AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He found Zia in the master bedroom, which was white and gold and pink, full of baroque swirling like the frosting on cake. A room fit for a Hollywood diva of the thirties. Zia sat on the end of the pillow strewn white satin bed, clutching an inlaid jewelry box on her lap. She stared up at Kev, eyes wide and stricken behind her glasses. Tears streamed down, mixing with the blood spattered on her face.
Terrified hope jolted through him. “Oh, God, Zia. You found it?”
Zia Rosa didn’t respond. She looked lost. “We played together with this jewelry box, when we were little, Tittina and me.” Her voice was almost childlike. “We played with it. With our dolls.”
Kev sank to his knees in front of her. He took the jewelry box from her and opened it. It was heaped with gold chains, rings, brooches.
He dumped them out onto the bed in a tangled, glittering pile, and shook the empty box. Something shifted, inside. His heart thudded.
“There’s something in here.” He felt for the sliding panel. Sure enough, it slid it open. But Bruno had the key.
“Nonnataught us to sew together,” Zia went on. “How to make the blessed animal cookies, forNatale. We were best friends, back then, Tittina and me. And now…Dio.Poverina.”
He grabbed her hands. “I’m sorry. But we just can’t do this now.”
Zia Rosa ignored him. “That picture of Magda that I have in my wallet? Just like Tittina, when she was little. Just like the little girl at the baby store. The one with that bitch nurse.”
“Zia, we have to hurry—”
“I shoulda known about those two, but they were so nice, you know? Her husband, too! He even come running back, to give me my phone after it fell in the baby’s stroller! Aw, so sweet of him, I thought, to go to all that trouble, eh? Who’d have thought they was both killers? With those beautiful bimbi? Nobody woulda thought that!”
Kev went rigid, as the picture shifted in his mind. New shapes, new possibilities, new scenarios. “Wait. Zia, those people at the baby store…they handled your phone? When you weren’t watching?”
She blinked as she tried to remember. “I suppose they did. It dropped in the stroller. He found it and ran it back to me, in the parking lot. Ouch! Kev! Don’t squeeze so hard!”
He let go of her hands, his heart thudding. “Sorry, Zia. Where’s your phone right now?”
“Downstairs, in my purse, on the couch,” she said. “Why? You need to call somebody? What’s wrong with yours?”
“They loaded software on your phone, Zia. Or a tracking device, or God knows what.” His voice shook with excitement. “That’s how they’ve been following us, catching us. With your phone!”
She sucked in air. “O Dio!I’ll flush the thing down the toilet!”
“No, no, no! It’s all we’ve got, to link us to Bruno! We’ll use it!”
“How?” She flapped her hands. Her voice cracked. “How?”
“Who the fuck knows? I’ll come up with something. Just listen to me. We’re going downstairs. I’ll take the jewelry box. I’m going to say, loudly, near your purse, that my phone’s out of juice, and I’m going to borrow yours. You can call us using Petrie’s phone.”
“Where you going?” she demanded. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’re hauling ass out of here with the shooter, and you’re staying with Petrie while he goes to the hospital.”
She inhaled to argue. Kev clapped his hand over her mouth. “No, Zia,” he said, his voice steely. “Not this time. Petrie took a bullet for you. You will hold his hand in the ambulance. It’s the least you can do.”
She stared at him. Gave him a nod. He could hardly believe he’d managed to convince her so easily.A siren sounded, far away in the distance. Good, for Petrie’s sake. No time to smash the box open here.
“That’s our cue,” he said. “Come on. Move.”
* * *
“Where is she?”King demanded. “What’s taking so long?”
Hobart tapped the keyboard. “Just waiting for the database to—”
Whack!King slammed the side of the computer desk, making them all jump. “Do it faster!”
Hobart flubbed the string of characters he was entering. He blocked, deleted, entered it again. “Yes, sir.”
