fabric in my fists. Then I raced into the bathroom in time to vomit all over the closed toilet lid. I crouched on the floor with my back against the wall and hugged my knees, trembling. I don’t know how long I was there, but my phone had rung about a half dozen times on the counter in the other room and daylight had disappeared by the time I stood, stripped, and dragged myself into the shower.

  When I was done, I didn’t dry off, only crawled into bed naked. For a split second, I wished I’d tried to buy drugs or sleeping pills from my cabbie because I knew I’d never sleep ...

  The next thing I knew, it was morning.

  I padded into the kitchen naked to grab my phone. I had missed at least a dozen calls and messages, but I didn’t even bother to see who they were from before I dialed. There was only one person I wanted to speak with.

  “Gia! I was about to send someone over there to check on you.”

  “How’s Matt.”

  “Same.” Dante’s voice was subdued.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The doctor said it’s touch and go.”

  “Oh, my God.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  Dante stayed silent.

  “The newspapers said they are sending FBI and CIA to see if it had to do with politics.”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Me, either.”

  More silence.

  Finally, I cleared my throat. “Have you left the hospital at all?”

  “I can’t, Gia.”

  “You can,” I said. “I need to talk to you. I’m going to come by in about an hour, take you to your hotel. You are going to shower and change and then we are going to eat and take a walk on the beach.”

  “I can’t, Gia.” His voice was pleading.

  “I’ll get your mom to sit with Matt. We won’t be gone long and we won’t go far. She can call you if anything changes.”

  “I have to stay with him, Gia.”

  “I understand, Dante. But your mom is going to agree with me.”

  “I’m swinging by to get her and we’ll be there in one hour. I have to see you now because I’m picking up Bobby’s parents at the airport this afternoon.” He couldn’t argue with me anymore. Just saying Bobby’s name made me want to collapse into a heap and never get up.

  Instead, I grabbed my clothes and tugged them on.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WALKING ON THE BEACH with me, Dante looked old. He was only twenty-four but his posture and demeanor was that of an old man. I would’ve given anything to see his brilliant white smile light up his face again, but I knew it might be a very, very long time before that happened.

  “They want to have a funeral mass next week,” I said, looking out at the sea so I didn’t have to look into Dante’s eyes. “Next fucking week.”

  “Wow.”

  “At some cathedral.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to be back by then.”

  “Me, either. I mean. I will of course. I can’t ... I can’t not go.” I fought back the tears. “But I don’t want to leave here until I find out who did this.”

  “Maybe there will be an arrest by then.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I saw something that the police are sort of dismissing, acting like it’s nothing. I’m worried that the Italian law enforcement and justice system is not going to be good enough for this.”

  I filled Dante in on what I had seen and told him what I knew about the Queen of Spades.

  “Why would she leave right before the police showed up?” I said as I finished. “And if it was her, why would she target Matt?”

  Dante shook his head. “Maybe it was a coincidence?” He squinted into the distance.

  A tremor of anger zipped through me. “You sound like the cop. All he was interested in were the motorcyclists. He flat out said she didn’t do it.”

  “He said that?”

  I shrugged. “I guess Italian cops don’t play things as close to the vest as American ones. Believe me, I was surprised, too.” More like pissed off.

  Dante cleared his throat. “Gia. I think the motorcyclists acted alone. I’ve been thinking about it. They were outside our hotel room. They were at the rehearsal dinner.”

  “Why would they target you? That doesn’t make any sense?”

  He blew air out of his mouth loudly and looked away, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe, I don’t know, maybe.” He stopped walking and looked out at the sea.

  “What, Dante?” I grabbed his arm. “What are you not saying.”

  He turned to face me. “Maybe they were just looking to harass American tourists, maybe rob us or something and then when you yelled at them last night, maybe you pissed them off.”

  “What?” The blood drained from my face. My cheeks felt icy cold. My mouth was wide open in astonishment. Finally, I spoke. “I ... I can’t believe you said that. Is that what you really think?”

  He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you saying, are you hinting, that it was my fault? That if I hadn’t confronted them, Bobby would be alive and Matt would be fine.” My voice rose. “Tell me if that’s what you’re saying, Dante.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “Goddamn it. That’s what you think isn’t it? Oh, my fucking God. I can’t fucking believe this.” I didn’t know whether to cry or to run until I collapsed. Instead, I put my head in my hands and yanked at my hair. “That’s what you think.” I said it quieter this time.

  “I don’t know.” Dante looked out at the sea as he spoke. “I don’t think I can be around you right now. I’ll have my mother call you if there is anything new with Matt.”

  I stood there open-mouthed i
n disbelief. He was fucking joking, right? He couldn’t possibly be serious? But he turned on his heel and left, heading straight for the hotel boardwalk, not turning to see if I was following. Staring at his short dark head dipped down, his posture hunched over like an old man, I let the tears fall. I loved him with all my heart. But fuck him. Fuck him for thinking I’d caused Bobby’s death.

  I was angry, but also absolutely devastated. A small piece of my heart shriveled up and died right then.

  WHEN I ARRIVED AT THE airport, I recognized Bobby’s parents from a photograph he kept on his refrigerator. They looked old. I knew they were my own parent’s age, if my parents had lived, but they seemed much older. Bobby’s mother had white, short hair and glasses. His father was balding and had a big belly. I rushed up to them, tears falling, but his mother drew back as if I were a gypsy accosting her in a ruse to steal her purse.

  “I’m sorry for the confusion,” she said before I could even greet her. “We’ve made arrangements to get to our hotel. We’re sorry to have troubled you.”

  I shrunk beside her. I realized I’d looked forward to grieving with someone who had loved Bobby. Who could understand the terrible enormity of his loss. But she wanted nothing to do with me. His father gave me a sympathetic look, but didn’t say a word.

  She hitched her purse on her shoulder and strode away. The father hesitated and then said in a low voice, “The funeral mass will be on the fourth at Grace Cathedral.”

  No, “hope you can make it” or “see you later.” No, nothing. Just telling me the funeral for the man I loved was in six days.

  And just like that, I was dismissed.

  I’d driven more than an hour to the airport only to be told to fuck off.

  THE INSPECTOR WAS HUNCHED over some papers in his office. I’d talked the janitor in the front into letting me back. The department was closed for the night.

  Inspector Brossard didn’t seem surprised to see me. He exhaled and leaned back in his chair, his fingers stroking his goateed chin.

  “I need to know why you don’t think it’s her.”