by Matt Lincoln
“Let’s go.” Gabriella turned to look at the rest of the group. “I’m sure you’re all hungry by now. I know a place where we can take a break and have some lunch.”
“Sounds great.” I smiled at her. Now that I thought about it, I was actually pretty hungry. It had been hours since we’d left the hotel that morning, and the only thing I’d eaten for breakfast was that croissant and a cup of coffee.
More than that, though, I was honestly looking forward to spending some more time with Gabriella. She seemed much more at ease now that she’d seen the men being taken into custody with her own eyes, and the smile that was currently lighting up her face was a lovely sight.
18
Ethan
The restaurant that Gabriella suggested for lunch was located in a small building back near the police station. It looked like it might have been a house at one point, remodeled on the inside to accommodate the restaurant. The entrance was tucked into the side of an alley, well lit with warm, twinkling strings of lights covered by a large blue and white canopy. Vines and plants encircled the archway that led into the alley.
“This is one of my favorite places to eat when I have time for a long lunch,” Gabriella explained as we stepped inside. “The food is good, and it’s such a pretty place, but because the entrance is hidden away, it never gets crowded with tourists.”
The restaurant’s interior looked cozy and rustic, with wooden furniture and more string lights hung up along the walls. Antique lamps covered with paneled glass shades cast soft beams of light all over the inside of the small restaurant.
“Ciao,” the young hostess standing at the front of the restaurant greeted us as we stepped toward her. “Quanti?”
Gabriella turned and looked at us for a moment before turning back around and holding up five fingers.
“Cinque,” she replied.
The hostess nodded and grabbed several menus from somewhere below the podium she was standing behind before beckoning for us to follow her with a nudge of her head. She led us toward the biggest table at the back of the restaurant. Gabriella’s claim that the restaurant never got crowded appeared to be true, from what I could see. Aside from us, there wasn’t anyone else in the place aside from a couple sitting a few tables away, clearly on a date as they fed each other bites of what looked like some kind of pastry.
“What do you recommend?” I asked Gabriella as we took our seats. “I’m sure you know a lot more about Italian food than we do.”
“Let me think,” she hummed as she lifted one of the menus and flipped through it. “Is anyone allergic to anything?”
She lifted her head and looked around the table at each of us. When we each confirmed that there was nothing off-limits, she quickly went back to perusing the menu. After a few minutes of discussion, we decided to just get a variety of things to try.
“It would be a shame if you came all the way to Italy and didn’t get to sample as much as you could,” Gabriella remarked as she gathered the menus back up and stacked them neatly. “Of course, even this much isn’t enough. There are so many amazing things to eat here.”
“Well, it seems like a good start.” I smiled at her as a server arrived at the table. Gabriella helpfully relayed our orders to the server, and for a moment, I wondered what it must be like for Hills and Chapman to have to deal with this all the time. Most of the countries Holm and I traveled to tended to speak English, so I couldn’t imagine how tiring it must be to deal with a language barrier constantly.
The five of us spent the next few minutes chatting idly while we waited for the food. It came out sooner than I expected, though I supposed it wasn’t that odd, considering there weren’t many customers in the restaurant.
At Gabriella’s suggestion, we’d each gotten a plate of tortellini, as well as a few sides of gnocchi, focaccia, and even truffles, to try between the five of us. Honestly, I didn’t even know what most of it was when Gabriella had recommended it, but I’d been pleased to discover when everything arrived that it all looked really good.
“You can’t come to Italy and not have pasta,” Gabriella insisted confidently. “No other country in the world makes pasta as authentically as we do.”
“I’m looking forward to it then,” I replied before taking a bite of the tortellini. It was incredibly good. The pasta itself was soft and buttery, and the moment I bit into the little pouches, I could taste beef, cheese, and a plethora of herbs I couldn’t readily name.
“Is it good?” Gabriella asked me, a smug smile forming across her lips as though she already knew the answer.
“It is.” I nodded before taking another bite. “Best pasta I’ve ever had.”
“I told you.” She beamed before digging into her own plate of food.
“Oh, Fiona’s calling me,” Chapman suddenly declared, coughing as he hastily swallowed a mouthful of food. He set his fork down quickly before reaching into his pocket to grab his phone, evidently eager to answer the call. I watched as he put the phone up to his ear and listened intently for a moment. “Okay… okay. Yes, that’s perfect, thank you… Alright, I will. Bye.”
By the time he ended the call and shoved his phone back into his pocket, the rest of the table had ceased their own conversations and turned to look at him.
“She managed to pull up some information about the tattoos,” he informed us as he reached into the bag on the floor by his chair to retrieve his tablet. “She sent some police records over. Apparently, our source was right about everything. The tattoos trace back to a gang based out of Colombia. According to what she found, there are records of people connected to this gang winding up in prisons as far back as five years ago, but it was only recently that they landed on the FBI’s radar.”
“The FBI?” I asked as I took the tablet from him. “How did they end up getting involved?”
“Apparently, this gang has exploded in power recently,” Chapman replied as I scrolled through the police reports. The majority of the arrests were for drug-related offenses or assaults. “About a year ago, there was a really big drug bust in one of the ports of Southern Florida, near the Gulf of Mexico. They discovered thousands of dollars worth of drugs, and several gang members were arrested. Ever since then, they’ve been popping up more and more. Fiona said that the FBI is actively pursuing them, but several months ago, they suddenly lost the trail and haven’t found anything since.”
“That’s probably around the time they started attacking ships,” Hills grumbled as he pushed his pasta around idly on his plate with his fork. “They decided to graduate from petty drug dealers to full-blown pirates. It coincides perfectly with when we started to investigate them.”
“So, now we know who they are, at least,” I noted as I handed the tablet back to him. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t do much as far as helping us find them. They’ve already demonstrated that they have men in several locations around the world, so we can’t even reliably assume that we might find them if we were to head to Colombia.”
“Maybe we should speak to Captain Danieli again,” Gabriella suggested. “The informant we spoke to said that they were selling weapons to the pirates, right? Maybe now that he knows he doesn’t have a chance of getting away with this, he will be more likely to tell us the truth. He might know something about where to find the pirates.”
“That’s a good idea,” I replied. “We should head back to the station after we finish eating and see about speaking with him.”
“Your data analyst managed to find that information really fast,” Holm noted as he examined one of the truffles cautiously. “It hasn’t been that long since we got back to shore. She analyzed the images in that footage quickly.”
“It’s because Junior asked her to,” Hills grunted, causing Chapman to choke on the bite of food he was currently chewing. “Ever since they started dating, she drops whatever she’s doing to get to whatever he needs.”
“That’s not true!” Chapman coughed in protest. “She’s just good at her job! She’d do th
e same for you if you called her and asked her to investigate something!”
“I doubt it,” Hills replied without hesitation. “That’s why I always have you contact her. Hey, it’s not a bad thing. Not many people would be able to handle being in a relationship with their coworker. You two actually became better at your jobs after you got together.”
Chapman glowered at him but didn’t respond, electing instead to shove another forkful of pasta into his mouth.
“That’s so romantic,” Gabriella remarked wistfully. “You get to work with your partner? In law enforcement, it can be difficult to find anyone to be with at all. That’s so lucky.”
Her words appeared to have a placating effect on Chapman because he immediately dropped the scowl. His face quickly turned red, though, and he continued to eat without offering a response.
“What about you?” She turned to look at me. “Do you have a partner? A romantic one, I mean, not—”
She turned to look at Holm, who froze mid-bite at her question. I could see something brewing behind his eyes, and for a moment, I was certain he was about to make some quip about my supposed many girlfriends or track record for hooking up with women I’d just met.
“No,” I replied before he could swallow the bite of food he was on and say anything. “You’re right about it being hard to date when you’re in law enforcement.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” she replied quietly, though I noticed that she didn’t sound sincere at all as she said that. I also didn’t miss the small smile that settled over her lips as she turned back to her food.
I had to fight to keep a smirk off my own face at her obviously pleased reaction at hearing that I was single. Of all the police liaisons we might have been assigned, I was glad we’d been given someone as kind, beautiful, and clearly interested in me as Gabriella was.
19
Ethan
After we finished eating, we headed back to the police station. I had such a nice time that I actually felt disappointed when our easy-going lunch had come to an end. After Gabriella had inquired over whether I was seeing anyone, I’d noticed that she seemed to focus most of her attention on me for the rest of the time we were at the restaurant. Holm had noticed it too, and I’d caught him rolling his eyes and smirking when no one else was looking. I was sure he would make some comment about it later, but I honestly didn’t care. Gabriella was a kind and determined woman, and even though I’d only known her for a day, I felt an irresistible pull toward her.
That pull would have to wait until later, though, as first I had to focus on the investigation. We’d just stepped back into the police station, intent on interrogating Danieli again about his relationship with the pirates, when we were all caught off-guard by a woman’s high-pitched yells. She was standing just outside the reception window, furiously demanding to speak to someone other than the officer who was currently attempting to calm her down.
“Perché nessuno mi ascolta?!” she screeched at the officer, who was standing behind the window and speaking calmly in response.
“Qual è il problema?” Gabriella stepped forward and got the woman’s attention. The shrill woman snapped her head around to look at Gabriella, seemingly ready to scream at her too, until she looked down and realized she was wearing a police uniform.
“Sto cercando di spiegargli!” She scoffed impatiently, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. “Ho visto degli uomini molto sospettosi a Sorrento! Perché nessuno mi crede?!”
“What’s going on?” I asked Gabriella, who seemed confused by the woman’s ranting. The angry woman turned her head to look at me as soon as I spoke.
“Who are you?” she asked me in thickly accented but clear English. “Are you also police? Are you stupid like these morons?”
She waved a hand furiously behind her in the direction of the officer behind the glass.
“She said that she saw some suspicious men down in Sorrento,” Gabriella replied slowly, her eyebrows knitting together in concern. “That’s quite some distance from here. Why did you come all the way up to Naples to report it?”
“Because they will not listen to me down there!” she screeched. “I told them! I called and told them that some nasty, dirty men arrived on a boat! They looked like murderers! They were covered in blood! But they told me it was just my imagination!”
“A boat?” I repeated, alarm bells going off in my head. A group of men showing up out of the blue on a boat a few days after the attack on the cargo ship certainly seemed like a pretty big coincidence.
“Okay, why don’t we slow down for a second,” Gabriella suggested calmly. “Let’s go sit over here on this bench.” She guided the woman over to a metal bench pressed against a wall on the left side of the lobby. “Okay, tell me what happened, from the beginning, please.”
“Finally, someone is listening!” she huffed irritably.
Honestly, I could understand why people might have been ignoring her so far. She was, frankly, obnoxious.
“I was by the docks, enjoying my walk.” She sniffed haughtily. “There were too many noisy kids running around yelling and making a mess, so I moved to a more quiet area. That is when I saw them!”
“The men?” Gabriella asked patiently.
“Of course!” the woman crowed. “Four of them, all huge, like monsters! And covered in tattoos, I just knew that they were criminals. Only criminals have tattoos! And they had blood stains on their clothes, I saw them!”
“What kind of boat were they in?” Gabriella prompted her for more information.
“An orange one,” the woman replied, scrunching up her nose and waving her hand in the air dismissively. “The kind you inflate with air.”
I turned to look at the other agents. As annoying as this woman was, if she was telling the truth, then it sounded like we might have some survivors from the pirates’ ship on our hands. An orange, inflatable boat sounded a lot like a life raft, and a group of burly, tatted men covered in blood certainly matched the description of the attacking pirates.
“Alright,” Gabriella replied with a nod. “You said that you contacted the authorities down in Sorrento. What—”
“Yes, I did!” the woman interrupted, her voice rising even higher in pitch as though she was affronted just thinking about it. “I told them that some dangerous criminals were wandering along the docks. They did not even tether their boat! They just got off and walked away. Who does that? They were clearly criminals!”
“So that’s why you decided to come up to Naples?” Gabriella asked. I was impressed by her ability to remain completely calm despite the woman’s continued yelling.
“Well, obviously!” the woman huffed. “I thought that maybe the police up here would be less useless, but I see now that I was wrong!”
She shot a dirty look at the officer sitting at the desk, who was staring back at her with an unfazed expression.
“Well, you don’t have to worry anymore,” Gabriella assured the woman with a warm smile. “You’ve given us some very useful information. We’ll go and look into it right now.”
“Well… good!” the woman replied stiltedly. She almost sounded disappointed at not having something to yell about. “I suppose there are some police left in Italy who are not complete imbeciles!”
She stood up then, sticking her chin out dramatically and shooting one last venomous glare at the officer behind the glass window before strutting out of the station.
“Wow,” Hills deadpanned once the door was shut behind her. “That was almost unbearable.”
“She was just upset that no one was taking her seriously,” Gabriella replied in the woman’s defense as she stood up and walked over to the officer at the desk. “Why wasn’t she being taken seriously? It sounds like she might have seen some of the men we’re after.”
“We didn’t think she was telling the truth.” The officer shrugged.
“Why not?” I frowned. She was grating, sure, but that didn’t mean that a serious claim like the one she�
�d just made should just be ignored.
“Because she’s done this before,” the officer replied with a sigh. “We got a call from the station down in Sorrento warning us that she would likely be coming to harass us. Apparently, she likes to call and complain about people, even if they’re not doing anything illegal. Kids playing too loud. People playing music in public places. When she came in with that story, they thought she was just exaggerating again. She lost her mind and said she was going to go to the police in Naples if they wouldn’t do anything about it, so they called to warn us that she would probably show up in the next few days, and they were right.”
“Boy who cried wolf,” I muttered. “Except this time, it looks like she wasn’t lying.”
“How can we be sure?” Gabriella asked, folding her arms over her chest. “If she’s lied about these kinds of things before, maybe she’s lying now.”
“I don’t think so,” I replied as I thought over everything she’d said. “I guess it’s possible she heard about the attack on the news or something, but some of her details seemed a little too spot-on to be made up. The orange lifeboat and the fact that they had tattoos, for example. Plus, it doesn’t sound like she’s ever lied about things happening, just made them out as worse than they actually were.”
“Either way, we should investigate,” Hills added. “If this is legit, then it would be our best lead. We should head to Sorrento and speak to the officers the lady talked to.”
“I’ll clear it with my captain,” Gabriella replied. “We can take the train down there. It should only take about an hour and a half. If we leave now, we’ll be there before dark.”
She stepped away from us and through the door that led into the rest of the police station. The moment she was through the door and out of earshot, Holm turned to look at me.