Proof of Lies (Anastasia Phoenix)

by Diana Rodriguez Wallach

  We entered the espresso-scented shop with an arching cathedral ceiling and crystal chandeliers swinging above tan leather benches and pastel walls with ornate silver stenciling. It was quite posh for a rural Tuscan town.

  “Perfecto.” Marcus nudged me toward the counter.

  A barista stood behind the dark walnut counter, steam rising from the rumbling espresso machine. I ordered a cappuccino with cinnamon, a la Keira, and a ham and cheese croissant. Marcus ordered espresso and biscotti. Then we brought our dishes to a round pedestal table and plunked down on leather ottomans. “So, will you be annoyed if I ask how you’re doing?” Marcus raised a teasing eyebrow.

  “Oh, I’m just great,” I said sarcastically, lifting my heavy ceramic cup from the table, rocking it slightly. “I’m thinking maybe I should call Urban. See what he knows about the Aldo Moro thing?”

  “Wouldn’t he have told you already? He told you about the FBI.”

  “Yeah, after he kept it secret for years. Who knows what else he’s hiding?” I swallowed a too-hot gulp of foam, the burning sensation feeling good. I was surrounded by pathological liars: my parents regarding their pasts, Keira for looking into them, and now Urban for omitting the international incident that my parents had witnessed. I did the math—he knew my parents when they stumbled onto that crime scene.

  Marcus cleared his throat like a kid about to tell his parents he crashed the car. “Okay, so, Salvatore said your parents were linked to the assassination of the dead Italian prime minster, and Urban said the FBI thought they were, um…”

  “I know what the FBI thinks.” I cut him off. “But my parents weren’t traitors. They probably just misinterpreted their involvement in that crime scene. Everyone knows that the FBI and the CIA don’t talk to each other. I’m starting to think that my parents witnessed a crime and maybe they got sucked into the espionage world, at least for a little while. Then maybe their work became classified or something?”

  “Es possible.” Marcus nodded, but he sounded unconvinced. “How about Luis? Keira was looking into your parents’ past, and she thought he could help her. Then the guy didn’t want his picture taken. Now he’s avoiding the cops. His dad is covering for something…” Marcus looked at me pointedly.

  “You think Luis is a spy.”

  “Sí. Either that or a criminal working with Craig. Either way, I don’t think he’s someone we should be with alone.”

  “He’s a link to Keira.” I took a bite of my sandwich, aggressively chewing. “I need to know what he knows.”

  “Your sister wanted to know what he knew as well,” Marcus pointed out. “Look what happened to her.”

  I gritted my teeth at his tone, like he thought Keira brought this on herself, like she asked to be violently kidnapped. I was pretty sure if it were his parents being accused of treachery and his brother who was missing, he wouldn’t be so cavalier.

  I took another scalding gulp of cappuccino, my throat tight. “Look, you don’t have to come with me. I never asked you to be here.”

  “You want me to leave?” He sounded offended.

  “That’s up to you.”

  “I want to help you, it’s just that when we came here, we thought we were talking to a little old man. Now, the stuff he said about your parents—”

  “I know what he said.” My hands shot up in frustration, my shoulders pushed to my ears. “I know what everybody said.” I abruptly stood. “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “I’m not trying to upset you…” Marcus started to explain, rising to meet me, his eyes apologetic, wounded, but I grabbed my messenger bag from the floor and marched away. I didn’t come all the way to Italy to go home without answers. Salvatore said he would find Luis. Maybe I should just go back to the hotel and wait.

  I spotted a sign reading Il Bagno in delicate cursive script. I veered toward it, entering a narrow hallway, lit by a glass door anchoring the far end. I didn’t need to pee. I just needed a moment alone to think, free from opinions. Marcus didn’t see our tub, he didn’t dip his hands into that burning watery water, he didn’t frantically search for his sibling’s body. If he had, he wouldn’t turn around and go home, because he’d understand that I didn’t have a home without Keira.

  I stepped toward a painting of a semi-naked Italian woman lounging in a bathtub, and as I was about to enter, I stopped short. Something caught my eye—a subtle movement, a change in light.

  I pivoted toward the shop’s rear exit and saw a figure passing by, a profile of a man—short, stocky, olive skin, with shoulders that spent hours lifting dumbbells and eyes that were all too familiar.

  Luis Basso.

  I darted toward the back door, swinging it wildly as it opened onto an alley and slammed against a stone wall. My head whipped around, split ends smacking my cheeks, my eyes searching for Luis. Not a shadow shifted. I sprinted in the direction I had seen the man walking, my laptop bag flapping against my rear. A rat scurried past a coffee-grind-infested dumpster and I jolted, then I carefully turned onto a narrow street. There wasn’t a single pedestrian. I searched for flashing brake lights, listened for footsteps, stared at doorways. Nothing. It was like he’d disappeared—or I’d imagined him.

  My shoulders sank. I trudged back into the alley, my feet heavy. Was I so desperate to find my sister that I was hallucinating in the middle of Tuscany? My Converse scuffed the pavement as I neared the rank dumpster, steering clear of the rat. What was I going to tell Marcus? That I ran off after a shadow?

  That was when I heard the screeching tires.

  I looked down the alley, the opposite way I’d run, and caught a small white sedan puttering in a burst of diesel fuel below the dense blanket of gray wooly clouds. It squeaked to a halt, and the passenger door swung open, a guy’s head leaning across the seat from the driver’s side.

  “Get in,” he ordered.

  It was Luis.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I did as I was told. Potential kidnapper or not, Luis was the entire reason I’d come to Italy. Now, he was driving a car right in front of me. I couldn’t not get in. So I plopped my messenger bag on the passenger seat floor and willingly let him take me to a second location—Oprah would be so disappointed I didn’t heed her warnings.

  He spun through Cortona’s maze of streets, under stone archways and past ancient facades. “How did you find me? Were you following me? What’s going on?” I asked.

  He didn’t say a word as we sped out of the town limits and climbed the steep Cortona mountain. There was nothing but miles of deserted woods. Not another car passed. Still, I knew where we were going. I recognized the sharp cliff, the lack of a guardrail. It was the lookout spot where he’d brought Keira and me years ago, when my family had come to visit, when I still thought my parents were innocently buying furniture.

  “Have you seen my sister? Craig? What do you know?”

  His mouth stayed pressed in a hard line.

  This was beyond reckless. He could have a gun. He could have lots of guns. If he was a spy, or a criminal, he could have a weapon of mass destruction in the trunk.

  I gripped the seat belt across my chest, my eyes flicking between him and the woods. “I don’t think he’s someone we should be with alone.” Marcus’s words echoed in my head. I should have called for help. I should have not gotten into the car until I told Marcus where I was going. Now the only person who could potentially save me was sitting in a café casually sipping espresso thinking I was having some serious intestinal issues in the bathroom.

  Luis pulled onto the edge of the familiar lookout. An emerald valley spread wide with lush vineyard grapes twining in neat rows before small farms with burnt-orange shingled roofs and churches with green copper domes and pointed spires.

  If it came to it, it would be a pretty place to die.

  I flung open my car door and leaped onto the gravel path; only a few feet separated me from the edge of a cliff you could hang glide from. I maneuvered toward the dented trunk, leaving a solid barrier be
tween us.

  “Did you know I was at the coffee shop? Where is my sister? What happened? Say something!” I shouted, my eyes scanning the road, knowing the likelihood of another car passing was about equal to seeing a meteor propel toward the Earth.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” He actually sounded annoyed by my questions as he leaned casually against the driver’s side of his filthy white car. “I brought you here so we could talk.”

  “Why couldn’t we talk at the coffee shop? I’m pretty sure that’s why they were invented.”

  “Too many people listening.”

  “Marcus and I were the only ones there.”

  “That’s one person too many.”

  “Did your father tell you I was here?”

  “He told me you were coming to Cortona the moment you hung up the phone in Boston.”

  “So you were following me?”

  “Does that surprise you?” He said it like I was stupid.

  My jaw clenched as I glanced through the passenger window. My laptop bag was resting on the floor, my cell phone tucked inside. If Luis was as bad as we feared, if he whipped out a gun, I couldn’t even call for help. Maybe I was stupid.

  I tried to calm my voice, to sound tough. “I just want to ask you about my sister.”

  “Obviously.” He glared back.

  “I know you were with her at McFadden’s Pub. I have a picture of you, her, and Craig.”

  He grunted in annoyance. “I figured someone would recover that eventually.”

  “So why were you with her?”

  “I didn’t take your sister, if that’s what you think. I ran into her that one night at Boston General. I was in town on business.”

  “At the hospital?”

  “I needed to get a few stitches taken care of.”

  “Stitches after a business meeting?” I cocked my head, suspicious.

  “You’d be surprised.” His dark eyes smirked in time with his lips, as if confirming he wasn’t in a legitimate line of work. “It was back in May, that stupid Mexican holiday. Keira was drunk, and blabbing on and on about finding out who your parents really were, what they really did, slamming me with questions, talking about the CIA.”

  “Why was she telling any of this to you?” The betrayal sank in my gut like an anchor. She never said anything to me, and they were our parents.

  “She thought I could help, and I needed a favor. I asked her to keep me out of the hospital’s medical records.” He flexed the hulking muscles of his right arm, almost reflexively, as if that was where he’d been injured. “She said she could get fired, and I told her I’d make it worth her while. I offered her money, but that’s not what she wanted. She was looking for information.”

  “Why did she think you had it? Have you been keeping in touch with her all these years?”

  “Of course not.” He shook his head like it was a stupid question. “As soon as I recognized her, I tried to pay her cash to stitch my wound herself, but she said no. So I gave her a fake passport for the records, and after that, she was convinced I was some oracle who could tell her everything she ever wanted to know.”

  “Are you? Do you know something about my parents?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say your parents and I were in the same line of work.”

  “Which is what, exactly? Are you saying my parents were spies? Is Craig a spy? Are you? Is my mailman? Am I surrounded by 007s?” I knotted my fingers in my hair, tugging hard as I glanced at the darkening clouds overhead, wishing they would just let go and rain. I needed to wash this whole mess off me. I couldn’t believe this was true. Is being a spy like being in Fight Club—the one rule is you never talk about being a spy? If so, they were all fantastic rule followers.

  “Intelligence is a very lucrative business. It casts a wide net and employs more people than you think. As for Craig, I don’t know him. I met him only that one time at the bar, and I figured he was some guy Keira was screwing. Obviously, I was wrong.”

  “No kidding,” I snapped. I loved how he was so comfortable insulting my presumed-dead sister; it made me think of my own jabs, all the times I judged her. I hated her boyfriends. Did I sound just as bad? “You know what, forget my parents. Let’s talk about Keira.” I tried to refocus my brain on what was really important, right here, right now. My parents were another distraction. “What about the photo that Seamus took? If it was all innocent, why did you freak out?”

  “Like I said, my line of work is complicated, and it’s best to be camera shy. Besides, Keira was drunk and talking about your parents in front of anyone who would listen. She was acting like I was some James Bond character come to life, which is not only dangerous but honestly made me embarrassed to be seen with her. You really think I want photos on Instagram?” Luis scoffed as he walked toward me. He was only about an inch taller than me, but he had the body of a guy who grunts lifting weights at the gym.

  “So you’re saying it was just a one-time run-in? You saw Keira at the hospital and had drinks with her that one night? If so, and you had nothing to do with what happened to her, why not come forward with what you know about Craig?”

  “I realize you can’t possibly comprehend the scope of what I do for a living, what your parents did, but trust me when I say the cops and I don’t share intel.” The condescension in his voice was thicker than his Italian accent.

  “Great. So Keira goes missing, and you have information, but you don’t say anything because you don’t like cops?” I was so frustrated I could hit him. I wanted to hit him.

  He sighed in annoyance. “After your sister made the news, I learned that she wasn’t just Googling your parents, she was trying to run a DNA test. She found some pathetic CIA tech so desperate for a hookup, he told her that he’d run the labs, and that if Mommy and Daddy really were spies, then their DNA would be in the system. The kid was about as dumb as she was.”

  My jaw tightened at the way he constantly degraded my sister. Only I was afraid that if I defended her, he’d stop talking altogether. So far, he was the only person who knew anything about what Keira was up to before she disappeared. “What did the test reveal?” I asked, working hard to keep my voice level.

  “Nothing.” He shrugged as if it were obvious. “No one is going to let your parents’ DNA turn up in a government database. You have to remember, decades ago when your parents were running around involved in these cases, DNA wasn’t widely used. So as long as they were careful, there wasn’t much that could link back to them or suggest any covert interference. But that doesn’t mean evidence isn’t sitting in labs somewhere. Cold cases have a way of coming back to life, new scientific tests are applied, and your parents’ DNA would connect them to high-profile cases from around the world. There would be repercussions globally, historically. And believe me, there are a lot of people who had a reason to stop that from happening.”

  I sank against the grimy car. Keira’s attempt to run an unauthorized DNA test caused this whole nightmare? Why didn’t she tell me what she was doing? And why was this so important to her? It was just a lab test. Wait. It was just a lab test!

  “Why couldn’t you cancel the lab work?” I blurted as my mind flipped through scenarios. “You don’t kill someone, or kidnap someone, over lab results. You’re spies—you could forge them or steal them. Why would someone hurt Keira over this?”

  His gaze turned resolute, as if he were about to state a simple fact widely accepted. “Because your parents had a lot of enemies.”

  “What did they do exactly?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?” His grin was cocky, like he enjoyed watching me squirm for each kernel of information he tossed my way. My chest filled with rage—at him, at Keira, and especially at my parents. This was their fault. Our parents did this to us. Every lie they told, every espionage act they committed, brought us here. So I was damn sure going to hear exactly what it was they did.

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, I guess my dad already opened his mouth. So�
��” He shrugged, like just this once he’d let me into their secret club. “You saw the Aldo Moro photo, right?”

  I nodded aggressively, growing impatient.

  “That image was taken by a local photographer. It’s incredibly famous. It ran in every paper, all over the world. Only the original that my dad showed you appeared in our local paper for a single day. After that, the photo was manipulated to remove your parents. That’s what the rest of the world saw.”

  “So it was Photoshopped?”

  “Well, Photoshop didn’t exist then, but yes. Where your parents were standing was replaced with a wall of posters. Their involvement in the case was deleted.” His voice was so flat, he might as well have been dissecting the Red Sox play-off chances. “This is in large part due to my Uncle Angelo. He hid your parents above our family store, he paid off the local photographer, he distributed the altered photo on their behalf. All to save your parents’ lives.”

  “So they owed him.”

  “A lot.” His words were clipped.

  “And Keira’s DNA test would somehow expose this?” I was trying to understand.

  “You’re not getting it.” Luis ran his hand over his slick black hair. “The Aldo Moro case is just one example. Your parents were the first on the scene when that car pulled up with a dead prime minister. Their DNA is everywhere, yet their entire involvement as witnesses was covered up. Every copy of the Cortona newspaper that ran the original image was destroyed to protect them. If someone linked their DNA to Moro, it would raise questions about an assassination that’s already riddled with conspiracy theories. And there are many more cases just like this.”

  “So you think Craig was working for some enemy of my parents? Someone who wanted to stop this test so much that they’d hurt Keira?”