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“Hello, Papa. How was your morning?” I asked when he leaned down to kiss my cheek.
“Fine, fine,” he said, reaching over to shake Rogue’s hand.
“Where is Mutti?” I asked.
“Migräne.”
I nodded, wondering how long he’d be able to keep up the accent. “We ordered lunch, if you’d like to join us.”
He nodded too and motioned for Rogue to give up his seat so he could take it. I knew it wasn’t so he would be closer to me. It was situated in such a way that his back was to a wall but he could clearly see the kitchen as well as the restaurant’s entrance.
“I didn’t know you spoke German, Magnet,” Delfino said through the comms.
His eyes met mine when he responded. “I possess a great number of unknown talents and abilities.”
“They’re arguing about who gets to serve you,” Delfino added. “It sounds as though Charlene is winning.”
Seconds later, the woman came through the swinging doors. She looked straight at Magnet, her cheeks flushed, and her eyelids drooped before she asked him what he’d like to drink.
When he immediately turned on the charm, I wanted to rip her eyes out, and it had nothing to do with the likelihood the woman was evil personified.
9
MAGNET
As this was the first time I’d been face-to-face with Charlene Vella-Borg, I was stunned by her resemblance to Xavier.
While Schön had pointed out the woman would’ve been fifteen when Pharaoh was born, looking at her now, I wondered again if she could be her and Xavier’s mother. As Schön had said, it wasn’t completely out of the question that she would’ve gotten pregnant so young.
When Ehren and I had separated from Rogue and Schön earlier, we went in search of information about Tommaso Borg. What we’d discovered was perplexing.
He and Charlene hadn’t divorced; he’d died in a freak fishing accident. According to the woman at the public records office who remembered him, he was on a boat alone, went overboard, and drowned.
When we asked if it was after he and Charlene divorced, she responded she knew they were married but had never heard about them separating.
For now, we were waiting for someone from our team to hack into Malta’s marriage and divorce records to see what else they could learn.
Also according to the woman at the public records office, Francesca’s husband, Marco Vella Sr., had had a massive heart attack at the age of forty-nine. After passing on that information, she directed us to the cemetery where both men were buried.
Francesca’s husband and their son, Marco Jr., were buried in what appeared to be a family section. Marco Jr.’s wife, Yasmine, was also buried there. Tommaso Borg’s headstone was in another area. If Marco Sr. and Francesca’s other daughter had died, she wasn’t buried with or near them.
After Ehren and I left the cemetery, I sent a message asking Rogue if it was a good time for us to join him and Schön at Nonna Vella’s restaurant. He’d responded, suggesting I might have more luck interacting with Charlene, so I made the decision to go in alone.
When I wondered out loud whether Malta’s lack of things like birth records might be due to their antiquated systems, Ehren offered to continue looking into Borg’s family as well as the Vellas, who appeared to have lived on Gozo for generations.
While Charlene was very attentive as our waitress, her mother sneaked out of the kitchen at one point to visit our table.
“This is my father,” said Schön, introducing me.
I stood, and when she put her hand in mine, I kissed the back of it. Like her daughter, her cheeks flushed, and she smiled.
“He’s excited to become a grandfather,” Schön added.
“Do you have grandchildren?” I asked the older woman.
“I had one, but no more.” The smile left her face, and her eyes hooded as she left the table.
“I handled that badly,” I murmured after she’d returned to the kitchen.
