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Nicole, I mouth, and indicate the room next door with my head, and he nods, closing his eyes again.
Someone needs to have a private word with Chiara’s former best friend, and I’m the best man to do it. The others are too short-tempered and intimidating to get one word out of the girl.
Lorenzo’s given me the key and I unlock the door and go inside. Nicole is beneath the blankets, sleeping the deep sleep of the recently drugged. I watch her for a while, hands in my pockets, wondering what the best way is to handle this. Whatever I tell her and no matter what I do, she’s going to assume I’m dangerous.
I sit down on the mattress, hard enough to jostle her body. Nicole’s eyelashes flutter, and she mumbles before blinking and opening her eyes. Bleary, bewildered eyes. I swear that for a moment, she thinks I’m a hallucination.
I smile at her. “Hello.”
She sucks in a frightened breath and sits up, crawling back up the bed. “Where am I? Who are you? What do you want?”
“This is Lorenzo Scava’s compound, one of the most secure buildings in Coldlake. You’re safe here. I’m Vinicius Angeli, and I want to talk to you.”
Nicole stares at me and then at the closed door. “I don’t feel safe. I’m locked in here with you.”
I smile at her. “True. But I promise I mean you no harm.”
Nicole turns pale and looks like she wants to throw up. I can’t tell if it’s the drugs or if she’s terrified of me.
“Who asked you to pretend to be dead?”
She presses her face into her knees and moans. “I want to go home. I want my mom.”
Tough. I don’t doubt that she’s been through an ordeal, but she’s not leaving until I find out what the hell is going on. “Was it your father? Did he set a trap for us?” Her body shakes in fear and I sense I’m on the right track. I make my tone gentle. “Did you believe you were helping to save Chiara? I’m not going to hurt you or be angry with you about something you thought was the right thing for your friend.”
Nicole refuses to lift her head, and I know she doesn’t believe me.
I watch her thoughtfully with narrowed eyes. We could go around in circles like this for hours. “Let me start by telling you what we know, and then you can fill in the rest. How does that sound?”
“Where’s Chiara?”
“She’s asleep in the next room. She went through hell last night. You see, Nicole, people are always screwing with us. Chiara’s father. My associates. It’s so difficult to know who to trust and believe.” For a moment I let my tone harden, and then smile again. “But between the two of us, I’m sure we can straighten out the truth from the lies. You and Chiara have been friends since you were children. Is that right?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “She was my best friend.”
“All right, then. So here’s what I know about you and your father, and you can tell me if I get anything wrong. When Chiara became engaged to Salvatore last year, your father told you that you couldn’t be her friend anymore. He didn’t want to be friends with the mayor either, did he? But in the past few months, I’m guessing that Mr. De Luca and Mayor Romano made up. Perhaps around the time of the mayor’s press conference when he claimed that we’d all kidnapped Chiara and there was a price on our heads?”
Nicole stifles a sob, and she nods again.
I thought as much. De Luca hasn’t got any reason to entrap us, but his dear old friend the mayor has plenty.
“How scared you must have been for Chiara. I’m guessing that the mayor came to your house and spoke with your father, and then they spoke to you. They asked if you would help them draw the Coldlake Syndicate into the open so they could save Chiara and bring her home. Am I right?”
Nicole lifts her head slowly, her eyes huge and shining. “How do you know that?”
I smile at her. “Just a lucky guess. I’m a lucky man, Nicole.”
“The mayor promised that he wouldn’t hurt any of you. He just said that he wanted Chiara back.”
Naïve fucking girl. What did she think was going to happen? That she and Chiara would go home and be best friends again, and the mayor would forget how much the syndicate had humiliated him?
Nicole must see the flash of anger in my eyes, as she flinches. “I just wanted to help Chiara. I wish I’d never posed for those horrible photos.”
I wince as I remember the photos supposedly showing Nicole’s dead and mutilated body. Not only were they graphic, but Nicole was posted in the Black Orchid Killer’s gory style. “How did the mayor know what the photos should look like?”
“Mayor Romano had some of the crime scene photos from…” She trails off with a shudder. “From the other murders. I was spattered with fake blood and just had to lie there, and then someone working for the mayor touched them up to make them look worse. The whole thing was horrible and I didn’t want to see the pictures.”
No, I imagine she didn’t. How grotesque, asking a young woman to fake being a murder victim.
