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“What’s a hunter?” Nicole mutters as she leads us through to the lounge and disappears deeper into the house.
The five of us stand in the neat, carpeted room, waiting for Mr. De Luca to appear. In all the years I’ve known Nicole, this room has barely changed. There’s a huge bookcase covering one wall with leather-bound volumes of twentieth-century history, Roman history,The OdysseyandThe Iliad. On the rare occasions Mr. De Luca was home when I visited Nicole, he’d usually have his nose in a book. One wall of the lounge is covered in framed photographs. Nicole as a baby. Family holidays. Mr. and Mrs. De Luca’s wedding photos. Mr. De Luca’s high school graduation picture. I spot him in the second row, and just behind him and to the left is Dad. My belly swoops at the sight of him. There’s someone else familiar in the photo, seated in the front row. I didn’t realize Christian Galloway went to school with them both.
I lean down to take a closer look at Galloway just as someone says my name.
“What do you want, Chiara?”
I turn around, and Mr. De Luca is looking at me with a mixture of irritation and fear. He’s a thin, unassuming man with hunched shoulders. Nicole has his slender frame, but she has her mother’s bright eyes rather than her father’s shadowed ones.
“We just want to talk. Can we sit down?” I wait for him to offer me a seat, and when he doesn’t reply I ease myself down on the sofa. My legs are aching worse than ever.
Vinicius is gazing at him with intense suspicion and dislike. “You put on a wonderful show for me, De Luca. It’s not often I’m fooled.I didn’t know where else to turn. He told me I couldn’t go to the police.”
Mr. De Luca’s gaze darts around the room and he seems reluctant to leave the safety of the doorway.
“What happened the night you told the syndicate you were meeting the Black Orchid Killer?” I ask him.
Mr. De Luca starts to turn away. Lorenzo strides forward, grabs him by the shirt, and shoves him into a chair. “Answer her questions or I’ll start asking some of my own.”
He puts his arm up to protect his face as if expecting a beating. When he speaks his voice is shaking. “Please don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you.”
I wait patiently for him to get a grip, but I want to scream at him. He put his daughter in danger for my horrible father, and there’s no excuse for that.
“That night, nothing happened,” De Luca says, staring at the carpet. “I went to the meeting place, but I realized there was no point in me staying there. Mayor Romano didn’t need me anymore.”
“You didn’t realize Nicole was in your car? She could have been killed because of you,” I say.
He shakes his head, his expression mortified. “I swear I didn’t know. I didn’t find out until later.”
I gaze at him with a mixture of pity and anger. I recognize the signs of someone who’s been used by my father. Bewildered. Frightened. Alone. Where’s Dad now that Mr. De Luca is being confronted by the men he was persuaded to entrap?
“The killer was there that night. Did you see or hear anything that might tell you who he is?”
Mr. De Luca shakes his head. “I was only there for a few minutes and then I left. I leftfast. I made a horrible mistake when I went along with your father. I regret it every day.”
So he ran away and hid, leaving his wife and daughter to fend for themselves. He didn’t know that my men aren’t the sort of people to get their pound of flesh from their enemies’ families.
“You’re weak, Mr. De Luca,” I tell him. “But I didn’t realize you were such a coward.”
Vinicius takes a step toward him, and Mr. De Luca flings his arms up again, begging, almost screaming, “Don’t hurt me, please!”
“I want one thing before we go.” Vinicius holds out his hand. “Give me your phone. The one you were using while you and the mayor were planning your fun little ambush.”
Mr. De Luca shakes his head. “I got rid of it months ago. It fell into the bath and it never worked after that.”
Vinicius drops his hand with a sigh. The killer knew about their plan somehow. Thane could have scoured that phone for spyware that might have told us who the killer is. Another lead that’s turned into a dead end.
I get to my feet. “You’re a terrible husband and you’re not much better as a father. You put your work first. You put yourself first. Why don’t you spend some time thinking about how you can make things up to your wife and daughter?”
De Luca puts his head in his hands and doesn’t reply.
Out in the hall, Nicole embraces me. “You didn’t find out anything you needed, did you? I’m sorry.”
I give her a hug. “It’s all right. It was worth a try. Are you going to be all right here with him? If you and your mom want him out, we can make sure he leaves.”
Nicole gazes into the lounge where Mr. De Luca is still slumped on the sofa, his head in his hands.
Her expression fills with pity. “Dad’s not very good at saying no to people like your father. He’s let us down, but he’s still my father.” She turns to me with a smile. “Just look at you, a baby on the way. Are you having a baby shower? I’d love to—”
