Michelangelo's Ghost

by Gigi Pandian

  “You know when Lane and I were involved. Fourteen years ago. Carey is thirteen.”

  I thought about the photograph of brown-haired Carey that Ava had showed me. He looked a cross between Ava and Lane’s coloring. But that didn’t prove anything.

  “We were too young,” Ava continued. “We broke up before I knew I was pregnant, but once he learned I’d given birth to his son, he always kept an eye on us and made sure Carey was provided for. Especially after he thought I’d died and Carey was adopted by an aunt. Who do you think is paying for Carey to be at that expensive Swiss boarding school?”

  “You said—”

  “I told you I was scraping by. I’m not as successful as you might think. I present myself that way, but it’s for show. Because I can’t reveal I’m not dead and because I have more scruples than most people in my profession, I don’t get as much work as I’d like.”

  “But he wouldn’t…” The last of my sentence fizzled out. I trusted Lane completely, but that wasn’t the same as knowing everything about him. He’d purposefully withheld certain information from me because he thought it would hurt me. Had this been the reason he’d never revealed this secret? Why would Ava have named her son after Lane if he wasn’t the father?

  “Why don’t I give you some time to think,” Ava said. She gave me a closed-mouth smile, turned her back, and walked down the path toward the suite.

  Long after Ava disappeared down the path, I stayed on the terrace, thinking about my options. My mind was filled with so many confusing pieces of information that it was difficult to see through the fog.

  A different kind of fog was also rolling in. The blue sky from the morning had begun to turn gray without my noticing. I wondered if another brief summer storm was on its way.

  I lay down on the smooth stone tiles underfoot and looked up at the clouds blowing by overhead. So far they were wispy, but darker clouds loomed on the horizon. Closing my eyes and feeling the warm breeze against my face did nothing to calm me. I needed to work off some of this tension.

  I slipped into the room to get my running shoes. I’d hoped to avoid detection, but Mahilan and Ava were sitting on the couch together in the shared lounge, laughing and holding hands as they talked. Only Ava’s expression changed when I walked in.

  She gave me a sharp look and pulled her hand out of my brother’s. “We didn’t expect you so soon. You said you were taking a walk. To think.”

  “I don’t do walks,” I said. “But don’t mind me. I’m just here for a second to grab my running shoes.” Going for a run meant leaving Ava alone with Mahilan, but for some reason—faith?—I truly believed she loved him and would never hurt him. At least not on purpose.

  I ran. And ran and ran.

  A text message from Lane popped up on my phone: At the airport waiting to board. See you soon. xox

  I wanted to scream. How could Lane have kept such a big secret from me about having fathered a child with Ava? Why hadn’t he adopted Carey when he thought Ava was dead? What Ava told me didn’t fit with what I knew of Lane. She had to be lying about Carey’s paternity. He’d have done the right thing. Unless he knew staying away was the right thing. Living off the grid, not knowing if his past would catch up with him, what kind of father would he be?

  I stopped to catch my breath at the top of a hill with a sweeping view of cypress trees, wildflowers, and olive groves. Neither running nor the dazzling view was helping me feel better. I texted Sanjay: Want to cheer me up?

  A few minutes later, he texted me back a photo of Sébastien’s rabbit Dèmon inside Sanjay’s bowler hat. In the background, Sébastien was working on fixing what looked like a new automaton, and for the photo he held up rabbit ears behind the rabbit. The cranky bunny looked as if he’d curse at Sanjay if he had words. But then again, that rabbit always looked like that. He’d bitten a hole through the toe of one of my favorite high-heeled shoes earlier in the year.

  Cheered up by the malicious bunny, I smiled at the thought of how quickly Lane had gotten to the airport to get here when I needed him. And also at the fact that Sanjay had known exactly what to send to cheer me up.

  I knew, then, that as infuriating as Ava was, she was completely right about one thing: I did love both of them.

  Besides my brother, Lane and Sanjay were the two men I would have done anything in this world for, no questions asked.

  The only question was: How did I love each of them? For that, I had no answer.

  Five kilometers later, I dragged myself back to the hotel room. I hadn’t brought a key with me, so I knocked on the door.

  “You guys, it’s me. Hello?”

  No answer. I walked to the villa’s bar. It was only mid-afternoon, but they were probably having a glass of wine. This was Italy, after all. And even though she’d played it cool, I suspected Ava needed a strong drink.

  They weren’t in the main bar, so I tried the café. They weren’t there either. I told myself they’d probably gone for a walk, or a swim, but an alarm went off in my head. I tried to silence it, but as I walked around the grounds, the alarm grew louder.

  I went to the front desk and told them I was locked out. It was the woman who’d checked us into the hotel, so she remembered me and let me into the room.

  The empty room.

  Ava and Mahilan had cleared out all of their belongings.

  Chapter 43

  I was drenched in sweat and starving after my 5K run. I didn’t need anger and fear on top of that.

  Ava and Mahilan had left me a note saying they had taken the rental car and were looking forward to seeing me at the next hotel, far from Bomarzo, later that evening. But Ava had seen to it that the bottom half of the note with the hotel address was missing.

  What had Ava said to convince my brother to leave without me? The note was in her handwriting, but I didn’t think it was a ploy to cover up kidnapping my brother. I didn’t believe she’d hurt him. I surprised myself by my continued belief that she was truly in love with Mahilan. She wanted to get him away from me because she didn’t want to give him an opportunity to talk to me alone.

  I tried to do what they do in the movies and look for pencil indentations on the sheet of paper underneath the top sheet of the notepad. Either Ava had been careful enough to remove the sheet of paper underneath, or the villa’s fancy paper was too thick for the trick.

  Mahilan would call me when I didn’t appear, but I’m sure Ava would have a solution to that too. Accidentally dropping his phone in the bathtub? Faking an email from me that I was delayed but safe? She was masterful enough at manipulation that I didn’t doubt she’d come up with a plausible lie.

  After taking a long shower, I ordered food at the villa’s bar. More of my new favorite dish, fried Roman artichokes with chocolate sauce, and bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

  Lane had gotten me in the habit of sitting in the corner of a room with my back to the wall, providing a view of the various exits and of the people who came in, so I’d selected a seat at the far corner of the bar’s counter. I didn’t know what good it would do me here, because I didn’t know who I was looking for. Ava fit some of the facts, but not others. And I doubted the ghost would walk through the door in costume.

  Even though I had the strongest desire to punch Lane, I wanted him there. In addition to the fact that I missed him, he was a helpful sounding board. We made a great team. Where was he? He should have been here by now.

  The barista took pity on me, the only person by myself in the room, and brought me a sample of fried zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta cheese. He said the chef had found the first early-blooming zucchini flowers of the season in the garden and was experimenting with a new recipe.

  A text message popped up on my phone. Flight was rerouted due to a mechanical issue. Be there as soon as I can.

  I groaned and rested my head on the counter.

&nb
sp; “This is what happens when I leave you alone for three days?” a familiar voice said. I raised my head and saw a figure in a bowler hat standing in the doorway.

  “Sanjay?”

  He grinned. He removed his bowler hat as he strode across the bar. In his other hand he carried his 1960s-style suitcase. The bag reminded me of one that my dad had given me that had set off a chain of unexpected events.

  “I didn’t think I’d had enough of this Sambuca to drink to start hallucinating,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “You said you could use some cheering up,” he said, dropping the suitcase to the floor and scooping me from the bar stool into a hug. “It was a short flight from Nantes.”

  “Thank you,” I said into his hair.

  He let me go.

  “Are you doing all right?” I asked. “And Sébastien?”

  “He’s doing better. I don’t even want to know what this is you’ve been eating.” He eyed the small plates on the counter. “No, I lied. I’m curious about this one.” He lifted a piece of artichoke into his mouth.

  “Wait, you won’t like—”

  Sanjay began coughing.

  “—the red pepper flakes I added to it,” I finished.

  I summoned the barista for a glass of water and bread for Sanjay. It took a few minutes for him to recover, but he remained in surprisingly good spirits for having accidentally eaten spicy food.

  “I can’t tell you how nice it is to be in a country where people speak English,” he said.

  “Um, Sanjay. You do realize we’re in Italy, don’t you?”

  He batted away the question with his hand. “Hardly anyone in Nantes speaks English as a second language. I was getting homesick.” Before resting his hands back on the bar, he pulled a bright orange poppy out of thin air. He handed me the flower.

  “You can’t help yourself,” I said, “can you?”

  “Not really.”

  I gave Sanjay another hug. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t expect it, but it feels like home to see you.”

  “I read minds, you know.” It looked for a moment like he was blushing, but I must have imagined it.

  “I wish that were true. Then I wouldn’t have to organize my thoughts to explain to you how much of a mess my life is right now.”

  “Is it something we should talk about in private?”

  I looked around the half-full bar. Everyone looked like tourists to me. But…“That would probably be a good idea.”

  Sanjay whistled as we walked into the suite. With a nearly imperceptible twist of his wrist, he tossed his hat onto a coat hook several feet away.

  “Where’s the Fish-man?” he asked.

  “He’d kill you if he heard you call him that, so it’s a good thing he’s not here.”

  The reason my bag was so heavy was because I’d brought spiral-bound photocopies of Lazzaro’s sketchbooks with me. I lay the copies on the table in the main room of the suite, and told Sanjay the 16th-century story of Lazzaro Allegri and 21st-century story of Lilith Vine.

  Sanjay wasn’t a history buff, and he had a short attention span when it came to anything besides stage magic, so I focused on the people and their personalities. I made the decision not to tell him about Lane and Ava’s pasts. Things were complicated enough.

  When I was done with explaining the situation, Sanjay pressed his fingers into a steeple under his chin and closed his eyes.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” I said.

  Silence.

  “Did I break your brain?” I asked.

  His eyes popped open. They were bright silver. I couldn’t help thinking it was like he was possessed. A shriek escaped my lips. Sanjay closed his eyes again. This time, it was only for a second. When he opened them, they were back to their usual brown.

  “That is one freaky illusion,” I said.

  “Good. I take it you were focused on my eyes and nothing else?”

  “What else would I have been focused on?”

  Sanjay tilted his head toward the sketchbook photocopies. They’d been rearranged from how I’d left them during my explanation.

  “How did you—”

  “Haven’t you known me long enough to stop asking?”

  “This is serious, Sanjay,” I snapped. “Someone killed my professor and now they’re toying with me.”

  “I know. I’m not making light of this. I was trying to make a point about how easy it is to miss what’s right in front of your face.” He picked up my running shoes from the floor and swung them in the air by their laces.

  “Watch out for the vase,” I said.

  “What vase? Oh.” Sanjay’s eyes widened and he pulled the swinging shoes close to his chest so they wouldn’t knock over the vase of flowers. When he straightened his hand, only one sneaker rested in his palm. The other was gone.

  “Point made,” I said. “I followed your gaze to the vase because I was worried, so I missed whatever you did to my other shoe.”

  “You’re doing the same thing here.”

  “The ghost is distracting me, I know.”

  “That’s not who I mean. You’re forgetting Lilith herself.”

  “I didn’t forget her. She’s at the center of everything. She’s the professor I betrayed in graduate school, who made this connection about Lazzaro’s Renaissance artwork featuring India, and who was killed over it. I know she could have been playing me by withholding that fourth notebook. Using me to get close and then taking all the credit herself. But someone still drugged her, which led to her death.”

  “No,” Sanjay said slowly. “I don’t think they did. You only thought that because of your office break-in, since your office was searched right after Lilith died. But you said you later learned that it wasn’t actually a break-in by a thief, but simply a miscommunication that your brother’s girlfriend forgot to tell you she looked at them. If it hadn’t been for the timing, you wouldn’t have latched onto the idea of Lilith being drugged.”

  “You think it’s a coincidence that she accidentally overdosed right after handing these notebooks over to me?”

  “It wasn’t a coincidence. It was purposeful misdirection.”

  Chapter 44

  I stared at Sanjay, who was now twirling his bowler hat in his hands in spite of the fact that I hadn’t seen him get up to get it.

  Ava’s actions had obscured everything I thought I knew. She’d admitted she broke into my office—which I’d told Sanjay was innocent snooping, which in the scheme of things turned out to be true. That meant there didn’t have to be a secret villain who drugged Lilith to get her to admit that I had the sketchbooks.

  “You’re following?” Sanjay asked.

  I nodded. “There was a different reason for someone to have drugged Lilith.”

  Sanjay groaned. “No. The opposite. There was no drugging.”

  “There was. She’s dead from a drug interaction overdose.”

  “Which the police think was self-inflicted.”

  “But why would she—”

  “Misdirection. From everything you’ve told me, Lilith was the person pulling all the strings from the beginning. You weren’t a willing participant right away, right?”

  “That’s right. I wasn’t fully convinced until the attack on her.”

  “It was a trick,” Sanjay said. “It would have been a good one if she got the dose right. She probably never meant to kill herself. She simply wanted a dramatic way to entice you.”

  “She wouldn’t do that to herself. And she wouldn’t do that to me.” But did I know that? I hadn’t seen her in years. And she was a desperate woman.

  “It’s the only thing that fits the facts.”

  “What about the ghost?”

  “Unrelated. A crime of opportunity. You’ve been running around Italy telling people what you’re d
oing. I’m a master of misdirection, Jaya. I know what I’m talking about. Lilith set this whole thing up.”

  “Wilson Meeks,” I whispered.

  “Who?”

  “The scholar who died of a heart attack right after Lilith found this clue in his research.”

  Sanjay looked shaken for the first time since arriving. “If I were you, I’d find out if there was anything suspicious about his death.”

  I didn’t want to believe what Sanjay was saying. Lilith Vine wasn’t a murderer. And the Lilith I knew would never have risked her own life to make a point.

  Sanjay put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jaya.”

  “This is surreal. I can’t believe this. I need to think.” I paced the room with my head in my hands. I couldn’t breathe. “I need some fresh air.”

  I opened the door and crashed into the man whose appearance never ceased to make my heart beat faster and my world feel right. His leather rucksack fell from his hand and landed on my foot.

  “Sorry, Jones,” Lane Peters said. “I—”

  “Lane?” Sanjay asked from directly behind me.

  Finding the two men I loved standing next to each other, I was too stunned to speak. Apparently so were they. The two men sized each other up silently for a moment, while I rubbed my sore foot, before they spoke at the same time.

  “I didn’t realize—” Lane began.

  “I should go,” Sanjay said. “I never meant to stay. Like I said, it was a short jaunt over.”

  “There’s plenty of room,” I tried to say, but Sanjay had already grabbed his suitcase. By the time I could slip my heels back on and follow him, he had disappeared. Knowing Sanjay, that meant I’d never find him.

  Chapter 45

  “I didn’t know Sanjay was coming to Italy,” I said. I pushed Lane inside and closed the suite door behind us, wondering what had just happened. “He’s impulsive like that. As for you, I can’t decide whether to kiss you or kick you.”