by Fiona Grace
When they reached the sign for the lake, she instructed him to pull off on the side of the road and then unclipped her seatbelt. As she opened the door, he said, “Do you know where you’re going?”
“No,” she said, scanning the area. A long line of blue, which must’ve been the lake, stretched in the distance, occasionally visible beyond the trees. “Whoever called was not very specific. I guess I’ll just walk around.”
He scrambled to pull off his seatbelt and follow after her. “How do you know it’s not just a crank? Sounds like a crank.”
“I don’t. But I’m going to check it out. Just in case.”
The lake was set back far from the road, down a fairly steep incline through a forest. Audrey took the path, sliding in her sneakers on the loose dirt. A couple of times, she had to reach out to steady herself, and the only thing there to grab ahold of was Mason’s ridiculously hard chest. Every time she did so, she blushed a little more, until he finally took her elbow and helped her down, letting out a chuckle. “Sure, you can take care of yourself.”
She snatched her arm away. “I’m fine,” she snapped. The pathway was evening out anyway, putting her on more solid ground.
A five-minute walk down a narrow, tree-lined grove, and they emptied out onto a rocky beach. She held a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun as she scanned the place. There were a few houses, spaced far apart among the trees, beyond a wooden fence. The sand was smooth, as if no one had been there in a while, and as far as she could see in both directions, deserted. “Wow. I didn’t realize it was so big.”
“So you’re just gonna walk around this lake, looking for an injured dog?”
That had been her plan. But now she realized even just walking the perimeter of the lake might take her until well after dusk. She heaved a breath and started walking. “What else can I do? I have to try.”
She moved purposefully through the sand to the edge of the lake. The water was mirror-calm, with small waves lapping at the stony shore. The sun from a cloudless sky dappled thousands of diamonds on the surface. It really was beautiful. In America, this place would’ve been swamped with beachgoers, soaking up the sun on this perfect day. But this area of Sicily was empty and desolate.
Eventually, she came to a place where she noticed footprints in the sand. Many footprints. Though no one was around at this hour, it appeared to be a popular spot.
Not caring if Mason was following, she left the wide expanse of beach and walked beyond a rock ledge that had been carved out by the lake. It was about chest-high, effectively sealing her away from view of anyone on the beach. As she went around a bend, she saw a large creature racing toward her. In the distance, it looked like a small horse.
But as it got closer, she realized it was a giant gray mastiff.
The only thing was, it didn’t look injured at all.
Barking excitedly, it jumped up on her, the force of the collision nearly toppling her to the ground. She grabbed ahold of its front legs before it could knock her over, and its massive body towered over her. It moved its muzzle toward her to lick her face. “Oh!” she laughed, checking for a collar. “Okay, cutie! I know you’re excited.”
No collar. So he was a stray? She looked up the beach for the owner, but the white sands stretched into the distance, completely empty.
Mason caught up with her. “What is th—” He let out a groan as the animal started to attack him with kisses, too. He shoved it off of him. “Get. Off. Geesh. What the hell is that? A mutant? That damn thing ain’t goin’ in my car. Ain’t even gonna fit in there.”
Without warning, it let out a sharp bark and bounded back in the direction it came from. When it got a few steps away, it stopped and turned, waiting for them.
“He doesn’t have a collar. I think he wants us to follow him,” Audrey said. “Don’t you want us to follow you, boy?”
“Why are you talking to it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s your pride and freaking joy. It’s a horse that nearly maimed you.”
“I always—”
He wiped his hand on his jeans. “Holy—what’s wrong with it? That thing is like a drool machine.”
She nudged his shoulder. “Mason. Focus. The dog’s trying to tell us something.”
“Not goin’ in my car, you hear?”
She smacked him. “Come on. He might lead us to the injured dog.”
She broke into a run, with Mason on her heels. That didn’t last long. Audrey never had been one for exercise, so he quickly overtook her and widened the lead as she panted, getting a stabbing stitch in her side. Meanwhile, Mason strode ahead like he’d been born running ultramarathons. After they rounded a bend and came to another beach, she called out, breathless, “Wait. Hold on.”
He turned, hardly out of breath, as she nearly collapsed. She doubled over, sucking the air into her lungs. Holding out a finger, she wheezed, “One second. I’m dying.”
Mason eyed her pitifully. “You’re serious? You should go running with that girl… what’s her name? The one across the street from you. The hot girl.”
“I’d rather boil my head in a lobster pot, thanks,” she muttered.
He shrugged. “Just sayin’. Could do you some good.”
“The vapid conversation alone would kill me.”
The dog had stopped, too, on the other side of the beach, and was now looking back at them, barking and pounding the sand with its massive paws, urging them forward.
Lungs still on fire, she broke into a run, but within a few paces, Mason quickly sprang ahead of her. The dog didn’t go any farther, though. He stayed at the edge of the beach, and when she got close enough, she noticed a large black heap at his feet.
The injured dog, likely.
She sped up just as Mason came to an abrupt halt, so fast that she nearly slammed into his back.
“What—” she began, but the rest of the words died in her throat as she followed his line of sight to the injured animal.
Because it wasn’t an injured dog lying in the sand at all.
It was a person. A woman, lying face-down on the sand. From the position she was in, one might have thought she was only sunbathing, except everything else about her was all wrong. She was wearing a red jogging suit, the sleeve of the jacket torn, and one of her heels was missing. The visible part of her skin, just a cheek, really, half-hidden by her wild black hair, was a ghostly pale.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, as she caught sight of the red hair clip, hopelessly lost among her black, crazy curls. There was something else in her hair, right over her ear, something viscous, matted with sand. Blood. Audrey’s stomach lurched. “Is she …”
“I don’t know.” Mason crouched over her, pushed her hair aside, and felt her neck for a pulse. “Yeah. I think so. But you’re the doctor.”
Right, she was. But she made no movement to confirm his suspicion. There was a reason she’d gone into veterinary medicine and not human medicine… the cuteness of the animals made up for the unpleasantness of some things. Things like death. And she was staunchly against euthanasia because she hated the idea of any living being dying before its time.
“Wait… is that …”
A strong sense of déjà vu gripped Audrey, making her knees wobble. Before, she’d been gasping for air, but now she forgot how to breathe.
She knew this woman.
It was the councilwoman herself, Mimi Catalano.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Audrey sat on a rock at the edge of the lake, on the other side of the beach from the crime scene where a dozen members of la polizia gathered. Shivering, she wiped the rest of the tears from her eyes and stared out across the lake, lazily petting the mastiff, who huddled by her side.
Two.
She’d found two bodies in the two months she’d been in Mussomeli. Wasn’t that weird? She certainly hadn’t gotten desensitized to it… finding Mimi Catalano lying there wasn’t any less shocking than the first dead body she’
d found. She shuddered at the thought of the bloody wound, matted with hair and sand.
“Hey.”
She looked up to find Mason standing there, hands in his pockets. He’d been talking to the police, telling them everything they needed to know about the grisly discovery.
He lowered himself onto the rock next to her. “You okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet. The police want to talk to you. You ready?”
Right. They had to interview them separately, so they’d corroborate each other’s story. She nodded and slid off the rock. She knew this drill. It was only a matter of time before they cornered her to get her side of it. “Yeah. Where?”
He surveyed the group of officers and pointed to a man in a blazer and khakis, who was crouching in the sand, head tilted awkwardly to the side as he picked up something in the sand with a pair of forceps. “That one.”
Audrey knew him. It was Detective DiNardo.
Thank goodness for small favors, she thought as she trudged through the sand toward him. DiNardo had led the investigation on the case of the foreman. Originally, he’d suspected Audrey, as had most of the town, but when the real killer was caught, he’d eaten crow. She’d looked after his kitten’s conjunctivitis, too, so he liked her. This wouldn’t take long.
“Hello, Detective,” she said when he looked up.
“Well, if it isn’t the American veterinarian,” he said with a smile. “Trouble seems to follow you around, doesn’t it?”
Audrey shrugged. “I wish it didn’t, but it appears so.”
“Mussomeli’s had five murders in the past five years,” he said, holding out a hand, fingers splayed. “And you’ve found two of them. What do you have to say about that?”
Audrey sighed. “I’d say that makes me really unlucky.” But I’m not entirely surprised.
DiNardo walked toward the line of scrubby bushes surrounding the beach, studying a small notebook in his hands. “So, Audrey, your boyfriend says you two found the body while you were walking this beach? At what time was this?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she quickly corrected. Wait, did Mason say that he was? “And we weren’t going on a walk for exercise. But yes, we did. At around twelve-thirty.”
“You said it wasn’t for exercise. What led you out this way?”
“I got a call. An anonymous one. From someone… here.” She fished her phone out of her pocket and navigated to the incoming calls. There was one marked UNKNOWN CALLER. She showed it to him. “The person asked for me and told me that there was an injured dog out here. So since I don’t have a car, I asked to borrow my neighbor’s, Mason’s, and he drove me. While we were looking for the dog, we found her, like that.”
“This call… did you recognize the voice?”
“No. It was hard to hear. But I think it was a man. His voice sounded deep. Kind of agitated.”
He nodded and wrote something down. “Did you know the victim?”
Audrey nodded. “I did. I—” She stopped when she realized I was in a big public confrontation with her at a council meeting last night probably would incriminate her. But then again, there were a hundred people at that meeting. It would likely come out. “I saw her last night. At a council meeting. She was proposing a tax on people who take in strays that would threaten my livelihood. So I was there to speak out against it.”
He looked up from his pad, eyes narrowed. “Is that so?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes. I get it, that gives me a motive. But I don’t have means.”
“Sure you do. Rock. Back of head. Anyone could’ve done it.”
“Yeah, but Mason was with me. He can tell you—”
“He told me that the victim shut down his renovation project and is causing him a lot of costly changes.”
She stared at him. “So, what are you suggesting? That the two of us conspired to kill her?”
Audrey almost laughed at the idea. She and Mason fought about everything. Yes, they may have been united in their hate for the woman, but that was where their agreement ended. He’d want to strangle Mimi, and she’d want to poison her. It’d never work. They’d be like the Laurel and Hardy of criminals.
But DiNardo didn’t laugh. He simply shrugged. “We don’t have an exact time of death either. It could’ve happened earlier in the day. Could you tell me your movements today?”
“My movements? I don’t know. I was at work until about ten. I saw a couple appointments. And then I went to an old factory on the south side of town to collect some strays I’d gotten a complaint about,” she said, thinking, Great, no one saw me get those strays. I don’t have an alibi. “After that, I was going to meet a friend, but then I got the call and I came right here.”
“I see.” He wrote this down.
Why, when he looked at her, did she get the feeling he doubted every word she was saying? “I don’t have a car, so it’d be pretty impossible for me to get here on my own,” she pointed out.
“Hmmm,” he said, looking up the beach. “The other officers say there’s a path from the city somewhere. I need to check it out.”
She looked up. From here, the city proper rose out into the hillside, not all that far away. At least, not far away enough to exonerate her from the suspect list. Of course there is.
“I didn’t know about that path.”
He wrote something on his pad. “Mmmhmm.”
“She was wearing a jogging suit. Maybe she was just here to get some exercise, and a random robber attacked her?” Audrey suggested.
“Exercising in the sand, wearing heels?” He shook his head. “From what I hear, she wore jogging outfits everywhere. Besides, she had a lot of cash on her. A diamond wedding ring. Nothing was taken.”
“Oh. Huh. So you think someone lured her out here, so they’d be alone, and killed her? For what?”
“We’ll figure it out.” He reached into his blazer and pulled out a plastic bag. In the plastic bag was a large, fist-sized hunk of rock, sharp on one end. When he held it up, Audrey noticed that one end of it was stained in brownish red. “This here appears to be the weapon. It’s one of the rocks from the beach, likely. And with something like this, a woman could’ve killed her, just as easily as a man.”
Her stomach somersaulted. “I’m sure. But the fact is that I didn’t do it.”
“All right,” the detective said. “I’m not saying you did. And no, you’re not under arrest. But still, for the investigation …”
“I know, I know,” Audrey said. “Don’t leave town. Been there, done that.”
That was okay. She had plenty to focus on at work, anyway. She peered down the beach at the mastiff, who was following Mason, though Mason seemed to want nothing to do with it. What had that dog seen? Maybe he’d seen the whole grisly event.
Deep in thought, she started to walk away, when DiNardo said, “And Audrey?”
She turned.
“Don’t …” He paused, as if he was trying to find the right words. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Me? Of course I won’t.”
But Audrey knew what he was referring to. She couldn’t help being curious where mysteries were concerned. The last idea she’d had, she wound up tracking down the culprit… but it could have been very different. It could have gotten her killed.
It wasn’t wise to take chances and push what little luck she had.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I’m a sucker,” Mason muttered under his breath as he drove Audrey back into town.
“What do you mean?” Audrey said, leaning over to turn down the terrible country-rock twang that had been blasting out of the speakers. Even with the windows down, Mason liked to listen to the music so loud, her eardrums throbbed along with the music.
He let out a bitter laugh but didn’t answer.
It was only when she leaned forward to play with the dial that she got a glimpse of him, because there was a giant, panting wall of dog sitting between them. And yes, he was drooli
ng mightily onto the center console, big globs of it, some of which splashed upon their bare elbows whenever the wind blew just so. But he was so darn cute. Calm, but excited to be in their company. A big, well-behaved sweetheart of an animal.
“What do you mean? Him?” She pointed at the mastiff, then rubbed his sad, soft jowls. She lowered her hand and he gave her his paw. “Stop. Look at that! He’s trained. He’s such a good little dog.”
“Little?”
“Whatever.” Audrey just didn’t get Mason. First, he had no heart. Second, how could he be fixated on such a small thing, like this wondrously beautiful animal, ruining his car, when there was an actual murderer running around? “I can’t believe that happened. Can you believe it? Mimi Catalano. Geesh. How can you be so calm about it?”
“I don’t know. Why aren’t you calmer? This is your second one. Thought you’d be a pro by now.”
“Ha ha. That one was an accident. This one wasn’t. She was targeted. Doesn’t that freak you out?”
“Not really. Besides, how do you know she was targeted?”
“Well, obviously, she had a lot of enemies. And she crossed the wrong one.” She sighed. Other than his own reflection, the guy wasn’t one to get excited about anything. “You’re weird.”
“No, think about it. I’d be more freaked if it was random. I moved halfway across the world for a certain way of life. And that way of life didn’t include muggings and killings and street crimes I could’ve found in downtown Charleston.” He shrugged. “You know, our property values’ll go way down if this becomes a habit.”
“You’re so weird. If it becomes a habit, I think we’ll have more to worry about than whether we can sell our homes,” she muttered. “We’ll probably be hiding in our closets, trying to evade this cunning serial murderer who has been evading police all around this small town. Anyway, that doesn’t happen outside of America. Serial killing is a distinctly American phenomenon.”