Learning to Trust

by Lynne Connolly

  Stepping out of the elevator on her floor, Lina knew a moment of panic. She recognized it and dealt with it, took a couple of deep breaths and thought of a field of flowers. Just like the nun who had been her therapist had taught her. She hadn’t used the technique for a while, hadn’t needed to. Jon brought her everything she needed. But he wasn’t with her now, although it had taken a lot of persuasion to get him to agree to her going in alone. He was on his way back to his apartment across the park. Or sitting outside. Or maybe sitting on one of the seats at Strawberry Fields, just across the way.

  If she died here today, she’d be in good company. But she had no intention of dying. She had too much to live for.

  “Hey.” She walked in as if nothing was wrong. She’d had practice at that, back in the day. Back when her mom brought a new man home, someone who’d stared at her with lust in his eyes.

  Her mother, in the act of pouring some amber liquid into a cut-glass tumbler, almost dropped it. “Bellina, darling! We were just thinking of you. Where have you been?”

  “I stayed at the hotel last night.” True as far as it went. And they probably thought she’d spent it with Gary. “Have you seen Gary?”

  “Haven’t you?” Her mother gave her a roguish smile—grotesque on her overly made-up face, especially with that dead-eyed stare.

  “Not for a few hours.” They could presume what they wanted. If it made them think she was on their side, then so be it. Maybe pushing the button now meant she was saving them from something worse. And certainly she’d be helping her country. For all her close connections with Italy, Lina thought of herself as American. Her country had given her education, shelter and a means to earn a living. The least she could do was to pay a little back. Like many of her fellow citizens, she’d watched the attack on the Twin Towers with horror and sworn that if it were in her power, that would never happen again. Well, now was her chance to prove she meant it.

  Even if her stepfather wasn’t a terrorist, he was facilitating them. In the name of greed.

  “I’m tired. Could you put some coffee on for me?” She hardly ever asked when the maid wasn’t here, and this was her day off.

  Her mother protested, but her stepfather raised his hand in a placatory gesture. “I think we can manage that. Can’t we, darling?”

  “Yes.” With a shake of her head, Anna crossed the room in the direction of the kitchen, pulling her tight skirt into place and smoothing it with her palms.

  Alone with Ritchie Farina, Lina became suddenly shy, a flush heating her skin. Ritchie gave her a fatherly smile. “So are you and Gary planning anything else?”

  She licked lips suddenly gone dry. “Not right now.” Should she pretend they spent the night together? Probably. “But I need to get a few things together. He said something about leaving for a few days’ break.”

  Ritchie’s gaze sharpened. “Did he say where?”

  “Somewhere warm,” she improvised. “Miami, San Diego, somewhere like that.” She giggled and watched his eyes narrow with speculation.

  “Not going abroad?”

  Oh shit, what was this? Maybe he’d planned to go abroad on an errand for his father. She had no choice. She had to go along with him. “I don’t know. A break, he said, that’s all.”

  “Maybe back to Italy?”

  She forced a smile. “I‘ve had enough of Italy for now.”

  Ritchie shrugged. “But it’s very different seen from the best penthouse suite in a hotel.”

  “I guess it is.” She tried to warm her smile, but couldn’t quite cope. “Sorry, I’m a bit tired.”

  The glow in Ritchie’s dark eyes increased. “Don’t worry, baby. And you have a hangover?”

  “I did. I feel better now. I took some pills.” The bastard. He knew she’d have a hangover because he slipped her the rufies. “Gary helped.” She had to give him that much, though she was far from trusting Ritchie Farina’s son completely. But it wouldn’t hurt for Ritchie to think that Gary was facilitating her habit. A habit that would put him at his ease, make her less of a threat, more of a tool for him to use.

  Ritchie leaned back. “You know I’m happy for you, sweetie. Cozy, isn’t it? Maybe we’ll all go away together. How would you like that?”

  Alerted to a possible lead, she gave him the answer he wanted. “That sounds fine. Are you planning a holiday?”

  “Maybe an extended one.” He didn’t take his attention off her for a second. Her tension rose as panic made her pulse rate increase. She saw the little throb in her wrist and concentrated on getting it down. “To be honest, your mother and me are thinking of retiring.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. I expect some investments I’ve made to come into play soon. When they do, I’m thinking of handing off to Gary. It’s time he learned what sitting at the head of the table means. He’s wanted it long enough.”

  She’d liked Gary, actually liked him. “Don’t you resent that?”

  “The opposite. It shows me he’s ready. I want somebody young and keen. Gary has some new ideas he wants to try, but I’m not completely in favor. The best way to cure that is for me to get out of his way and see how he manages.”

  She wondered if his father was really planning to drop his son into the deepest shit he could contrive, or pass over a thriving criminal empire to him. She had no way of knowing right now. But Gary wasn’t here—Ritchie was. She should work on one thing at a time.

  She let her face relax into a loose smile. “And you wanted to bring me home?”

  “Sure we did. You’re smart, you’re pretty—”

  “And my money was gathering interest and dust in the trust account.” His hypocrisy made her feel ill, although her headache of the morning had long gone.

  Ritchie smiled broadly. “Now you get it.” Oh yeah, she got it. It wasn’t her they wanted, it was her money. And if she married Gary, they’d have it.

  An opening. “How did you find me?”

  Ritchie watched her closely. She had to keep up the appearance of being high. “Through Byron, of course. We knew where he was, my connections told me. So we located him and asked him. He didn’t know, but he said he’d find out. And he did. Clever boy. A shame he wrecked himself. He broke into the convent and found your address on the computer.”

  Oh shit, yes, he could do that. The nuns’ idea of a computer password was “Jesusisgood.” It wouldn’t take a genius to work that out. And their office wasn’t where anyone slept. They paid a security firm to drop by during the night, but they had nothing of value on the premises. So yes, even high, Byron could have done that. So he’d gotten her address and headed for Naples. Had he wanted to warn her? “Did he tell you the address?”

  Ritchie grimaced. “No, he forgot that part. But we had him followed.”

  “And they caught up with him at the station.” She let her eyes droop, as if she were feeling tired.

  “Sure we did.”

  “Byron was sweet.” She let her lids drop as the door opened and the tap of high heels told her that her mother had come in. She’d give Ritchie and Anna five, maybe ten minutes before she “came around” and slurred some more questions. If she interrogated him like she was a cop, he’d get suspicious. Maybe they’d talk more freely if she pretended to snooze, to be still under the influence a little.

  “Byron was stupid,” she heard Anna say. “He should have told you where Bella was.”

  “He should.” She knew by the sound that Ritchie was still watching her. She concentrated on breathing deeply, let her head fall back against the soft back of the sofa. Tried not to swallow, a clear sign that she was awake. Ritchie spoke softly. “But he was nothing by then. On the road to death. We just helped him along a little.”

  Triumph soared through her at that confession. Was that enough?

  “Fuck, she did it,” Jon said. “Can we get her out of there?”

  Someone pounded on the door and he jerked in shock. Already disturbed by the possible danger to Lina, the knocking echoed
the way his heart leaped. He straightened up, and Neil straightened with him. “Who’s that?” asked the agent.

  “How should I know?”

  “Are you expecting anyone?”

  He gave the man a pitying sneer. “What do you think?”

  When Jon headed to the door, he closed the lounge door carefully behind him. Neil came with him, standing to one side. He kept a camera to scan visitors and now, clearly outlined in the tiny screen, he saw Gary Farina. He murmured the name to Neil, who nodded. “Yeah, I know.” Of course he would. Then, almost soundlessly, he added, “Let him in. At least we’ll have one of them.”

  Jon saw the sense in that. He unlocked the door and stood aside as a clearly agitated Gary strode in. The door closed behind him and Neil stood against it. “Gary Farina.”

  Gary spun around to confront the man. He stared. “The Feds?” So he was expecting something.

  “Homeland Security.”

  Gary ran a hand over his already disheveled hair. “What have you done? I called home just now and Anna said that Lina was there, high. She told me to come home and claim her and said Ritchie was pleased with me. What the fuck have you done?”

  Since there was no sense hiding anything, Jon led the way to the lounge and flung open the door. The agents had set their listening and recording equipment on the side table, and the two agents who remained were huddled over it, listening. They’d put the sound on speaker and as they entered, they heard Anna’s voice. “You are so good to us, Ritchie.”

  “I know, baby.” And the sound of a kiss, grotesquely magnified.

  Gary closed his eyes. “You sent her in, didn’t you?”

  While Faraday hastily changed from speakers to headphones, Neil blocked Gary’s view and confronted him.

  “You know about this, don’t you?” Neil said. “You’re minor players in something you can’t understand. Get out now while you can. We know that you’re starting to smuggle illegal goods to supplement a bad time for your business. It’s not too late. You can save yourself, and your company.”

  Gary spun around to face Neil, his eyes blazing fire. “Minor players? What the fuck are you talking about?” He paused and glanced at Jon. “We have to get her out of there.” Then he addressed the agents again, his lip curling in a sneer. “Just how much research have you done?”

  Neil shrugged, his massive shoulders straining the seams of his plain navy suit. “Enough to know you’re getting involved in something you don’t understand.”

  If anything, that drove Gary wilder. “Oh my God! Don’t they teach you guys history where you come from?” He stood alone in the center of the room, his hands curled into fists. Jon felt an unreasoning desire to stand with him. Probably his natural instinct to side with the underdog. He resisted the urge, but Gary’s previous behavior when he’d left him with Lina in the hotel encouraged him to believe him.

  “Okay.” Gary hissed air through his teeth, took a couple of deep breaths and opened his eyes, fixing Neil in his basilisk stare. “Let me tell you a little bit of family history. My great-grandfather and his family came to the States as immigrants from Italy. They didn’t bring much and they didn’t have cases, so they put their belongings in flour sacks. The official decided that since the sacks were labeled “farina,” the Italian for flour, that was their name. They decided to keep it. Any idea what the family name was before that?”

  With a sinking heart, Jon said it. “Colleghi.”

  “So there’s one less bozo in here,” Gary said. “My great-grandfather started by selling newspapers on the street. And selling numbers. He expanded, bought booths. And carried on with the illegal betting scams. The cops closed the booths, they’d start another one. My dad took us out of the numbers game. Now he’s dragging us back.” Fury filled his eyes. “And you sent Lina in with them?”

  “Not for long.” Jon headed for the door. He’d haul her out of there himself.

  “No!” The alarm in Gary’s voice made him jerk around. “They’ll know something’s wrong for sure if you go get her. Let me do it.”

  The agents exchanged alarmed looks. The woman spoke. “We had no idea. We thought the Farinas were accessories being bulldozed into doing the Colleghi a favor.” She ignored Gary’s snort. “We need to get her out. We have all the information we need, anyway.”

  “I can give you more.” Gary spread his palms. “But not if they hurt Lina. If they do that, I’ll hold you responsible and you’ll get nothing from me.”

  The other man, who up to now had remained relatively silent, snapped his head around to stare at Gary. “What do you mean?”

  Gary met his gaze. “I have no intention of allowing my family to sink back into the mess we came from. We’ve been clean for twenty-five years, and either it remains that way, or I leave. I’ll tell you what you need to know. What I won’t do is appear as a witness in open court.”

  The man nodded. “We can accept that, as long as you provide us with alternate witnesses.”

  Gary gave him a narrow-eyed stare and lifted his chin. The light streaming through the wide windows glinted off the lenses of his spectacles, giving Gary the appearance of a statue, or something not quite real. “I’ll do as I think fit. I won’t take part in any entrapment, and I won’t appear as a witness. If you subpoena me, I’ll take the fifth. Better a short term in jail than death in a dark alley one night.” The agent opened his mouth, but Gary wouldn’t let him speak. “Don’t bother to suggest witness protection. I don’t run.”

  He turned around and headed for the door. “And right now I have someone to save, because you idiots didn’t bother to do your homework. If they think she’s a problem, they’ll kill her and you’ll never know. Did you never wonder where that picture of Byron came from? How he found Lina’s address in Naples?” He paused to confront Jon.

  Light dawned. “You sent it.”

  Gary shrugged. “What else could I do? That was when I realized my father was slipping back into his old ways. I don’t know if they contacted him or the other way around, but the result’s the same. If they found Byron and Lina before you did, they’d have killed them both. I didn’t want that on my conscience.” He turned again, ready to leave.

  Jon’s “Wait,” clashed with Neil’s “You can’t do that!”

  Gary chose to listen to Jon. “I have a PI sitting in the park opposite the Dakota listening to what’s going on. I put him there for a quick response, if we needed one. You can use him. I’ll come with you. Get a cab and wait outside.”

  Gary nodded. “Good idea.” He jerked his head at the agents. “Better than anything they’ve proposed.”

  Jon grabbed his leather jacket off the peg near the door. “You can stay here and monitor everything if it makes you happy.”

  “We could get a raid arranged.”

  Jon curled his lip. “And you expect the security at the Dakota to not warn them? You think Farina won’t know way in advance? You try anything like that and I’m with Gary. You’ll get nothing from me.”

  They left before the agents could stop them.

  Jon explained after they left the cab and jogged down to Strawberry Fields to join Steve. Both of them exiting a car outside the Dakota might alert unseen watchers. Of any side. Surprise might be something they could use. “I’ll get another cab and circle the block. Steve will stay here. Call my number and leave your cell on so we can hear you. We need a key word.”

  “Dallas,” Gary said. “I have a business trip planned for next week. Had,” he amended with a grimace. “I guess everything’s in the air now. If you hear me say ‘Dallas,’ then move in and get our friends inside.”

  Jon nodded and clapped him on the back by way of wishing him good luck. “Bring her out safe. And yourself.”

  He still wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing. But he had few other choices. He’d never been more terrified in his life. If anything happened to Lina, they’d pay. Everybody would pay.

  Lina pretended to snooze, hoping to hear something. She
wasn’t disappointed. Anna, always the tactless one, murmured to her husband, “If she dies now, it’s from a drug overdose.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Ritchie got to his feet and Lina concentrated on breathing properly. “But you might have a point. Don’t you want to see the families united? After last night, she’ll marry Gary. All he has to do is be nice to her and she’s ours. I told you, deaths bring too much attention. It’s not good for business.”

  Lina could almost feel his breath on her face and when he spoke very close to her, she had to fight not to react. “Still, seeing her like this, it’s tempting.” He straightened and she felt the breeze he created against her skin.

  The front door opened. This time she did flinch, so she made a pretense of groaning and opening her eyes. “Wassup?” she tried. Her mother was watching her. Smiling.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” Gary bent over her, delivered a sweet kiss. She was so shocked she didn’t even back away, but met his steady gaze. He was trying to tell her something but she didn’t know him well enough to discern what it was. Except they held a warning. “Remember our lunch date?”

  “I don’t think she’s in any state.” Ritchie entered the room and sat in a chair opposite the sofa where she sat. It effectively blocked her exit. “She needs a rest. What did you give her, Gary? I slipped her a couple of rufies, just to make her friendly. You seem to have plunged her right back on the hard stuff.”

  Anna sighed. “I remember those days. She’d come in completely soused, or high, sleep on the couch and then head out again.”

  While Anna entertained her boyfriends in her bedroom, boyfriends who’d later fancy a taste of the daughter. Lina shuddered. Immediately Gary put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “You okay, baby? Maybe some lunch would perk you up some.”

  At the word “lunch,” his hold increased just a little. He wanted her to eat? Could she even trust him? But she needed to get out of here and Gary was giving her an out. Considering what happened in that hotel room, she’d rather trust him than his father. So she smiled woozily at him. “Maybe I am a bit hungry.”