“So you trust them completely?”
“I trust no one completely. Not even slightly.” Except, perhaps, the man who must be waiting downstairs for me by now. “Goodbye,topolino.”
I turn to leave.
“When will I see you again?” he blurts out.
I turn back, take in his beauty again, drink it into my parched soul. “You’ll see me—” I break off. No sentimentality, I remind myself. “—when I decide you might be useful again.”
I shut the door behind me and lock it, and I hear my mother’s warning in my head.
Too soft, Alessandro. Too soft.
CHAPTER14
SANDRO
“Not that you’re normally a loudmouth,”Jacopo says, as he turns the car onto Franklin, “but you’ve been more silent than usual so far, Boss. Something on your mind?”
We’re on the way to Lina Lamond’s house in Jacopo’s ridiculous Pinto. After the fiasco with PacSyn, I decided that Jacopo—much as it pains me to admit it—was right. I shouldn’t be going anywhere without protection. And since he’s both the only person I can be sure didn’t kill my father, and the only person with doubts about Julian’s guilt, he’s it.
I’ve never liked having bodyguards. When my father was alive, the men assigned to me were little more than babysitters, reporting back to him on my movements as though I was still a child. At least Jacopo is competent, if too talkative.
“I didn’t bring you with me for small talk,” I tell him.
“I guess you didn’t.” He pulls up at the sidewalk and nods at a house across the road. “That’s the one. How are we playing this?”
“Let me do the talking. You’re just the muscle as far as she’s concerned, but watch her closely, understand?”
He pulls his hat down lower over his eyes as a car passes. “Yeah, I understand.”
We get out of the Pinto together and head across the road, both of us scanning the scene carefully without seeming to. As much as I hate Jacopo, we’ve slipped back into working together with ease. Except for that time he shot my lover through the head, Jacopo has always been good at his job. He is sharp-eyed and clear-minded, has almost a sixth sense for danger.
Though I’m sure some bit-part Hollywood actress will not prove to be a danger.
“She knows we’re coming?” he mutters as we approach a large wrought iron gate set into a brick wall. Beyond it, I can see the house—a ‘60s-style bungalow with rambling roses all over the front yard. Jacopo nods at a camera set into one of the pillars, and we both turn our faces away as we come into its range.
“Lombardo set it up. She knows.”
There’s an intercom set into the wall, and I hit the button. A breathless, “Yes?” comes out of it.
“We’re here to see Ms. Lamond, as arranged.”
There’s a buzzing noise, and Jacopo gives the gate a shove. It opens. No further instructions come from the intercom. With a shrug, I make anafter yougesture.
The yard is so full of climbing flowers and shrubbery that we’re forced to take our time walking up the path—a whole crew could be hidden among this greenery and we wouldn’t see them.
The door when we’re halfway there, and I catch a glimpse of scarlet feathers and silk, golden ringlets, and a tear-stained face. “Oh, my goodness,” says the same breathy, baby voice that came out of the intercom. “I’m so honored that you’re here.” She holds onto the door, half-hidden behind it, but both her hands are wrapped around it so that I can see her blood-red nails, too long for anyone but a lady of leisure.
Yes. She is exactly the type of woman my father enjoyed, another imitation of Caroline, his lost, dead love. Like her, Lina is golden haired, blue eyed, voluptuous… It’s all I can do not to wrap my hands around her throat.
“Ms. Lamond?” Jacopo says, when it becomes clear I’m not going to respond. He pushes past me, holding out a hand. “Johnny Jacopo. Please, call me Jack. And this is—”
“Well, ofcourseI know you, Sandro,” she says, her blue eyes wide as she takes Jacopo’s hand, but smiles at me. Those eyes are bloodshot and bagged, despite the heavy makeup. She’s wearing a sumptuous negligee and kitten-heel slippers with matching red feather detail. Her accent is southern, and not very good. Lombardo told me she was recently cast in a remake ofA Streetcar Named Desire, so perhaps that explains it. But just like Caroline Castellani, Lina was born in England, according to her IMDb entry. “Your daddy talked of nothingbutyou,” she goes on. “Why, you were his pride and joy.”
I feel a slow smile spread across my lips—or across the side that can still smile, anyway. She has given herself away, immediately, as a liar.
My father’s pride and joy is currently locked up in a cell underground.
