Without another word from either of them, she turned away from him and stepped through the doorway. She didn’t look back. He watched her get into her car, start it up, and back out of his driveway. Then she drove away, taking his heart with her.
“I have a bone to pick with fate.”
William Shakespeare
So, nothing,” Cat said, looking at Lucia as they sat at the kitchen table a couple of hours later, sipping on hot chocolate and making do with a lunch of the leftover muffins from that morning’s breakfast setup.
“Not unless Marcella found out anything. Antonio’s just as clueless as we are. He’s had more interaction with Damien than I have, but he said their conversations are usually about sports, or current events, or scotch. Apparently, they discovered they both have a specific fondness for what Antonio calls Speyside single malts from Dufftown. In particular, Glenfiddich and The Balvenie’s. I admit I’m not up on my whiskeys, but he talks about them the way Marcella talks about the distinctiveness of a Bonavera wine, because of its terroir. So, they must have some distinguishing qualities that are characteristic of that region. Since I’m not a fan of scotch, and my attention span lasts about half of a second if the subject comes up, he enjoys talking to someone who shares his appreciation for it instead of yawning through the conversation.”
“Hey,” Marcella said, coming into the room. “Sorry I got held up. There were some people next door, on Jordan’s property. They looked like they might be surveyors or something. I pulled over to the side of the road to see if I could figure out what they were doing, but I’m not sure.”
“Maybe he’s decided to finally unload it,” Cat said. Their neighbor had inherited the house and property from his uncle, but it had been sitting empty ever since. Jordan’s aunt and uncle had taken him in when his mom died, but Jordan’s uncle was hard on him. A couple of years after he’d moved there, his aunt passed away, and Jordan’s relationship with his uncle deteriorated.
Jordan never said, but their mother thought his uncle went too far in his discipline, especially if the man had been drinking. Jordan would show up at their house with scrapes and bruises, saying he’d tripped over something or telling some other story. Their mom would always insist he come in, let her take a look, give him something to drink, or invite him to dinner. Lucia knew him better than the rest of them because they’d been in the same grade in school, but if her sister knew anything, she never said. Maybe Jordan had wanted it that way.
“He’s not selling,” Lucia said. “I got an email from him a few weeks ago. He said he’d heard about Serendipity. He’s thinking of leveling the existing house and rebuilding. He wanted to know if we were happy with our architect and builder. It sounded like he may be planning to move back to the area.”
Marcella gnawed her bottom lip. “Jordan’s moving back?” she asked, looking somewhat dazed, and, Cat thought, as if she’d suddenly forgotten how to breathe.
“Are you okay, Cel?” Lucia asked.
“I’m fine,” Marcella said, sounding a touch defensive.
Cat and Lucia exchanged glances.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone Jordan contacted you?” Marcella asked.
“I guess I…didn’t realize it was…breaking news, and it slipped my mind.” Lucia looked at Cat again and widened her eyes as if to ask, Am I missing something here?
“I didn’t say it was breaking news. I just think you would have mentioned it. The property’s been empty for years, and…I don’t know. Forget it. I’m sorry if it sounded like I was jumping on you.” Cel brushed her hand through the air as if to dispel the matter.
“We’re supposed to be talking about Damien’s pictures,” she said. “Did either of you find out anything?”
“No,” Cat told her. “We were hoping you might have.”
Marcella shook her head. “I asked El if she’d seen any of the pictures Damien took. She said he gave her a couple of shots of the winery that he thought she could use in her marketing, but that was it.”
“You don’t think she suspected anything?” Lucia asked.
“No. She showed me the ones he’d given her and said she couldn’t wait to see the holiday piece when it comes out next year. I think she just thought I was curious, same as she is.”
“I don’t know how we’re supposed to find out why he took all those shots of Liam without asking him,” Caterina said. She wasn’t too happy with Liam right now for jumping to a false assumption and holding it against her instead of asking her what the pills she had in her purse were. He should trust her enough to believe in her. But she loved him. And she loved Eliana. And she didn’t want to see either of them get hurt if Damien’s intentions for taking the shots didn’t turn out to be innocent.
“I don’t see any other way,” Lucia said. “I think we need to talk to Damien.”
The kitchen door slapped shut, and the lights blinked off and on.
“And I think Rosa’s trying to tell us something,” Marcella said.
Cat frowned. “What would Rosa know about it?”
“I don’t know,” Lucia said, tapping the envelope with the questionable photos that lay on the table in front of them, “but this envelope was on that shelf without anyone seeing it since Damien checked out around two months ago. And it just happened to fall off and hit me on the head when I was restocking the closet? I don’t think it was an accident, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Rosa is responsible for it making its way out of his duffel bag, or wherever he had it, to begin with.”
“Did you have something to do with those pictures, Aunt Rosa?” Marcella asked, looking around the room.
Rosa did her light trick, making them blink off and on twice.
Lucia sighed. “At least we’ve confirmed that. But how are we supposed to figure out why she wanted us to find them if all we have to go on is flickering lights?”
Cat didn’t want her suspicion to be right. She didn’t want to believe that Damien was involved in something that might hurt Liam. Had he taken other pictures that had already made it into the hands of Riley’s grandparents? More damaging ones?
She bit her lip. She had no positive proof that the pictures had anything to do with that. He could have taken them for some other reason, but based on what Liam had told her, it was difficult not to be suspicious.
“Aunt Rosa,” Cat said, closing her eyes a moment and trying to convince herself they weren’t being ridiculous for trying to get answers from a ghost. “Do you know if Damien took the pictures with Liam in them for some reason not related to the photojournalist piece he said he was doing?”
They waited but nothing happened. Lucia and Marcella looked at Cat. She held her hand up to ward off their questions a moment.
“Do the pictures have anything to do with Riley?”
When they got no sign, Caterina felt her frustration grow. As much as she’d hoped to be wrong, it looked increasingly like her suspicion that Damien was somehow connected to Sylvie’s family, and was trying to get them something incriminating to use against Liam, was correct.
“Okay, how about another question? Rosa, do we need to be afraid of Damien?” she asked, the thought popping into her head out of nowhere.
They all waited. Nothing.
Cat groaned in frustration. “Rosa, are you even still here with us?”
The lights flicked on and off.
“Okay, we’ll take that as a yes.” She exhaled slowly. She looked at her sisters. “Let’s try something else,” she said. “Can you just let us know, is Eliana safe with him?”
Cat felt relieved when the lights blinked in response. She wasn’t sure what it meant that they were putting their faith in their dead aunt, but the woman did seem to know things.
“Another yes,” Marcella said, all of them watching the lights intently for inklings from beyond.
At this rate, Cat thought, it could take them weeks to try to figure out what Rosa wanted them to know. If their aunt knew what she was talking about, or flickering about, Dam
ien had taken those pictures. Caterina suspected for some purpose having to do with Riley, most likely to give to her grandparents. If their aunt was to be believed, they didn’t need to worry about Eliana’s safety with him but were still unsure if he posed a danger to anyone else.
“I wish Rosa could just appear and tell us what she knows,” Cat said. “I guarantee Liam doesn’t know anything about this, and…I’m worried Rosa might be wrong about Damien. Liam told me something disturbing, something I think the pictures are related to.”
She hadn’t planned to tell anyone about Riley’s grandparents wanting to get custody. She didn’t know if Liam would want her to. But these were her sisters. She could trust them. And they’d stumbled upon an envelope with a bunch of pictures of Liam in various places that Damien could only have taken if he’d trailed him there. That didn’t sound harmless to her.
With Liam and Riley’s interests foremost in her thoughts, she told Lucia and Marcella what Liam told her, and of her suspicions. She didn’t tell them about the way they’d parted, or that Liam had said he was done with things. She’d interpreted things to mean them. But Liam loved her. He might be angry and confused right now, but he loved her. Her heart wasn’t giving up on them yet.
“Wow.” Marcella tapped her knuckles against her mouth. “Not a tough leap to make. What did Liam say when you told him about your suspicion?”
Cat propped her elbow on the table and leaned her head against her hand. “I didn’t,” she said with a sigh. “I didn’t want to risk him confronting Damien before we found out more. And with El—”
“If it turns out that Damien’s been deceiving all of us, there’s no way she won’t be hurt by this.” Lucia caught the corner of her lip in her teeth, worried over it. “You don’t think he’s been carrying on a relationship with her just to gain more access to Liam, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Cat said, although the same thought had crossed her mind. “Which is why we need to get to the bottom of this before it goes any further, and I can’t think of how we do that other than, as you said, we confront Damien.”
“Hey, Rosa,” Cat said, frustrated by all the contradictions. “Can you do anything besides play with the lights? Like tell us what we’re supposed to do with these pictures? Come on, Auntie, can you just give us a clue why you dropped them on Lucia’s head, and what the hell you want us to do now?”
The envelope that had been sitting on the kitchen table whipped toward Caterina and fell into her lap, stunning her and her sisters. None of them said anything for several seconds, just sat there as if they’d been frozen in place, with gaping mouths.
“Umm,” Marcella muttered, finally breaking the ice. “I’m guessing that means we’re supposed to confront Damien with those if we want more answers.”
They all raised their eyes to the ceiling, but nothing more happened. Apparently, their aunt thought she’d made herself clear.
Caterina leaned back and crossed her arms. “Okay. So, we go to the source.” She picked up her mug of chocolate and took a sip, then looked at her sisters and said, “I wonder if Rosa was such a drama queen when she was alive.”
“I HATE DOING this behind Eliana’s back,” Lucia said. “I know we agreed to talk to Damien first, but sneaking into her room while she’s in the shower, so we can get his number from her phone’s contact list? It just feels wrong.”
Marcella continued scrolling until she found it, then quickly wrote it down on a piece of paper and stuffed it into the pocket of her jeans. “I don’t like it either, but none of us had his number, and if we asked her for it, she’d want to know what was up.”
“Got it,” she said to Cat, who stood outside El’s bathroom, listening at the door. “Let’s get out of here before she catches us in the act.”
“She’s still in the shower,” Cat said, grinning. “I can hear her singing, into the hand-held, I’m guessing, and probably doing some naked version of Flashdance.”
“Thanks, I could have done without that image,” Marcella quipped.
Lucia took Marcella’s wrist in hand. “Come on, let’s go find Antonio so he can make the call, and hope none of this comes back to haunt us.”
“Not the best choice of words in this family,” Cat said, following her sisters out of the room.
Antonio met them in the library a few minutes later. Marcella gave him the number and he placed the call, putting it on speaker so they could listen in.
“Hey, Damien, it’s Antonio. I’m thinking of trying out that new whiskey bar you were telling me about one night this week and thought I’d see if you’d have any interest in joining me. Barrels, was it?”
“That’s right,” Damien said. “I’ve been trying to talk a couple of my buddies into going but haven’t had much success. Most of them are beer drinkers who probably wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. So yeah, I’d be interested. I can’t do Monday or Tuesday, but I’ve got Wednesday evening open, if that works for you.”
“Let me check with the boss,” Antonio said. He held the phone behind his back. Caterina and her sisters watched him expectantly. “Wednesday okay?” he questioned in a whisper.
They all seemed to slump their shoulders in unison but gave a round of nods. Cat knew her sisters were just as anxious to get some answers, but they wanted to do it face-to-face, so they’d have to wait.
“Hey Lucia,” Antonio said, raising his voice as if Luch was across the room. “Damien and I are thinking of meeting up Wednesday evening at a scotch bar he told me about. Does that conflict with anything I don’t know about, love?”
Luch rolled her eyes but played along. “No, I haven’t committed us to anything, sweetheart.” She smiled at him. “Go ahead. It’ll be nice for you to have a night out with the boys.”
Antonio grinned, his eyes fixed on his soon-to-be wife. They were so in love it was palpable, Cat thought. She’d imagined she could have something similar with Liam. But whether he came around or not, she’d do whatever she could to reduce the chance that Riley’s grandparents got ahold of anything to try and trump up their case. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but pictures could be manipulated to tell whatever story the photographer wanted to show. And unfortunately, as a photojournalist, Damien could probably portray things to appear any way he wanted them to.
“Sounds good,” Antonio told Damien, drawing Cat from her musings. “Say, Wednesday around six-thirty.”
After a few more exchanges, Antonio ended the call. “Well, that’s done,” he said. “Have any of you thought about what you’re going to say to him?”
“We haven’t gotten that far,” Lucia said, “but I’m guessing when he walks into Barrels and sees all four of us waiting for him, without Eliana, he’s probably going to wonder if we had you set him up, so we could give him the third-degree about his intentions.”
“I know it’s not looking good, but I really hope he has a good explanation for taking the pictures, and that they don’t have anything to do with Liam’s in-laws,” Marcella said. “I haven’t had a lot of interaction with him, but from what I have, I like Damien. He seems to treat El well, and she’s gaga over him.”
Lucia sighed. “I feel the same. And if he’s not crazy about her, too, then he’s a damn good actor. Or maybe he started out with one intention, but then fell in love with her.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait until Wednesday to find out.” Caterina stretched her neck to the side and felt the pull. On top of worrying about the pictures, she felt completely disconnected from Liam. Was he still angry with her because of a false assumption? Had she been right to leave the ball in his court, and hope he loved her enough to seek the truth?
She didn’t have answers for anything right now. Without answers she had no control over what would happen next. No control. No direction. And everything headed for a possible head-on crash with Liam.
“I’m going to open a bottle of viognier,” Marcella said. “Anyone else in need of a drink?”
“We’re o
pening a bottle?” Eliana asked, startling them all with her unexpected presence. She crossed the reception lobby and came into the library. “Count me in. Any occasion?”
They all stared at her, like a herd of deer suddenly caught in a spotlight.
“No, but since we’re all here, it sounded like a good idea,” Marcella said, regaining her wits first.
“A great idea,” Eliana agreed. “I’ll grab some glasses from the solarium.” She gave smiles all around and said dreamily, “Yes, a great idea and the perfect way to wrap up a great weekend.”
Cat watched her go off to get the glasses. She recognized the look she’d seen in her sister’s eyes, and it only made what they were planning to do that much harder. Of all the men she’d dated, why’d Eliana pick this one to fall in love with?
LIAM RAKED A hand through his hair, pushed it off his forehead. It flopped back down again, almost to his eyes. He needed a cut, a low priority he usually put off until it got too long and started bugging him, as it did now.
He finished building the frame for the soaking tub that would be installed in one of the guest suites. Half of the rooms would have tubs, and this was the last one that needed a frame before they could be installed and plumbed. Then the wallboard could go up.
The tubs, and most of the sink vanities, were sitting in what would be the restaurant’s dining room. Lucia had sourced antique cabinets, no two alike, to be repurposed as sink vanities. Every vanity would have a quartz or marble top, all of which would have to be measured on-site and custom made, because each one would be unique to that guest bath.
He’d let the stone people worry about that. All he had to do was install the bases once the wallboard went up. He had to give it to the Bonaveras, nothing would be cookie-cutter about Serendipity. When word began to spread, and with the right marketing, it would become a popular destination, he’d bet every nail and screw they’d put into it.
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