I scowl at the mess I’ve made, trying to figure out what to do next. I can only hope that Dad was able to thwart whatever plan Sofia had. Making a fool of me in my home is bad enough. If she discovered something in my father’s study, things could get a lot worse.
CHAPTER 26
SOFIA
Ididn’t sleep at all last night. When I arrived home, I was still shaking. I haven’t even changed my clothes or taken a shower. I simply sat down on the couch and put my chin in my hands.
My thoughts are a jumble. I can sense disappointment with myself and fear for the future. But beyond that, my mind is a void. As I stare at the far wall, sunlight creeps into the room. It starts out soft and gray, then grows to embody more colors. By the time I move again, it’s shining brightly through the windows, illuminating every corner of my tiny apartment.
My throat is dry, and I think I should get something to drink. But the thought of getting up from my perch and walking all of five steps to the kitchen fills me with dread. I’m alive now, and I’m afraid that if I move, things will change.
I’m not sure why Corello allowed me to leave. Scratch that, I know why. It was his concern for Frankie’s feelings that got the better of him. If not for my relationship with Frankie Corello, I might be lying in a shallow grave.
I keep expecting to hear a knock on my door. Or rather, I keep expecting the door to burst open without a knock. I’m sure Corello will have me killed just like he did with my brother. It’s only a matter of time.
In the face of certain death, thirst doesn’t seem that important. I continue staring straight ahead until my thighs grow weary of their same position and I’m forced to move. Killing two birds with one stone, I stand up. Moving to the kitchen, I feel like a robot. I’m on autopilot, my brain engaged in something else entirely.
I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and twist it open. Taking a sip, I close it up again. Now I’m in the kitchen, but I’m no safer than I was in the living room. I think about texting Mr. Harlan, but I’m not sure what I would say. Also, I don’t want to drag anyone else into my personal hell. It’s better all around if I stay quiet. That way, even if Corello murders me, at least I won’t put anyone else in danger.
My thoughts drift back to Danny. I’m not sure why, but when I’m faced with my mortality, I find a kinship with the deceased that wasn’t there yesterday. I wonder what Danny thought of in his last moments, and if I’m experiencing the same thing.
He was so full of life. I can remember his smile, and the way he always seemed to have the upper hand. He was a little older than me, although I’ve almost caught up with him now. It feels strange to know that he’s never going to get any older. Even now, even as I’m confronting my last few moments on earth, I’m struck by the irony of the situation. I’m almost as old as Danny was when he was killed, and neither of us is going to live to see thirty.
Danny left for college when I was still in high school. I remember how strange it was to see his room empty. The whole house felt a lot quieter after he was gone, and I loved those precious few weeks he was allowed to come home.
He was the reason I got into writing in the first place. He was a journalism major, and he always made it sound so fascinating. He let me read one of his pieces that was published in a major magazine. I couldn’t believe how much work went into it. He seemed to have all the answers and was able to explain the subject from a host of different angles.
It was about birdwatching and how the hobby changed over the years. Apparently, there were different names for different birds, and different groups of people who became interested. I learned more than I could ever want to know about something I’d never even given a second thought to previously. His skill and passion, as demonstrated by the article, made me feel both proud and humble. I thought I could never write anything even close to that good. He wasn’t even a birdwatcher; he just threw himself into the field so that he could write about it knowledgeably. But it wasn’t the bird-watching article that got him killed.
I’ve been over and over the last few weeks of Danny’s life. But I don’t often stop to remember the good times that preceded them. Danny loved sports. He played both basketball and football in high school, though he didn’t pursue them in college. Whenever he was home, there was a game on. I remember him taking his dinner into the living room at my parents’ house to watch football, while simultaneously eating and working on his newest project.
He was a daredevil. One time he told me about a hike he was on with some friends that nearly ended in tragedy. They got caught up on a mountain as the sun was going down and had no wayto contact their ride. Their phones were out of range, and they couldn’t get a signal. It started to rain and got very cold.
Luck was with them that day because they managed to find an old logging road that took them to a small restaurant. The way Danny told the story, there was only one cook and an old woman manning the cash register. They were able to make a call and get a ride to their vehicles, which were all parked out near a trailhead about five miles down the mountain.
Danny swore me to secrecy, saying that if our parents found out how close he came to death by exposure, they would never let him go hiking again. That was only one adventure. There were thousands more that he didn’t even share with me. I know that because as soon as he completed his bachelor’s degree, he began to travel all over the world.
He got a job with a fancy magazine, and they sent him to India, Nepal, Japan, and the Netherlands to gather information. A couple of times, he gave me links so I could read what he’d been up to. They were never on the same topic twice. He wrote pieces about train stations and festivals, about business relationships that went bad, and special meals prepared by monks. He always tempted me to follow in his footsteps because he made the life of an investigative journalist seem enchanting. I always wanted to be a writer of fictional stories but switched over to journalism hoping to one day find the truth about his death.
About a week before his death, he told me that he was working on a new project at the same paper where I work now. He told me it was going to be his most important work yet.
“Forget about the exposéI did on the candy company, this one is big,” he said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a secret,” he told me. “You’ll have to wait and read about it with everyone else.”
I drove to his place a few days later to wish him a happy birthday. I planned to pump him for more information about his story, but I never got the chance.
Flashes of Danny’s face fill my mind’s eye. He looked shocked and horrified. All this time has passed, and I still remember him exactly as I found him. The gun on the floor next to the couch, his head turned toward the coffee table. His shoes were off, but he was wearing everything else as if he’d just been outside. Though the police insist he killed himself, I know that’s not the case.
To begin with, why would he get all dressed up just to sit on the couch and end his own life? Why not just do it in his pajamas or his workout clothes? On the day of his death, he wore blue jeans and a button-down shirt—things people only wear when they expect to run into other people.
My next clue was the gun itself. The police claim Danny was the one who fired it. They pointed to gunshot residue on his fingers as proof of that fact. However, I have since learned that gunshot residue can be transferred from one person to another simply by clasping hands. So, in my mind, that means the killer was aware of police procedure and staged the scene.
I’m not even sure where Danny got the gun. The police tracked down the owner of a store where they said Danny purchased the gun legally. But the brother I knew didn’t even like weapons. On all his adventures and in all the stories, he wrote, he never once expressed interest in firearms. If he actually bought the gun, hemust have had a good reason. Otherwise, I assume that the gun purchase was something else that was set up by the killer. Maybe they forged his signature or found someone who looked enough like Danny to fool the store clerk.
There are a lot of questions, but the one thing that feels certain is that the Corellos had a hand in my brother’s death. And I’m going to be next. I’m as sure of that as I am of my own breath. My hours are numbered. Any moment now, the door will burst open and I’ll be showered with a hail of bullets. Or more likely, Corello and his henchmen will take me to a quiet, remote place where they can finish me off in peace.
