by Nora Roberts
Poppi scooped pasta out of one of the big bowls and put it on Reena’s plate himself. “So this boy, this Joey Pastorelli, he hit you.”
“He hit me in the stomach and he knocked me down and hit me again.”
Poppi breathed through his nose—and he had a big one, so the sound reminded her of the one a bull makes before it charges. “We live in an age when men and women are meant to be equal, but it’s never right for a man to hit a woman, for a boy to hit a girl. But . . . did you do something, say something, to this boy so he thought he had to hit you?”
“I stay away from him because he starts fights in school and in the neighborhood. Once he took out his pocketknife and said he was going to stab Johnnie O’Hara with it because he was a stupid mick, and Sister took it away from him and sent him to Mother Superior. He . . . he looks at me sometimes and it makes my stomach hurt.”
“The day he hit you, what were you doing?”
“I was playing with Gina, at the school playground. We were playing kickball, but it was so hot. We wanted ice cream so she ran home to see if her mother would give her some money for it. I had eighty-eight cents, but that’s not enough for two. And he came up and said I should come with him, that he had something to show me. But I didn’t want to and I said no, that I was waiting for Gina. His face was all red, like he’d been running, and he got mad and grabbed my arm and was pulling me. So I pulled away and said I wasn’t going with him. And he hit me in the stomach. He called me a name that means . . .”
She broke off, looked toward her parents sheepishly. “I looked it up in the dictionary.”
“Of course you did,” Bianca murmured, then she waved a hand in the air. “He called her a little cunt. It’s an ugly word, Catarina. We won’t speak it again in this house.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Your brother came to help you,” Poppi continued. “Because he’s your brother and because it’s right to help someone in trouble. Then your father did what was right, and went to speak to this boy’s father. But the man was not a man, he didn’t stand up and do what was right. He struck out to hurt your father in a cowardly way, to hurt all of us. Was this your fault?”
“No, Poppi. But it was my fault I was too scared to fight back. I won’t be next time.”
He gave a half laugh. “Learn to run,” he said. “And if you can’t run, then you fight. Now.” He sat back, picked up his fork. “Here’s my advice. Salvatore your brother-in-law has a construction business. When we know what’s needed, you can get this for us, at a discount. Gio, your wife’s cousin is a plumber, yes?”
“I’ve already talked to him. Whatever you need, Bianca, Gib.”
“Mag, will you talk to the insurance company, see what hoops we can avoid jumping through to get this check?”
“More than happy to. I’d like to look at the policy, see if there might be anything we’d want to change or adjust for the future. Then there’s the matter of the criminal action against this . . .” She lifted her eyebrows at Reena. “This person. If it goes to trial, Reena will most likely be required to testify. I don’t think it will,” she continued. “I’ve put out some feelers. Typically arson cases are very difficult to prove, but they appear to have this one locked.”
She wound pasta around her fork as she spoke, ate economically. “Your investigators were very thorough, and the fire-starter very stupid. The prosecutor feels he’s going to take the plea bargain to avoid the possibility of being tried for attempted murder. They’ve got evidence up the yin-yang, including the fact that he was questioned twice before regarding other fires.”
Mag twirled more pasta as voices erupted around the table.
“He was laid off earlier this summer from his job as a mechanic,” she continued. “There was a suspicious fire in the garage a few nights later. Minimal damage, as another employee had plans to use said garage for a tryst with his girlfriend. They talked to people, including Pastorelli, but couldn’t determine arson. A couple of years ago, he had an altercation with his wife’s brother in D.C. The brother managed an electrical supply house. Somebody pitched a Molotov cocktail through the window. A . . .”
She sent another look down at Reena. “A lady of the evening saw a truck speeding away, even got a partial on the plate. But Pastorelli’s wife swears he was home all night, and they took her word over the other woman’s.”
Mag picked up her wine. “They’ll use this as a pattern and nail him down.”
“If Inspector Minger and our arson detectives had been in charge, they’d have stopped him.”
Mag smiled at Reena. “Maybe. But he’s stopped now.”
“Lorenzo?”
“You’ve got my strong back,” he said. “And I’ve got a friend in the flooring business. I can get you a good price on replacements.”
“Got dump trucks and labor at your disposal,” Paul added. “Got a friend’s brother-in-law in restaurant supplies. Get you a good discount.”
“With all this, and the neighborhood, Bianca, the kids and I can take most of the money and have a vacation in Hawaii.”
Her father was joking, but his voice was a little shaky, so Reena knew he was touched.
When the leftovers had been doled out or put away and the kitchen put to rights, and the last of the uncles, aunts and cousins had trailed out the door, Gib got a beer and took it out on the front steps. He needed to stew, and preferred stewing with a cold beer.
The family had come through, and he’d expected no less. He’d gotten a “Gee, that’s terrible” from his own parents. And had expected no more.
That’s the way it was.
But he was thinking now that for two years he’d been living on the same block with a man who set fires to solve his personal problems. A man who could have chosen to burn his house instead of his business.
A man whose twelve-year-old son had attacked—Christ, had he meant to rape her?—his youngest daughter.
It left him sick, and brought home to him that he was too trusting, too willing to give the benefit. Too soft.
He had a wife and four children to protect, and at the moment felt completely inadequate.
He took a pull on a bottle of Peroni when John Minger parked at the curb.
Minger wore khakis and a T-shirt with canvas high-tops that looked older than dirt. He crossed the sidewalk.
“Gib.”
“John.”
“Got a minute?”
“Got plenty of them. Want a beer?”
“Wouldn’t say no.”
“Have a seat.” Gib tapped the step beside him, then got up and went into the house. He came back with the rest of the six-pack.
“Nice evening.” John tipped back a bottle. “Little cooler.”
“Yeah. I’d say it’s merely approaching the fifth level of hell instead of hitting it square on.”
“Rough day?”
“No. No, not really.” He leaned back, bracing one elbow on the step above. “My wife’s family came today. It was hard watching her mother and father look at that.” He jerked his chin toward Sirico’s. “But they’re handling it. More than. Ready to shove up their sleeves, dig in. Going to have so much help I can pretty much sit here with my thumb up my ass and have the place up and running in a month.”
“So you’re feeling like a failure. That’s what he wants you to feel.”
“Pastorelli?” Gib lifted his bottle in toast. “Mission fucking accomplished. His kid came after mine, laid hands on mine, and I’m thinking about it now, looking at it now, really looking, and I think, Sweet Jesus Christ, I think he was going to try to rape my little girl.”
“He didn’t. She got scrapes and bruises, and it doesn’t help to worry about what might’ve happened.”
“You’ve got to keep them safe. That’s the job. My oldest is out on a date. Nice boy, nothing serious. And I’m terrified.”
John took a long, slow drink. “Gib, one of the things a man like Pastorelli’s after is your fear. It makes him feel important.”
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“Never going to forget him, am I? That makes him pretty fucking important. Sorry. Sorry.” Gib straightened, shoved at his hair. “Feeling sorry for myself, that’s all. I’ve got an entire family—with members too numerous to count—ready to help me out. I’ve got the neighborhood ready. Just got to shake this off.”
“You will. Maybe this will help. I came by to tell you you’re cleared to go in, start putting your place back together. Doing that, it’s taking it back from him.”
“It’ll be good, good to actually do something.”
“He’s going away, Gib. I’m going to tell you that a fraction of arson cases result in arrest, and we’ve got him. Son of a bitch had shoes and clothes stuffed in his shed, stinking of gas, gas he bought locally from a kid at the Sunoco who knew him. He had a crowbar wrapped up in the clothes, what we figured he used to break in. He was stupid enough to help himself to beer out of your cooler before he torched the place. Drank one while he was in there. We got his prints off the bottle.”
He held up the Peroni, tipped the bottle to the side to catch the sun on the glass. “People think fire takes everything, but it leaves the unexpected. Like a bottle of Bud. He broke into your cash register, took your petty cash. You had extra ones in a bank envelope and we found it on him. We got his prints inside the drawer, off the cooler in your kitchen. There’s enough his public defender took the deal.”
“There won’t be a trial?”
“Sentencing hearing. I want you to feel good about this, Gib. I want you to feel just. A lot of people see arson as a property crime. Just a crime against a building, but it’s not. You know it’s not. It’s about people who lose their home or their business, who see their hard work and their memories burned away. What he did to you and yours was malicious and it was personal. Now he pays.”
“Yeah.”
“The wife couldn’t scrape the money together for bail, or for a lawyer. She tried. Word’s out on the kid. Last time the cops were in there, he threw a chair at one of them. Mother begged them not to take him away, so they let it go. You’re going to want to keep your eye on him.”
“I will, but I don’t think they’ll stay here. They rent the place, and they’re behind, three months.” Gib shrugged. “Word gets out in the neighborhood, too. Maybe this was my wake-up call, pay more attention to what I’ve got.”
“You’ve got the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life for a wife. You don’t mind me saying.”
“Hard to mind.” Gib opened another beer, leaned back again. “First time I saw her, I was lightning struck. Came in with some pals. We were thinking about doing The Block later, maybe picking up some girls, or going to a bar. And there she was. It was like somebody pushed their fist through my chest, grabbed hold of my heart and squeezed. She was wearing jeans, bell-bottoms, and this white top—peasant top they called them. If anybody had asked me before that moment if I believed in love at first sight, I’d’ve said hell no. But that’s what it was. She turned her head and looked at me, and bang. I saw the rest of my life in her eyes.”
He laughed a little, seemed to relax. “I still do, that’s the amazing thing. Heading toward twenty years, and I still see everything there is when I look at her.”
“You’re a lucky man.”
“Damn right. I’d’ve given up everything, anything, to be with her. Instead I got this life, this family. You got kids, John?”
“I do. A son and two daughters. A grandson and granddaughter, too.”
“Grandkids? No kidding?”
“Lights of my life. I didn’t do all I should’ve done when my kids were coming up. I was nineteen when the first came along. Got my girl pregnant, we got married. Next one came two years later, and the third three years after that. I was fighting fires back then. That life, those hours, can be hard on a family. I didn’t put them first, and that’s my fault. So we got a divorce. Nearly ten years ago now.”
“Sorry.”
“Funny thing is, after, we got along better. We got closer. Maybe the divorce burned away the bad stuff, made room for some good. So.” He tipped back his bottle. “I’m free if your wife’s got an older sister available.”
“Just brothers, but her cousins are legion.”
They were silent for a moment, companionably. “This is a good spot.” John sipped and smoked and studied the neighborhood. “A good spot, Gib. You need another pair of hands putting your place back together, you can have mine.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Upstairs, Reena lay on her bed and listened to their voices carry up to her open window as the sky went soft with summer twilight.
It was full dark when the screams woke her. She tumbled out of bed with thoughts of fire chasing her. He’d come back. He’d come back to burn their house.
It wasn’t fire, and it was Fran who’d screamed. Fran who stood on the sidewalk now with her face buried against the shoulder of the boy who’d taken her to the movies.
The television was on in the living room, with the sound turned down low. Both of her parents were at the doorway already. When she pushed between them, she saw why Fran had screamed, why her mother and father stood so stiffly in the open doorway.
The dog was burning, its fur smoldering, smoking as was the pool of blood that had come from its throat. But she recognized the hard-barking mutt Joey Pastorelli called Fabio.
She watched the police take Joey Pastorelli away, much as they had his father. But he didn’t keep his head lowered, and his eyes had a vicious glee in them.
It was one of the last things she remembered with absolute clarity during those long, hot weeks of August when summer was ending and her childhood was over.
She remembered the glee in Joey’s eyes, the strut in his walk as they took him to the police car. And she remembered the smears of blood, his own dog’s blood, staining his hands.
4
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, 1992
The glossy pink goo of Mariah Carey’s overorchestrated Emotions oozed through the wall of the adjoining room. It was a never-ending stream, like frothy lava. Inescapable and increasingly terrifying.
Reena didn’t mind music when she studied. She didn’t mind partying, small petty wars or the thunder of God’s judgment. After all, she grew up in a house with a big, loud family.
But if her dorm mate spun that track just one more time, she was going in and jabbing a pencil through her eye. When that was done, she was going to make her eat that damned CD, jewel case and all.
She was in the middle of finals, for God’s sake. And the load she was taking this semester was a killer.
Worth it though, she reminded herself. It was going to be worth it.
She pushed back from her computer, rubbed her eyes. Maybe she needed a short break. Or earplugs.
She got up, ignored the flotsam of two college students sharing one small room and opened the little refrigerator for a Diet Pepsi. She found an open pint of low-fat milk, four Slim-Fasts, a Diet Sprite and a bag of carrot sticks.
This was just wrong. Why did everyone steal her stuff? Of course, who the hell was going to pilfer Gina’s I’m-on-an-endless-diet food, but still.
She sat on the floor, Mariah’s voice swimming in her overtaxed brain like evil mermaids, and stared at the piles of books and notes on her desk.
Why did she think she could do this? Why did she think she wanted to do this? She could have followed Fran’s lead, into the family business.
She could be home right now. Or out on a date like a normal person. Once, becoming a teenager had been her life’s ambition. Now she was nearly out the other side of the era, and she was sitting in a crowded dorm room, with no Diet Pepsi, buried under a course load for the insane masochist.
She was eighteen years old and hadn’t had sex yet. She barely had what passed for a boyfriend.
Bella was getting married next month, Fran was practically beating guys off with a stick, and Xander plowed happily through what their mother called his bevy of beauties.
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And she was alone on a Saturday night because she was as obsessed with finals as her dorm mate was with Mariah Carey.
Oh no, now it was Celine Dion, she realized.
Just kill me now.
It was her own fault. She was the one who’d studied her brains out in high school, and worked more weekends than dated. Because she’d known what she wanted. She’d known since that long hot week in August.
She wanted the fire.
So she’d studied, with her eye focused on more than learning. On scholarships. She worked, tucking her money away like a squirrel with nuts in case the scholarships didn’t come.
But they had, so she was here, at the University of Maryland, sharing a room with her oldest friend, and already thinking about the grad courses down the road.
When the semester was over she’d go back home, work in the shop, carve away most of her free time down at the fire station. Or talking John Minger into letting her do ride-alongs.
Of course, there was Bella’s wedding. There’d been little on the menu but Bella’s wedding for the last nine months. Which, come to think of it, was a really good reason to be here, alone in her room on a Saturday night.
It could be worse. She could be back at Wedding Central.
If she ever got married—which meant she’d need an actual, official boyfriend first—she was going to keep it simple. Let Bella have the endless fittings of the elaborate dress—though it was gorgeous—and the endless, often weepy debates about shoes and hairstyles and flowers. The plans—more like a major war campaign—for the enormous reception.
She’d rather have a nice family wedding at St. Leo’s, then a party at Sirico’s.
Most likely, she’d just end up being a bridesmaid, perennially. Hell, she was already an expert in the field.
And for God’s sake, how many times could Lydia listen to the theme from Beauty and the Beast without going into a coma?