Die for Me

by Karen Rose

  “Yes. And it’s also why I came up to talk to you. I got two calls, actually. The first was from Amanda Brewster. She was screaming that she knew Alan was with me. Apparently he didn’t come home for dinner. I hung up on her. Then not two minutes later, my cell rings again. This time it’s Kyle’s wife.”

  “Kyle’s wife?”

  “Yes.” Sophie sighed. “She accused me of having an affair with Kyle.”

  Vito narrowed his eyes. “What?”

  “She said she’d heard Kyle on the phone, talking about me, and said she’d be damned if she let me steal her husband like I tried to steal Amanda Brewster’s.” She shrugged when he lifted his brows in question. “Amanda was very vocal about the hussy who tried to break up her happy home. There, um, weren’t a lot of people who didn’t know. Kyle’s wife said that Amanda had called yesterday to tell her I was back in the picture. They’ve circled the wagons to protect their happy marriages.”

  “I guess Kyle and Clint learned a lot more from Alan Brewster than archeology,” Vito said dryly, and was rewarded with a wry smile from Sophie.

  “I talked to Clint Shafer on Monday. You saw Alan on Tuesday. Tonight Kyle didn’t show up for dinner, so his wife checked his caller ID and saw he’d talked to Clint. She called Clint’s wife, who went through his caller ID and gave Kyle’s wife my number at the museum. Incidentally, Kyle’s wife says Clint didn’t come home for dinner either.”

  “But both wives called you on your cell.”

  She frowned. “You’re right. How did she get my cell? Well, you’ll figure that out. My point is, now you have a photo of Kyle Lombard taken… where?”

  “Bergamo, Italy, was what Interpol said,” Liz answered from behind him.

  “That’s less than a half hour by train from where Berretti lived. You now have Kyle’s photo, who doesn’t come home two days after I asked a question. Coincidence?”

  “No.” Vito looked at Nick and Liz. “Let’s get an APB for Clint Shafer in-”

  “Long Island,” Sophie supplied.

  “And one for Kyle Lombard wherever the hell he is.”

  “His wife called me from an 845 area code,” Sophie said. “But if you can’t find Kyle through his wife’s number, maybe you can find him through Clint’s phone records.”

  Vito nodded hard. “Good, Sophie. Very good.”

  “No, Vito.” Nick shook his head. “Bad. Very bad. If Lombard traces to Sophie and Lombard traces to Berretti of the missing medieval torture artifacts, and if Lombard isn’t out cattin’ around on his wife but maybe lying in a gulley somewhere?”

  Vito’s blood ran cold. “Shit.”

  Sophie sat down hard. “Oh, no. If Kyle’s involved and he’s really missing…”

  “This killer could know about you,” Vito said grimly.

  “We’ll have to get you protection, Sophie,” Jen said.

  Liz nodded. “I’ll take care of it.” She squeezed Katherine’s arm. “Breathe, Kat.”

  Katherine lowered herself into the chair next to Sophie. “I should never have-”

  “Katherine,” Sophie gritted through her teeth. “Stop.”

  “I can’t. This has nothing to do with you being five or fifty-five. This is you being in the sights of the monster who did this.” She grabbed the photo of Sanders as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Who tortured and murdered nine other bodies in my morgue.”

  Sophie’s expression changed in an instant and she put her arms around Katherine as the ME’s shoulders shook. Vito and Nick looked at each other, stunned. They’d never seen Katherine shed a tear in the past, no matter how bad the bodies got.

  But this wasn’t a body. This was her little girl and Vito understood her terror.

  Sophie patted Katherine’s back. “I’ll be fine. Vito will watch out for me. And I have Lotte and Birgit.” She looked up at Vito. “On second thought, I think you’re it.”

  Katherine shoved her away, furious. “This is not funny, Sophie Johannsen.”

  Sophie wiped at Katherine’s tears. “No, it’s not. Nor is it your fault.”

  Katherine grabbed Vito’s shirt and yanked him down with a strength that surprised him. “You’d better not let anything happen to her, too, or so help me God…”

  Vito stared at the woman he thought he’d known so well. Katherine stared back, serious and very angry. Too. She knew about Andrea, what he’d done. He pried her fingers from his shirt and straightened. “Understood.”

  Katherine took a deep shuddering breath. “Just so we’re clear.”

  “Crystal,” Vito bit out.

  Sophie was staring at them both. “Did you just threaten him, Katherine?”

  “Yeah,” Vito said. “She did.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wednesday, January 17, 8:30

  P.M.

  Sophie got out of her car in the nursing home’s lot and waited for Vito to park. He’d been silent, brooding, and angry as they’d left the precinct. When he’d followed her to the nursing home, he’d kept so close to her rear bumper that he’d have plowed into her if she’d had to stop suddenly. She’d gone over Vito’s and Katherine’s confrontation in her mind all the way over, which was a hell of a lot less unnerving than thinking that a killer might be watching her. Something had happened to someone Vito was supposed to have protected. Sophie remembered the roses. Her gut told her they were related.

  Vito slammed his truck door and came around to take her arm.

  “You are going to tell me what that was all about,” she said.

  “Yeah. But not now. Please, Sophie, not now.”

  She studied his face in the soft glow of the streetlights. There was pain in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. And guilt. She understood about guilt. She also knew Katherine would never have allowed her to leave with Vito had she not been convinced he could indeed take care of her. “All right. But calm down. You’re going to frighten Anna, and she doesn’t need that right now.” She threaded her fingers through his. “Neither do I.”

  He drew several deep breaths and had schooled his features to calm by the time they got to the desk. Sophie signed them in. “Miss Marco. How’s Gran been today?”

  Nurse Marco frowned. “Same as always. Mean and ornery.”

  Sophie frowned back. “Thanks so much. It’s this way, Vito.” She led him back through the sterile halls, aware of the curious stares of the nurses. Curious nothing. They were leering. Drooling, even. “Don’t make eye contact,” Sophie murmured, “or they’ll be on you like white on rice. They don’t get eye candy like you every day.”

  He chuckled, breaking the tension. “Thanks, but not a picture I wanted in my mind.”

  “Don’t mention it.” She stopped outside Anna’s room. “Vito, she doesn’t look anything like she did before. You need to know that.”

  “I understand.” He squeezed her hand. “Let’s go.”

  Anna was dozing. Sophie sat next to her and touched her hand. “Gran, I’m here.”

  Anna’s eyes fluttered open and one side of her mouth trembled in a smile. “Sophie.” Her eyes looked up, and up again until she saw Vito’s face. “Who is this?”

  “This is Vito Ciccotelli. My… friend. Vito loves the opera, Gran.”

  Anna’s eyes changed, softened. “Ahh. Sit, please,” she slurred.

  “She wants you to sit.”

  “I can understand her.” Vito sat and took Anna’s hand in his. “I heard you in Orfeo at the Academy downtown when I was a kid. Your Che faro made my grandfather weep.”

  Anna regarded him steadily. “And you? Did you weep?”

  Vito smiled at her. “Yes. But let’s keep that our secret, okay?”

  Anna smiled back, slowly. “Your secret is safe with me. Talk to me, Vito.”

  Sophie’s throat thickened as Vito talked about the opera and brought a light to Anna’s eyes that hadn’t been there in a long time. Way too soon, Nurse Marco intruded.

  “She needs her evening medication, Dr. Johannsen. You should go.”

&
nbsp; Anna breathed out a petulant breath. “That woman.”

  Vito still held Anna’s hand. “She’s just doing her job. It was so nice to meet you, Miss Shubert. I’d love to come again.”

  “You can, but only if you call me Anna.” Her good eye narrowed slyly. “Or Gran.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “Gran.”

  But Vito just laughed. “My grandfather would have been so jealous of me tonight, sitting with the great Anna Shubert. I’ll come again, as soon as I can.”

  Sophie leaned over and kissed Anna’s cheek. “Be nice to Nurse Marco, Gran. Vito’s right, she’s only trying to do her job.”

  Anna’s lips thinned. “She’s mean, Sophie.”

  Sophie shot a worried glance at Vito and saw he’d tilted his head pensively.

  “How so, Anna?” he asked.

  “She’s mean and hateful. And cruel.” It was all Sophie had ever gotten her to say.

  Sophie controlled the sudden tremble of her hand. That Vito hadn’t laughed it off bothered her a great deal. “Sleep, Gran. I’ll see what I can do about Nurse Marco.”

  “You’re a good girl, Sophie.” Anna’s mood shifted again and she smiled her half smile. “Come soon, Sophie, and bring your man here.”

  “I will. I love you, Gran.” She kissed Anna’s other cheek and hurried out, not stopping until she got to her car, Vito never more than a step behind her.

  “You didn’t talk to the nurse,” he said quietly.

  “What am going to say? Are you abusing my grandmother?” Sophie heard the hysteria creep into her voice and sighed, forcing herself to calm. “She’d just say no.”

  “Have you found evidence of abuse?”

  “No. Gran’s always clean and seems to get her medicine when she needs it. She’s kept on a cardiac monitor and a few of the nurses have ICU experience. This is a good nursing home, Vito. I researched it so carefully, but… She’s my grandmother.”

  “You could…” He hesitated.

  “I could what?”

  “You could use a camera,” he said slowly.

  “Like a nanny-cam?” Sophie asked, and his lips quirked up.

  “In this case a granny-cam,” he said and she laughed, feeling a little better.

  “Do you know anything about cameras like that?”

  He winced. “Yeah, I do. My brother-in-law Aidan knows more. I’ll ask him.”

  “Thanks. If I can get an affordable camera, I’d put it in her room in a heartbeat, just to give me and Harry peace of mind.” She smiled at him. “And thank you for that, in there. You made Gran so happy. I wish I’d thought of it before, bringing in people who would talk to her about her music. Now I have to go home. When will I see you again?”

  Vito blinked at her, incredulous. “Like, every time you look in your rearview mirror. I’m not leaving you tonight, Sophie. Didn’t you hear us? Munch or Bosch or whatever the hell his name is may be watching you.”

  “I heard you. And I listened. But I don’t expect a twenty-four-hour bodyguard, Vito. That’s just not practical.”

  Vito’s eyes flashed and she thought he’d argue. Then his eyes went as sly as her Gran’s had. “You owe me a double bonus prize for this morning.”

  “Yeah, but you owe me for translating.”

  He grinned. “I think this is what they call compound interest.”

  She swallowed, her body already tingling in anticipation. “See you at the house.”

  Wednesday, January 17, 9:25

  P.M.

  She had an escort, which was most unfortunate. He frowned as he watched Sophie Johannsen drive away in her grandmother’s car, followed closely by the truck driven by the man who’d walked her out. He’d have to wait until she was alone.

  He’d known she’d show up here. Long ago he’d checked her financials and found the checks she’d written to the nursing home. She paid them a lot of money. He’d heard health care costs were on the rise, but even he’d been surprised. He’d never pay so much for his parents. But then, he no longer had parents, so the point was moot.

  He wished he’d been able to hear what they’d been saying. Next time he’d be better prepared. He’d wanted to snip all his loose ends in one fell swoop, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight. No matter. He had other diversions. He put his van in gear, then glanced over his shoulder to where Derek Harrington lay, bound and gagged.

  “You wanted to know how I got my inspiration,” he said. “You’re about to find out.”

  He’d return for Sophie Johannsen tomorrow.

  Thursday, January 18, 4:10

  A.M.

  Vito woke slowly. He’d slept well, exhausted by four long days of work and two short nights of teaching Sophie the fine art of making love. She was a fast learner, capable of assimilating all he’d shown her into moves that left him utterly spent. But now he’d recharged and he wanted her again. He reached… and patted an empty bed.

  Vito’s eyes snapped open. She was gone. He jumped from her bed, his heart knocking in his chest. He stopped in the bedroom doorway and listened, relieved at the low murmur of the TV downstairs. He pulled on his pants and forced himself to take the stairs two at a time instead of in one big leap.

  She was curled on the sofa, cradling a mug in her hands. Sleeping at her feet were the dogs, looking for all the world like rainbow-head wigs. Her head jerked around when she heard him. She’d been jumpy, too. “I woke up and you weren’t there,” he said.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  He stopped at the coffee table on which he’d left his folder and Bev’s art book. The book was open to The Scream, and Sophie was watching him.

  “I didn’t mean to pry. I didn’t know it was a book for your case. I was trying to take my mind off… Anyway, the page was marked. It goes with the screams, doesn’t it?”

  Guilt speared him. He’d been sleeping like a baby while the sound of those horrific screams kept her awake. “We think so. I’m sorry, Sophie. I never would have wanted you to hear what you’ve heard or see what you’ve seen.”

  “But I have heard and I have seen,” she said quietly. “And I’ll deal with it.”

  He sat next to her, stretching his arm across her shoulders, gratified when she snuggled against him. They sat in silence, watching the movie on the TV. It was in French and she was watching without the English subtitles, so after a minute he lost interest in the flick and sniffed at the mug in her hands. “Hot chocolate?”

  “Good German cocoa,” she confirmed. “Shubert family recipe. Want some?”

  “Maybe later. Is this one of your father’s movies?”

  “En Garde. It’s not nearly as good as Soft Rain, the one you saw.” Her mouth lifted sadly. “Alex wasn’t a great actor, but he got a lot of screen time in this movie. It’s a swashbuckler flick, and he fenced competitively when he was in school. There he is.”

  Alexandre Arnaud walked across the screen, sword in hand. He was a tall man with golden hair and Vito immediately saw the family resemblance. “You needed to see him.”

  “I told you I’m not that difficult to figure out. I don’t like to be alone in this house. If you hadn’t been here, I’d be at Uncle Harry’s watching Bette Davis movies with him.”

  In this house. She sounded morose when she said it, but every time she’d spoken about her uncle it was with affection, so he thought Harry was a good place to begin. He made his voice casual. “Did you live here or at your uncle’s when you were a kid?”

  Her wry look said that she’d seen right through his ploy. “Mostly here with Gran. I started out with Harry and Freya, but they had four kids, and here I got my own room.”

  “But you said you didn’t like to be alone.”

  She pulled back and leveled him a long look. “Are you interrogating me, Vito?”

  “No. Yes. Kind of. I’d prefer you keep thinking of me as nosy. It sounds less harsh.”

  “So it does. I lived with my mother until I was four, but she got tired of me and dumped me on Uncle Harry. Harry
gave me the first real home I ever knew.”

  “An even better reason to hate your mother than her affair with your father.”

  Her voice cooled. “Oh, no. I have much better reasons to hate my mother, Vito.” She turned her eyes to the TV, but she wasn’t watching it. “Anna was still touring that first year, but when she was home I stayed with her in Pittsburgh. When she was gone I stayed with Harry. When I started kindergarten, Gran sold her place in Pittsburgh and moved here so I wasn’t shuttled back and forth.”

  The picture of a little Sophie being passed around with no roots squeezed at his heart. “Did Freya not want you?” he asked and her eyes widened.

  “Nothing gets past you. Freya hated Lena so much. Having me around was hard.”

  How selfish, Vito thought, but kept it to himself. “So what about your father? Alex.”

  “Alex didn’t know about me for a long time.”

  “Anna didn’t tell him.”

  “She’d broken up with him less than a year before I was born and she still hurt, according to Maurice. According to Harry, she was terrified my father would take me away.”

  “So how did you eventually meet him?”

  “I always asked about my father, but nobody ever talked about him, so one day I took a bus to the courthouse, went up to the counter and asked for my birth certificate.”

  “Industrious. Did they give it to you?”

  “Considering I was only seven, no.”

  Vito stared at her. “Seven? You were riding around on a city bus alone at seven?”

  “I was trading empty beer bottles to the nearest corner store for Ho Hos and beef jerky when I was four,” she said flatly. “Anyway, the lady at the courthouse asked for my next of kin. The next thing I knew Uncle Harry was there, so upset. He told Gran I had a right to know my father. Gran said over her dead body, and Harry stopped arguing. I thought that was that. I was plotting a new plan to get my birth certificate when one day Harry shows up at my school with passports and two tickets to Paris.”