The Perfect Couple

by Lexi Landsman

  There was no way Sofia was involved in Emily’s abduction. But the detectives’ suggestion that she might have deliberately seduced me and then stolen the necklace was playing heavily on my mind. What they didn’t know was that I had told her I’d found the necklace. If they knew that, she would surely become a suspect for the theft. They hadn’t mentioned interviewing her, but I assumed they would have to in order to corroborate my whereabouts the night of Sarah’s accident, so I needed to prep her.

  I caught the ferry to Como, hired a car and then drove two kilometres to Sofia’s hotel, which was nestled between Como and Cernobbio. The entire way, I kept looking in my rear-view mirror at the cars behind me, paranoid that the media was following me. All I needed was a photo of me embracing Sofia on the front cover of a newspaper to shatter their view of Sarah and me as the perfect couple. They wouldn’t even need a headline. An image like that spoke volumes. If a man could commit adultery, what other secrets was he hiding?

  I drove an unnecessarily longer route, making loops to be sure I’d lose the press if they were on my tail. On the way, I thought about how to broach the subject of the missing necklace with Sofia. Would I just come out and ask her bluntly or did I need to be strategic? Sofia could be feisty and if I started throwing accusations she would snap back, shut down and probably kick me out. I would have to play the game.

  I drove into the private park that housed the hotel, a striking nineteenth-century converted villa of glamour and opulence. It featured Art Nouveau furnishings, preserved stucco work and floral frescoes. I had to be quick, and so I rushed past the magnificent Italianate gardens with flowerbeds shaped into arabesques, and through to the palatial hall and lounge area, which had floor-to-ceiling windows with crimson draperies and a panoramic view of the lake and hilltop villages of Torno and Blevio. I made my way up to Sofia’s room and found her door slightly ajar. I pushed it open to see her sitting in a white hotel gown on the window ledge, silhouetted as she held her knees to her chest and her arms wrapped around them as she stared at the calm waters of the lake. God she was beautiful. Ethereal. The sunlight streamed into the room, catching the blonde edges of her hair and illuminating her perfect profile and rich honeycomb skin. She had an old-style film-star quality about her, and she took my breath away.

  Sofia turned slowly and smiled when she saw me. She got off the ledge elegantly, came over and hugged me. I slipped my arms under her gown and around her waist, feeling the warmth of her naked body against me. It was electric. Sofia couldn’t have played me; I refused to believe it.

  ‘Povero amore mio,’ she whispered, my poor darling.

  When we pulled apart, I stared into her deep brown eyes. Could she have deceived me? All I felt when I looked at her was desire. Maybe it was love, maybe lust but whatever it was that I felt for her, it was clouding my judgement.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Sofia,’ I said. ‘It’s been really rough. The last few days have been hell.’

  She rested the back of her hand on my cheek. ‘Sit down,’ she said warmly. ‘Tell me everything.’

  I took out my wallet, keys and phones from my pockets and sat on the edge of the bed. She curled up beside me and tickled the back of my neck with her hand.

  ‘I can only just imagine. Poor Emily. I haven’t stopped thinking about her. It’s terrifying. I saw you on the news. I’m still in shock about it being a ransom.’

  I studied her expression – her wide eyes, her pallor, her lips pressed together. ‘But the necklace has been stolen,’ she said. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘We need to get the necklace back. It’s the only way. I can’t even entertain the idea of not finding it.’ I watched her closely, looking for a sign – no matter how subtle – that she was hiding something.

  ‘But it’s gone,’ she said slowly. Sofia looked so frightened that I was sure she couldn’t be faking it. ‘How will you ever get it back?’

  ‘The night we found the necklace, we left the lab at midnight and Sarah said she was headed straight home – but her accident occurred at two am. I just know that in those two hours something happened.’

  As I spoke, a chill ran down my spine as something new occurred to me. What if there was more to my dark theory that Sarah might have been beaten by the necklace thieves and then planted unconscious in her car? What if Sofia was the one who organised the hit? Maybe the cops were right. When I came over to her apartment after finding the necklace, she did go to the bathroom; maybe she texted someone and they took action straightaway. I racked my brain about that night – did I tell Sofia where we had hidden it? She knew Sarah would have been driving home alone, and although Sofia adored my daughter, she had never cared much for my wife.

  ‘What do you think could have happened?’ she asked. She said it so innocently that this time I wondered if she was putting on a performance.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ I said simply. ‘It all comes down to Sarah regaining her memory. She’ll unlock something from that night and it will be the key to getting the necklace back.’

  She rubbed my back now and spoke tenderly. ‘But, Marco, if she hasn’t got her memory back by now, she probably never will.’

  I pushed her hand off me and stood up. ‘I don’t believe that for a second. Sarah has an intelligence far superior to any other woman I know,’ I said, praising my wife even though I knew it would upset my mistress. ‘Her children are everything to her. It was a trauma that made her lose her memory, so maybe this trauma is what will bring it back.’

  Her gown had fallen open to reveal her bare breasts, but Sofia now took the string and tied it tightly around her. ‘Did you ever consider that maybe Sarah is lying to you? Maybe she stole the necklace and has faked her memory loss? It would explain what happened in those two hours.’

  I knew what she was doing. I’d complimented my wife, and now she wanted to tear Sarah down. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said, with a mocking chuckle. ‘She would never do that. I know my wife.’

  ‘You think you know her and she knows you,’ she said curtly, and then pursed her lips tightly. ‘To everyone else, you are the perfect couple. But look at you. You’re here with me, your mistress.’ She came to stand next to me and slid her hand down my pants. ‘If you have secrets, do you think she does not?’

  I moved her hand away and went to stand by the window-sill where she had been sitting when I walked in. I leaned against it and pressed my head to the cold glass. I wondered for a moment if there were truth to what she was suggesting, especially given that Sarah had mentioned hiding the necklace for safekeeping the night we found it. But then, I quickly dispelled the idea because there was no way she could have faked a car accident. And, I knew my wife; Sarah would never lie to me.

  ‘She had a car accident, Sofia, and suffered a brain injury. They put her in an induced coma, for God’s sake. You can’t fake that.’

  I put my head in my hands and sighed heavily. I was so worn down, so mentally exhausted from all the mind games. She seemed to sense that she had pushed me too far, because she came up behind me and put her arms around my waist.

  ‘Andrà tutto bene tesoro,’ she whispered, It will be okay, my darling.

  My world was falling apart. It felt like I was losing my grip on everything. I couldn’t lose Sofia too.

  ‘The police interviewed me,’ I told her, my tone impassive. ‘I had to tell them about us. I didn’t want to drag you into this, so I lied and said I never said anything to you about finding the necklace the night I found it. They’ll probably want to interview you to verify that.’

  She let go of my waist and sat on the ledge, facing me, her feet dangling. ‘Will they tell Sarah about us?’

  ‘They said they wouldn’t. Anyway, I just wanted you to know what I had told them, in case they question you.’

  I turned away from her and began to gather my things from her bed. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ I said.

  She jumped down from the ledge. ‘But I thought you want
ed to see me. That’s why I came all the way here. To support you.’

  ‘I do want to see you.’ I so desperately wanted to cast away my suspicions and embrace her, forget the thought had ever been implanted in my mind. ‘But I need to get back.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said, coming towards me. She ran her hand down my chest and kissed me passionately. I didn’t push her away. If this was the last time I was going to be with her, I wanted to remember it. And so I didn’t stop her when she began to unbuckle my pants, or when she wrapped her legs around me and pushed me onto the bed, or when she ran her tongue from my neck down my body.

  Afterwards, as we lay on the bed in a mess of sheets and sweat, a thought occurred to me. If she had seduced me to get the necklace, why continue the affair when she had what she wanted? It didn’t make sense.

  Her head was resting on my chest. I moved a strand of her hair from her cheek. ‘You wouldn’t keep anything from me, would you?’ I whispered.

  The sun streamed through the open window, the light scintillating on her perky breasts. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like a secret.’

  She laughed. ‘Everyone has secrets, Marco. Even you.’

  SOFIA

  Sofia Gatti’s beauty belied her intelligence. At school, her model looks made her stand out but she preferred sports and books to girly things, the outdoors and reading to shopping centres. Girls were jealous of her, so she didn’t make friends easily, which didn’t bother her because she preferred the company of men anyway.

  She left home at sixteen after signing with a top modelling agency. She was based in Los Angeles but she travelled the globe doing catwalk shows and magazine spreads. Rich men pampered her with gifts and two had even proposed. But being the child of divorced parents, she didn’t believe in marriage or monogamy. She was happy to have men come in and out of her life. There had even been some women. Sex to her was a necessity as vital as food and water. She didn’t care much for the strings that came along with it. She valued her independence, her uncomplicated life and not ever having the burden of responsibility that came with relationships.

  She liked her affairs with married men the best because they could never sleep over, they couldn’t commit, their time together was passionate and brief. They wined and dined her, showered her with lavish presents and then went home to their wives and children. Sofia might have been many things but she never thought of herself as cruel. Yet, she knew her affairs could break apart a marriage. She justified her actions by telling herself that what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you; so as long as their wives were in the dark, she wasn’t doing anyone harm.

  Marco Moretti was more than fifteen years older than her but he had retained his looks and a strong physique. In fact, he was one of those men who suited his age. There was something intriguing about him; she couldn’t read him the way she could so easily read other men.

  She’d first met him while studying, after she quit full-time modelling, and he later took her on as part of his team working on the excavation of Vincivoli Castle. The affair had begun innocently. She spent long hours at the dig site with him and his wife Sarah. On one of the particularly humid days, he had invited her to join him for a swim at Le Pavoniere pool in Cascine Park. He came to dry off at her apartment not long after. Marco was different from the other men she had been with. He was highly intelligent in a way that she found deeply attractive. He was so passionate about his work that she sometimes had to fight to win his attention. She liked that.

  With her previous affairs with married men, she had never met their wives or children – not knowing anything about them lessened her guilt. But Sofia knew Marco’s wife well, and she was fond of Emily and Daniel. Emily often came on weekends to the dig site and she seemed to look up to Sofia. Emily loved hearing stories about Sofia’s glamorous life when she was a model.

  So, when she heard that Emily was missing, it shook Sofia to her core. Marco had a secret phone that he used only to communicate with her, and she had immediately called him, hoping it was a case of mistaken identity and Emily was fine. He’d been away at conference in Naples and he hadn’t answered, so all she could do was follow the media reports with a growing fear that Emily had been murdered.

  Yesterday, Sofia had finally heard from Marco. He didn’t speak long to her over the phone but he had begged her to come to Lake Como to see him. She had agreed and now, after he had left her hotel room, she was still shaken about Emily’s disappearance. The poor girl was being held for ransom, with her captors demanding the San Gennaro necklace in exchange for her release. But the necklace was gone. Stolen. How would they ever get it back?

  Sofia was lying in a warm bath with copper taps in her suite, staring out at the lake through a tinted square window. The lake seemed turquoise and still, mirroring reflections of the villages across the water. In the distance she could see the pastel green dome of Como Cathedral. She was trying to take in the serene view but instead she was tormented by thoughts of what poor Emily might be enduring. She kept wishing there was something she could do to help.

  She got out of the bath and dried off, and nearly tripped over the mess of sheets still on the floor, along with her scattered clothing. She lifted the sheets up and, as she did, saw Marco’s mobile phone, the secret one he used to contact her. Marco had left in a hurry after Sarah called to see what was taking him so long at ‘the doctor’ and he mustn’t have realised that he left it behind. How would he reach her now? He wouldn’t ever call her from his normal phone in case Sarah caught him out, and Sofia knew to never contact him on it.

  She picked up his phone and as she did, she noticed he had five missed calls and a message from an unidentified number. She found it strange given that he had told her he only used the phone to communicate with her. She wasn’t the type to sniff around – she didn’t care if the men she was with had other women, usually because she knew they did – their wives; she was the other woman – but intrigue got the better of her and she found herself navigating to his phone messages. She wanted to see who seemed so desperate to get in touch with him. Maybe she wasn’t his only mistress …

  She didn’t think she’d find anything juicy, given that she was his secret and men so rarely had more than one. So, what harm could a sneak peek do?

  She opened the unread message and nearly dropped the phone, which suddenly felt cold and heavy, like a grenade in her hand. Her heart started to pound in her chest as she read the message again, and then again, to be sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her. She couldn’t believe what she was reading. Contrary to what she had assumed, Marco was hiding something, and it was far greater than anything she could ever have imagined.

  EMILY

  When Emily woke up, she was hot and flushed in the claustrophobic room. She lay on her bed and looked up at the triangular-shaped roof, and pictured the air getting trapped beneath the wooden beams, hovering above like a dark cloud. The room was lit only by the bedside lamps and a dim ceiling light.

  She hadn’t seen the man since the day before and she wondered if he was going to bring her food. He had brought her a pizza last night without saying a word.

  To pass the time, she’d showered quickly, and then reluctantly changed into some of the new clothes in the drawers. Wearing them made her feel like a doll being dressed up – they didn’t belong to her. They were uncomfortable even though they were her size and fitted as they should.

  She turned on the television, flicking through the channels, wondering if her disappearance had made the news. The first story was about a heatwave forecast to hit southern Italy and last for three days. While most people hated heatwaves, Emily and her friends loved the unforgiving heat. They would spend the days at the beach and lather themselves in coconut oil with no sun protection. They would squeeze lemon on each other’s hair to create highlights and they would sip crushed ice and cola. On those scorching days, they would stay outdoors, in the sun till it went down at 9 pm. She imagined her friends skipping school to go to the beach.
Amando would be there, his body looking fit and his skin tanned. He’d probably show off his soccer skills and count how long he could keep the ball in the air, bouncing off his feet, knees and head. Her friends would croon for him. They probably had no idea that she was missing, that while they were living their normal teenage lives, she was locked in dark room, praying she wouldn’t die.

  Emily began to cry, but then she froze as the next news story began to play. A young reporter stood outside the villa in Lake Como. Her villa. ‘Emily Moretti, a sixteen-year-old girl, is missing and believed to have been abducted.’

  Emily exhaled with a sense of relief. They knew she was missing. People were looking for her. Maybe this nightmare would be over soon and she would be freed.

  The reporter continued her piece to camera. ‘In a shocking turn of events, it is alleged that the abductors may be holding Signorina Moretti in exchange for a valuable antiquity that was uncovered by her father, Italian TV personality and archaeologist Marco Moretti, only to be stolen hours later.’

  Suddenly Emily was staring at footage of her father. He too stood outside the villa, holding a microphone. ‘Our beloved daughter Emily is missing. Without her, it feels like our heart is missing.’

  She felt a pang in her chest seeing her father so distraught. ‘We love and adore her. If it’s the missing San Gennaro necklace her abductors want in exchange for her life, we’ll do whatever it takes to find it. We desperately want our daughter safely returned to us. She doesn’t deserve this,’ he said, his eyes pleading.

  They cut to the selfie Emily had taken by the fountain in the piazza. ‘Police have urged anyone who recognises the man in this photo to come forward.’