by Todd Ritter
“So it is you.”
“In the flesh,” Henry said.
Kat quickened her pace across the lawn, urged on by his sudden appearance. Getting to know Henry had been the only good thing to come out of the Grim Reaper killings. At first, she hadn’t known what to think of the tall, handsome man with the noticeable scars. He had been aloof. Quiet. Suspicious. Yet he eventually softened, opened up, began to trust her. By the time they had saved each other’s lives, they were friends.
When he vanished soon after, Kat understood his reasons. But it didn’t make her miss him any less.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked.
“I saw you during the fire,” he admitted. “You were a bit preoccupied at the time, so I didn’t say hello.”
“Understood.”
“But when I stepped outside and noticed that there was still police activity going on at the museum, I thought you’d be here.”
“You thought correctly.”
Kat had finally reached the sidewalk. She started to shake Henry’s hand, changed her mind, and went in for a hug. She felt a little foolish as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Still, the hug was as long as it was tight.
“You shouldn’t have left like that,” she said. “You didn’t even say good-bye.”
Henry, stiffened to the point of paralysis by her embrace, cleared his throat. “I sent you a postcard.”
“That’s not a good-bye. That’s an ‘Oh, by the way, I skipped town.’ I never thought I’d see you again.”
“I’m sorry,” Henry said. “It was wrong of me to vanish like that. And it’s good to see you, too.”
Kat took it to mean she should stop hugging him. But when she finally pulled away, she noticed that Henry Goll, the most stoic man she had ever known, was now smiling.
5 A.M.
He wasn’t remotely tired, although he should have been exhausted. Sleeping on a plane isn’t the same as sleeping in a bed, and his rest during the flight had been fitful at best. But it was 11 A.M. in Rome, and Henry was as wide awake in Perry Hollow as he would have been there. Jet lag was a bitch.
Kat Campbell, however, looked ready to sleep for days. When they climbed into their booth at the Perry Hollow Diner, the first thing she ordered was a pot of coffee. She then looked across the table at Henry and asked, in all seriousness, “What will you be drinking?”
Henry also ordered coffee, although a single cup and not the whole pot.
They were the sole customers at the diner, the only place in town that was open all night, so their java came quickly. Kat gulped hers down like a man stumbling parched from a desert. Henry sipped his, finding it disappointingly weak. Ten months in Italy had turned him into a coffee snob. If it wasn’t espresso of the highest quality, his taste buds wanted nothing to do with it.
“How have you been?” Kat asked rapidly, fueled by the caffeine. “Where have you been? Tell me everything.”
“But I want to know how you’re doing,” Henry said. “And James. And Nick.”
“You first,” Kat demanded.
He quickly brought her up to speed on all that had happened since they last saw each other. First was the recovery period, slow and painful. Then his decision to escape his past (again) and start a new life (again) in a place far away—this time Italy. Since he was already fluent in Italian, it didn’t take him long to get a job at the country’s largest daily newspaper. It was based in Rome, but he wrote almost exclusively about American issues.
“I’m like a foreign correspondent,” he told Kat, “except I never leave.”
He talked at length about life in Italy. The charming apartment where he could glimpse the top of the Colosseum from his bathroom window. The great food that forced him to double the length of his daily workouts. The amazing opera productions, including a performance of La Traviata at La Scala in Milan, which was the best thing he had ever seen and heard. The excellent wines, which got him through the frequent nights when what happened in Perry Hollow haunted his dreams.
As he spoke, he felt the heat of Kat’s gaze on his face. She hadn’t seen him since that horrible night in the Perry Mill. Henry had made sure of that. Now she was making up for lost time, studying him in an attempt to survey the damage. The attention to his scars would have annoyed him if it was coming from someone else. He let Kat look because he knew she cared.
“You can talk about it,” Henry told her. “I don’t pretend they’re not there.”
“It’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be,” Kat said. “You suffered a lot. And I assumed the damage would be worse.”
“The doctors did what they could.” Henry took a sip of his coffee. It was piping hot and came close to scalding his tongue. His lips, however, felt none of it. The scar tissue there desensitized everything. “The rest I have to live with.”
Kat stared into her coffee cup, suddenly unable to look him in the eyes. “Henry, I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”
Henry reached across the table and took her hands. They were soft and surprisingly delicate. He had expected someone as tough as Kat to have equally hardened hands.
“I refuse to listen to an apology from you,” he said. “You helped save my life, and I will always be grateful for that. Besides, I had scars before all that happened.” He pointed to the mark at his temple before moving down to the long line that sliced through his lips. “Or don’t you remember these?”
“I just wish that I could have done something to spare you from getting more of them.”
“I prefer scars to death,” Henry said. “Besides, you have no idea how intriguing it makes me to the Italians.”
That was probably the thing that surprised him most about living in Rome. Many women, and a good number of men, came on to him in bars, at work functions, on the street. It helped that he kept himself in peak physical condition. But he had a feeling that the scars, which made him feel like a freak and an outsider in the United States, gave him an air of mystery to the Italians. In a country full of beautiful people, he stood out by being the opposite. During his first week in Rome, a woman had approached him in the Piazza di Spagna, asking if she could paint his portrait. Henry declined the offer.
“It sounds like you’ve created a good life there,” Kat said. “But are you happy?”
She knew about Henry’s past. The wife who died when she was nine months pregnant. The car accident that had given him his first round of scars. The torture he had been subjected to at the hands of the Grim Reaper. More than anyone else, Kat Campbell understood his pain.
“Yes, I’m happy,” Henry answered.
He was lying but not by much. He wasn’t unhappy. He was content to live in quiet solitude—that hadn’t changed since his Perry Hollow days—and deep down he understood that’s how it was meant to be. Both times he had grown to love someone, they had been taken away from him in very different ways. He now knew it was foolish to fall in love a third time, so he didn’t even try.
But the funny thing about living in Rome was that he was never truly alone. The ancient city was always bustling, filled with tourists and locals alike, all pressing up against each other in the squares, on the buses, in the restaurants still thick with cigarette smoke. Henry enjoyed that feeling of being by himself yet simultaneously being a part of something bigger.
“Now another question,” Kat said. “The big one. Why on earth are you back in Perry Hollow?”
“I’m on assignment.”
“But you said you never leave.”
“I don’t,” Henry said. “But something came up. A story. So my editor sent me here.”
“What kind of story?”
“You ever hear of a man named Giuseppe Fanelli?”
Kat shook her head.
“He’s an Italian businessman. Very rich. Worth billions. And very famous. He lives for publicity, good or bad. He’s like the Donald Trump of Italy. With better hair, of course. A few days ago, we got word
that he was tied up in something in the United States.”
Kat gasped. “The mafia?”
“No,” Henry said dryly. “But great job stereotyping an entire nation.”
“If I ever get to Italy, I’ll be sure to apologize.”
“Fanelli’s reputation is clean. He’s a real estate developer. Over the summer, he formed a U.S. subsidiary of his European company. Fanelli Entertainment USA. It was registered in Philadelphia and created, we presume, for the express purpose of buying land and developing projects in America.”
Kat straightened in her seat, suddenly—and seriously—interested. “What kind of projects are we talking about?”
“Megamalls. Skyscrapers. Soccer stadiums. Fanelli never buys any land unless he intends to build something huge there.”
“So I’m assuming he bought some land close to here.”
“He did,” Henry said. “Closer than you think. As of two weeks ago, Giuseppe Fanelli is now the owner of one hundred acres of land in Perry Hollow, Pennsylvania.”
Kat, who had been taking a sip of coffee as he spoke, swallowed hard at the news. “Where?”
“A site you and I know all too well.”
He didn’t need to give her another hint. Kat knew the town better than anyone. “The Perry Mill,” she said.
Henry nodded solemnly. “It’s the first piece of land he’s purchased in the United States.”
“What does he plan on building there?”
“We don’t know,” Henry said. “But I was sent here to find out.”
Kat stayed quiet, staring once again into her now-empty coffee cup. It was a lot of information for her to take in. But Henry knew her sudden quiet had more to do with concern than comprehension. She was worried about what Giuseppe Fanelli intended to do in her town.
“It might be nothing,” he said.
“But it’s something,” Kat replied. “You said yourself he only builds things that are huge. Now that he owns that land, God knows what he plans to put there.”
“Just because he owns the land doesn’t mean he can build whatever he wants.”
Henry had worked for the town’s newspaper once. Although his job had been writing obituaries, he was well versed in the workings of planning boards, zoning approvals, and building permits. Town officials had the ability to shoot down anything Fanelli proposed, a right Henry hoped they executed. Even if it was good for business, he wasn’t sure Perry Hollow could handle the type of gargantuan projects Fanelli specialized in.
“How is Perry Hollow?” he asked. “Has it recovered since last year?”
Kat reached for the pot of coffee and poured herself another cup. “It’s starting to. Business is picking up. Most residents are doing fine.”
“And you and James?”
“We’re getting there,” Kat said with a sigh. “It’s been a tough road.”
Her son, one of the most charming boys Henry had ever met, had come face-to-face with the Grim Reaper, seeing things no child his age ever should. According to Kat, he was now seeing a therapist.
“I should probably see one myself,” she said, “but I’m stubborn that way. It didn’t help that there was more excitement a few months ago.”
“Eric Olmstead and his brother,” Henry said.
Kat seemed surprised, although not unpleasantly so. If anything, Henry sensed she was impressed that her tiny town had once again made international news. Although not as big as the Grim Reaper murders, the story of Eric Olmstead’s quest to find the brother who had vanished decades before was enough to get the attention of his newspaper, if only for a day or so. Eric’s mystery novels, after all, were just as popular in Italy as they were in the United States. And the case was so sensational that no editor could resist.
“I barely survived that one, too,” Kat said.
“Maybe you have nine lives, like your name implies.”
“I hope so. Because I have a feeling today is going to kill me.”
They had yet to talk about the reason Kat was in the town’s history museum at such an odd hour. Henry knew it wasn’t just a fire keeping her up. Something else was going on. Something bad.
“Who was killed?”
Kat didn’t even bother asking him how he knew. He was a reporter. Part of his job was to be observant. Certainly, she was aware that a mobile CSI lab parked in front of the museum would tip off even the worst journalist.
“Constance Bishop,” Kat said. “President of the historical society. You ever come into contact with her during your time here?”
Henry hadn’t. He hadn’t been the most outgoing person when he lived in Perry Hollow. He hadn’t come out of his shell until a serial killer started playing mind games with him.
“I know you’ll catch whoever did it,” he said.
“Once again, we have help. Don’t be surprised if you see state troopers filling the streets while working on your article.”
“Is Nick Donnelly one of them?”
Kat gave a terse shake of her head. It’s what Henry had feared—Nick was no longer a cop. He had thought the state police would give him the benefit of the doubt. But some violations were too big to look past. Nick’s, apparently, had been one of them.
“I hate to do this,” Kat said, checking her watch and taking one last gulp of coffee, “but I need to run. I have to head out to the morgue.”
“That,” Henry said, “doesn’t sound like fun.”
“It won’t be.”
This time it was Kat who grasped his hands, squeezing them tight as she made him promise not to leave Perry Hollow again without saying good-bye. Henry swore he wouldn’t. He would be working all day and was scheduled to leave the next morning. His last stop, he told her, would be to give her and James a proper farewell. The one he should have given them a year ago.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Kat said, placing some cash on the table and sliding out of the booth.
Before she left, Henry impulsively grabbed the sleeve of her uniform. The move startled not only Kat but himself as well. Usually, he was more composed than that. But there was one more bit of information he needed to know. Something that had been on his mind for a full year.
“Do you ever see Deana?” He had wanted to seem casual, to make it sound like an offhanded question, as if he had just thought of it. Instead, it came out strained and worried. “I’m curious about how she’s doing.”
“I haven’t really seen her,” Kat said. “She keeps a pretty low profile now. I know she’s still in town. She got a job at the library after the funeral home closed. Other than that, I have no idea how she’s doing. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more.”
Henry nodded his thanks before letting go of her sleeve. He remained in the booth as Kat wound her way around the old men and hungry night-shift workers trickling into the diner. Through the window overlooking the parking lot, he watched her get into her patrol car.
He didn’t leave the diner until he was certain Kat had driven away. Henry didn’t want her to see the slump-shouldered way he stepped into the gray gloom of dawn. He didn’t want her to notice his sad expression as he faced east. And most of all, he didn’t want Chief Campbell to see the direction he was headed in and realize his next destination.
6 A.M.
Kat drove to the county morgue accompanied only by the Crown Vic’s radio and a sack of bones in the backseat. All the state troopers, Lieutenant Tony Vasquez included, stayed behind at the museum to work the homicide investigation. That meant Kat was alone on bone duty, an assignment that, while interesting, wasn’t quite as vital as trying to identify a killer. She thought of it as desk duty—mere busywork to keep her from bothering the big boys.
She didn’t mind. Much. Naturally, she wanted to be where the action was, but at least this way she could size up Nick’s girlfriend without anyone else present.
On the way to the morgue, Kat swore she wouldn’t make any snap judgments about Lucy Meade, pro or con. Nick was a grown man who could make his own decisi
ons about who he wanted to date. Or sleep with. Or whatever he and Lucy were doing. Kat’s main priority was to learn as much as possible about the skeleton found in the museum.
Still, she couldn’t help keeping a mental checklist, especially when Lucy arrived right on time, pulling up to the morgue in a red Volkswagen Beetle. It was a vintage one, still in prime condition. That was definitely a mark in the plus column, with an extra point for punctuality.
When Lucy got out of the car, Kat was surprised by what she saw. Lucy looked to be a good ten years younger than Nick, with bright blue eyes and shoulder-length auburn hair that she tucked behind her ears before shaking Kat’s hand. Petty jealousy usually dictated that youth and beauty went into Kat’s minus column, but she stayed neutral this time. It was easy to see why Nick was attracted to her. Lucy was stunning.
“So you’re the famous Kat Campbell,” she said with a grin. “I’m so happy I finally get to meet you. Nick talks about you nonstop.”
“All good things, I hope.”
“All great things.”
Flattery. Straight to the plus column every time.
“He even told me how you like your coffee.” Lucy reached across the front seat of her Beetle, emerging with a giant thermos. “Black and strong, right?”
This was a tough one. Under any other circumstance, bringing coffee earned a place in the plus column. But Kat had practically a whole pot of java sloshing around in her stomach, and while the caffeine kept her mind alert, it wasn’t sitting well with the rest of her body. Still, it was the thought that counted. Another plus.
Lucy must have seen the uncertain look on her face because she said, “You just had some, didn’t you? Considering the hour, I should have known.”
“No, it’s fine,” Kat said. “I just should have had some food with it, I think.”
Lucy reached deep into the car again, this time returning with a flat box tied shut with some string. “Then it’s a good thing I also brought doughnuts.”