Chiara’s heels flashed as we passed the first floor apartment door where her brother, Dante, and his wife, Claire, lived. Past the second floor apartment where Chiara’s grandmother, Nonna, and another brother, Branwell, lived. Further upward to the third floor apartment where Chiara lived with her mother, Judith. Her third brother, Tennyson, resided away from them all on the family estate—Villa Maledetti—located in the Tuscan countryside north of Volterra.
Chiara flung open her apartment door. Notably, however, she did not slam it in my face. Slamming things was a typical Chiara reaction to vexation and exasperation—two more emotions I seemed to regularly elicit from her.
But today, Chiara opened the door and then stood politely to one side, motioning me across the threshold with a dramatic sweep of her arm.
Yes. I was definitely in hot water.
Have I mentioned that Chiara is Italian?
Granted her mother is American and Chiara had spent much of her childhood in the United States, but she had sidestepped that part of her heritage and run one hundred percent to the Italian side of the family.
Petite and short with dark eyes and hair, Chiara was a blur of constant motion. She spoke as much with her hands as her mouth. She loved her family and friends with every last molecule in her body and never missed a chance to involve herself in others’ affairs—characteristics which surely drove her employment as a research specialist and part-time private investigator.
Unfortunately, these same characteristics came with the side effect of making her somewhat obnoxious and controlling in romantic relationships.
I shot Chiara my brightest smile and walked past her into the apartment. The room opened immediately into a single expansive space that encompassed a kitchen, dining room and sitting area. A large, marble-topped island separated the kitchen from a dining table. Beyond the table, a sitting area of couches and tufted chairs flanked an enormous flat screen on the wall.
As usual, I sensed no change between the stairwell and the apartment. No smells, no difference in temperature. Nothing.
The lack of change unnerved me. After only three weeks in my current state, I struggled to adjust to being a ghost.
I missed physical sensation with a horrific ache. Taste, touch and smell were all denied me. Those seemed like small things—and perhaps taste and smell are not shattering things to lose—but touch?
The complete lack of physical touch was driving me mad. As human beings, we are meant to be touched, hugged, held. Floating in a world without any physical stimuli terrified me.
Would I ever adjust to the loss of sensation? And did I want to lose that last bit of humanity?
Chiara shut the door behind me before tossing her keys onto the marble counter top. She moved around it while stepping out of her heels (reducing her height from average to pocket-sized) and collapsed onto an overstuffed couch, her long hair tumbling around her shoulders. Normally, her movements would be dramatic. But today, they were small. Instead of sprawling on the couch, she sat at the edge, shoulders hunched inward. Her body language clearly closed and resigned.
“This has to stop, Jack.” American twang infused her English. “You have to quit spying on me. It’s a terrible invasion of my privacy.”
Her voice was soft. No anger. Just hurt and tired.
Her tone spiked my anxiety. Chiara subdued was an aberration of nature.
Besides, how could she assumeIwas the only problem here? I crossed the room and sat down in a velvet-covered club chair opposite her.
“Youhaveheard the saying about the pot and the kettle and black, have you not?” I gestured toward the stairwell and her recent conversation with Gianni.
“Please don’t throw this back at me.” She sat upright with a huff, hands exploding around her as she talked.
Thatwas more the Chiara I knew.Whew.
“My looking at Gianni’s phone isn’t the same thing at all,” she continued.
I simply raised an eyebrow.
She glowered, dark eyebrows drawing down over her large brown eyes. It should have been unattractive, but I doubted any expression would render Chiara’s pixie-pretty face unattractive.
“By all means, explain the difference.” I reclined back in the chair and folded my arms across my chest, stretching my neck to the side. It was an instinctual move. It wasn’t as if I had neck muscles to get stiff, but I was desperate to release some of this fidgety restlessness.
“No.” She deflated again, rubbing a finger between her eyes. “You don’t get to play that game.”
“I’m not playing any game.”
“Yes, you are. You’re playing theChiara Is a Hypocritegame.”
She had a point.
