The gleaming roof of the mansion rises above the treeline as the big iron gates swing open, unblocking the path up the wide cobblestone driveway toward the majestic oceanfront property.I reach beside me, feeling for my purse, when my fingers brush over something else lying on the soft seat cushion. Glancing down, I find a small leather-bound book on top of a slim laptop. Adriano must have forgotten them when we switched cars.
Hesitantly, I pick up the book, turning it in my hands to examine the cover. It looks like a journal of some kind. Strange. I never would’ve envisioned my husband keeping a handwritten diary or a daily planner, considering how modern and tech-filled his corporate office is.
As I’m setting it back down where I found it, the car jolts and screeches to a sudden stop, and the book slips from my grasp.
“Crap.”
Up ahead, an angry bark erupts outside the car. It must be Taffy. Though he’s never acted that way when I returned home before. I reach for the fallen book, which landed face down on the floor of the car with its pages open. Hopefully, no dirt marred the inside. I lift it, turning it around to brush off the dust or whatnot that might’ve gotten on it.
Yup, I was right. It is a journal. The days of the week and dates are printed in big red font at the top outer corners. Neat and precise notes are jotted across the pages, brief entries in meticulous handwriting. Interesting. Even Adriano Ruffo’s penmanship is as buttoned-up as he outwardly is.
I’ve finished dusting off the surface when my eyes catch on the two numbers representing the dates. On the left, it reads: 18. The right corner is marked: 21. Seems like a page is missing. I force the two halves of the journal further apart, and sure enough, there’s a narrow, jagged strip along the gutter, as if someone tore out the page.
The commotion outside has reached new heights. Taffy’s barks have transformed into loud snarls, while Theo is yellingthrough a cracked-open window for someone to get the dog off the road.
All that hardly registers with me; my focus is completely on the journal in my hands. On the bold, classic-looking typeface. The red, printed number of a date a few months ago. On a high-quality paper that feels slightly thicker under my fingertips than a regular loose-leaf sheet. That looks remarkably like the premium, grid-lined pages I have admired on my way home after my evenings at the Annex. With the red dates in the corners, too. And the day of the week depicted underneath.Saturday.Always Saturday. The day I met with my silent guest. The pages that havealsobeen ripped out of the daily planner. The ones that contained notes to me.
It has to just be a weird coincidence. Ruffo’s clean, easily discernible cursive doesn’t look anything like the messy scrawl on those notes.
I flip through the journal, ignoring the entries penned in tidy handwriting, my eyes fixed only on the dates in the upper corners. Several weeks in a row, the weekend page is missing. My fingers tremble as I frantically leaf through the leather-bound book. Five missing Saturday pages. The next two are intact. The one after is gone.
The final spot with a missing page freezes me in place. It’snota Saturday. But rather the page before the day of my and Adriano’s wedding. The preceding page has a neatly written notation about a follow-up phone call with someone named Hutchinson in London, and the one after—the Saturday page—has a roughly doodled flower and the name of the cathedral where our ceremony took place. But none of those details are of interest to me. None of them is important right now. It’s the missing parts that are vital.
The absent pages, especially the last.
That Friday night, just as with all the other ripped-out dates, I met with my silent guest.
It can’t be.
It’s…crazy. I’m crazy for even thinking it.
Hastily, I leaf through the meticulously scribed journal entries of the past week and then the pages of the upcoming days and weeks until I reach the end of the book. The final sheets are simply lined, reserved for random notes. And they are filled with plenty of information.
Messy reminders.
Barely legible writing.
Chicken scratch.
Left-slanted and hardly readable. Where the Ms and Ns look practically identical. Where Os and As are nearly indistinguishable. Jagged. Sloppy. With almost angry-looking, long slashes across the Ts.
I know that handwriting.
Still, I refuse to accept it. This isn’t enough proof for the wild idea overwhelming my mind.
Not definitive.
Until I see the scribbled note at the very bottom of the page:
Teacup set of 6. Approx. 15 yrs old.
White, with iconic European landmarks.
Broken — Eiffel Tower.
“Did I sprout a second head or something?”
My statement is followed by the shrill scrape of a fork across a dinner plate as my wife loses grip on her utensils and her hand bumps the table. She quickly recovers and resumes eating, focusing on her cannelloni.
