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“He’ll kill me if he finds out.”
“Please.” A tear born of desperation slips past my lashes.
“Fuck,” Fred curses. “Fine, but we have to be back within an hour.”
I quietly squeal with delight. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“I really need to get my head checked,” Fred mutters as he opens the garage door.
I make a beeline for the Maserati and slide into the driver’s seat.
“No way.” Fred shakes his head.
“Come on, pretty please,” I make puppy eyes at him.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” He looks up to heaven, making me grin. “I suppose I’m most likely already dead.”
“I’m driving.”
Sighing, he opens the passenger door before making a spectacle of buckling his seatbelt.
“Ready?” I ask, not waiting for a reply before speeding out of the garage, down the driveway and through the now miraculously open gate.
Fred directs me, and we’re in front of a school building within fifteen minutes.
“Do you know how to pick locks?” I ask Freddie as we get out of the car and look at the closed school gate—I don’t want him to find out all my secrets just yet.
He sighs. “Follow me.”
I do as directed, walking along the fenced area until we get to the back of the building. Standing in front of the metal bars holding the fence together, Fred kicks one three times until it pops from its hinges, swinging aside to let us in.
“Sweet.” I rub my hands with glee before sliding through the small space and walking up to the stone wall of the building. “What are the chances they left one of the windows open?”
Fred shakes his head. “Were you seriously trying to get here on your own, completely unprepared?”
I shrug, “I’ve got my bobby pins. They haven’t failed me yet.”
“Let’s see what you got, then.” He gestures at a metal door to the right of where we’re standing. I give the rustylock a once over before pulling out the bobby pins from my pocket. Before I even start to make a fool out of myself and pretend that I know what I’m doing Freddie chuckles, pushing me aside and opening the door with a fucking key he had all along.
I decide not to give him shit for messing with me since he’s the reason I’m even here.
“Which way to the library?” I ask as we slip inside, the metal door closing behind us with a dull thud.
With his warm hand on the small of my back, Freddie guides us until we’re in front of large double doors. Pushing them open, I lift my phone in front of me and flick the flashlight on, illuminating the large room around us. There are shelves upon shelves filled with books, and normally, I’d be skipping from one to another, trying to find hidden gems. But right now, my eyes don’t stop on any of the spines for longer than a second, hyperfocused on what I’m searching for.
Finally, I spot the shelf that houses yearbooks and break into a run until I’m in front of it, fingering the spines and whispering the dates on them, looking for the one that could hold answers. By my calculation of how old Dante and his mum were when she passed away, I narrowed it down to three books.
The first one comes up empty. I don’t know Elena’s maiden name, so I have to look through every photo, trying to find her. The second one doesn’t have her either. My heart thudding behind my rib cage, I pick up the third book, partly worried I completely miscalculated and partly excited to find out more.
Fred grumbles from beside the entrance for me to hurry up, just as I lift the cover open to a landscape picture of the whole class standing in front of the building. Scanning the faces—not that I’d recognise Elena, having never seen apicture of her—my eyes snag on something I equally was and wasn’t expecting.
I amin the photo. Grinning widely,I have my arm around another woman who’s got a mischievous smile on her face. The same smile Dante gave me when I told him I was all orgasmed out last night before he proceeded to prove me wrong. Swallowing a lump in my throat,I turn the pages, looking for the familiar face, until I find it once again. Standing in front of an archway made out of flowers with a handsome, older-looking guy. My finger traces her face down her dress to the text below the photo.
Prom night - Rosa Mancini with her date Alessandro Carusso.
My heart stops in my chest, the breath I was about to exhale locked in my lungs as I try to process what I’m seeing.Rosa. Rosalita.All the names I’ve been called by strangers. I look exactly like her. Then I look at the guy again. Alessandro Carusso. His face is familiar, too. Like I should know him from somewhere, yet can’t quite place him. But it’s the surname that catches my attention.Carusso.
Little caruso—is what the bus station guy called me, except maybe it wasn’t a nickname. Maybe he meant Carusso.
