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“Theater. I performed in all the high school plays and musicals. I loved it so much that I went to Gonzaga as a theater arts major.”
“I thought you studied hotel management.”
“I did. I graduated with a degree in hotel management, but initially I wanted to be an actress.”
“Why?”
She took a deep slow breath. Her voice wasn’t entirely steady. “I wanted to be someone else.”
Vittorio stayed with her another half hour and then wordlessly he pulled away and left the bed. She lay on her side facing the wall listening to Vittorio dress.
He was leaving.
Leaving her.
She told herself she didn’t care. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to ignore the slide of fabric and the scrape of zipper. Then came a moment of quiet. She felt Vitt’s hesitation. Felt him standing over the bed, gazing down at her. She didn’t turn to him, or speak. She kept her eyes closed pretending to sleep.
Then he walked away and the bedroom door opened. She opened her eyes then, looked toward the door and the hallway. A ray of light fell across the bedroom floor and she glimpsed Vittorio’s hard, handsome profile and his shoulder before the door closed, shrouding the bedroom in darkness once again.
For long minutes she lay on her back, thinking but not thinking. Feeling but not feeling. Doing her best to close her own door on her inner turmoil.
She couldn’t let herself feel. Couldn’t analyze a single emotion. Couldn’t go inward because if she did, she’d fall apart.
Every time she was with Vitt it felt so right, so why did it have to be so wrong?
In Catania Vittorio met with the American private investigator at his office. It was nine o’clock and the office was closed, all lights off except for the executive suite that housed Vittorio’s office.
The detective, a former FBI agent, sat across the desk from Vitt, a notepad open on his lap, telling Vitt everything he’d discovered.
He’d discovered a great deal.
It required all of Vitt’s self-control to remain seated with his expression neutral while the detective revealed everything he’d discovered about Vittorio’s new wife.
April Holliday wasn’t Jillian’s only alias. Jillian Smith was an alias, as well. There were three other aliases before she had become Jillian Smith at age sixteen.
She’d been in the U.S. government’s witness protection program for fourteen years, had moved numerous times and changed her looks and name repeatedly because her family’s safety had been repeatedly compromised.
“She had four different identities on file with the government,” the detective said, glancing briefly at his notes. “She was creating that fifth one—April Holliday—when we located her in Carmel. But April Holliday wasn’t a government-issued identity. It was one she’d created on her own to hide from you.”
Vitt’s brow lowered. “Is she still part of the witness protection program?”
“She is supposed to be. The rest of her family still is.”
“Where is her family?”
“Parents are in Florida. The exact location isn’t known.”
“Who are they?”
The detective shook his head. “That is the one piece of information missing from her file.” He leaned forward, slid a sheet of paper across the desk toward Vittorio. On the paper he’d listed all of Jill’s aliases, including her schools and studies and the different addresses from the time she was twelve until now. “There is nothing I could find that gives her birth name, or her parents’ original names. Like Jillian, her family goes by Smith, and has used Smith for a number of years. We do know that the entire family, a family of four—mother, father and two daughters—was placed in the program fourteen years ago but we don’t know why.”
Vittorio calmly studied the paper in his hand, his relaxed features revealing none of his inner tension. There was a reason Jill had run from him in Bellagio. She’d heard the word Mafioso whispered and disappeared like a thief in the night. And she’d kept running until he’d found her. But she remained terrified of him. She’d made it clear she didn’t trust him, or believe that he wasn’t connected to the mafia. She’d said so several times.
She had to be linked to the mob herself. Had to have insider knowledge. Why else would she be so completely unable to trust him?
“There is nothing here of her original identity,” he said, glancing at the former FBI agent. “According to this paper, she didn’t even exist before she was twelve.”
“That’s right. Everything in her file that would link her to a birth name, birthplace, or birth date was completely erased.”
