Dirty Lies Read online

  The editor on duty asked me to update the story on Twitter—things like the victim's name, in what ways he was eaten by the alligator, a photo of the chief at the news conference—but once I had, I drove at near-unlawful speeds to the hotel where the dead guy had been staying. A state crime-lab van was parked in the lot, and I pulled up near the hotel's registration office. My face was slick with perspiration after the thirty-second journey from the car to indoors.

  An older woman sat behind the desk, and I introduced myself. "Can you tell me anything about Gianni Innocenti?" I tried to sound casual and not like I was freaking out. Which I was.

  "He didn't speak much English. He was only here one night before he…well, disappeared. We thought it was weird that he was never around after he checked in, but we don't ask questions. He said he was meeting his girlfriend here."

  I exhaled. Girlfriend? Maybe this guy had nothing to do with Luca, he was just an unlucky tourist. Or maybe his girlfriend killed him.

  "Did he seem shady to you? Weird?"

  "No. Not at all. He was a quiet man, seemed to keep to himself. Waved at us. Friendly enough."

  "Did you ever meet his girlfriend? Did she show up?"

  The woman shook her head.

  I thanked her. At least I'd gotten a quote for the story. Picking up my phone, I tapped out Luca's number, but a sick feeling of revulsion went through me, similar to when I'd seen the body earlier. I had a bad feeling about this. About everything.

  Luca's phone rang and rang and never went to voicemail.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Fear

  LUCA

  I swam laps in the pool. The cool water washed away the tension of the morning.

  Skylar was right. I was running from my fears. How was it a woman I'd met a month ago had cut through all the bullshit and diagnosed what was in my heart? I smiled when I thought of Skylar's phone call about seeing the body. She was so funny. I also remembered my excitement and panic when I'd seen my first homicide scene.

  The thought of having Skylar call with her reporting tales every day made me grin wider. And what if we shared our workdays over dinner and then woke up next to each other every morning? Wouldn't that be something?

  I dove underwater, a fantasy flashing through my mind. A wedding, maybe on a beach somewhere. Skylar, pregnant with my child. A house filled with love. Maybe a normal life was within reach.

  What had changed? Why was I now open to love when I'd resisted it before? It was baffling that I was so willing to let Skylar into my heart when I'd rejected so many other women. It must be the incredible sexual and mental connection between us, an incalculable mixture of need, chemistry, and karma.

  Or maybe it was because Skylar also inspired me to be a better man.

  Climbing out of the pool and toweling off, I had the urge to call my uncle and apologize. Yes, that's what I'd do. It's what Skylar would want. I hadn't been fair to Federico.

  I picked up the cell and saw Skylar had called, and that I had a few alerts from her Twitter feed. I swiped to the tweets. She was so quick in posting information.

  Palmira Chief says large alligator was near body when officers arrived.

  I smiled. Crazy shit.

  Murder victim was likely in swamp for days, officials said.

  I tapped on her next tweet.

  Palmira Chief identifies man as thirty-year-old Gianni Innocenti of Naples, Italy.

  My fingers fumbled and nearly dropped the phone in disbelief. Innocenti was one of Bruno Castiglione's men. A low-level thug. A low-profile one too. A rush of sheer panic gripped me so hard, I felt a tightening in my chest.

  Looking around, I suddenly felt too exposed in the bright sunlight of the pool deck. Head bent, I walked inside and made sure every door was locked and every window was darkened.

  Oh fuck.

  The gun was in the glove box of the Mercedes. With Skylar.

  Skylar. Was she safe?

  I dialed her number and exhaled when she answered.

  "Luca. Hey. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. Amore mio, you need to come back to my house now. I can't talk about it, but trust me. Please?" I didn't want to reveal more for fear someone was tapping our phones. Was that possible?

  "Luca, I'm on deadline. I'll be done in about a half hour." She paused, and I heard urgency in her voice. "I need to ask you a few things, but I don't want to do it over the phone. I'll be there soon."

  "Skylar. Now."

  "I know," she said. "But I have to finish this story. I'll be there as soon as I can. Stay safe."

  Her voice had an edge, and she hung up.

  Stay safe?

  Was she aware of the danger? I shook my head, thinking about how Skylar had a stubborn streak. There she was in her newsroom, filing her story. The thought of her being in danger sent a howling panic through me.

  I drank a beer, hoping to calm my nerves, and wished I hadn't smoked all the Marlboros I'd bought after the big fight with Skylar. I paced the dark house for thirty minutes and was making another loop around my bedroom, about to call her again, when the doorbell rang and the phone in my hands vibrated almost simultaneously. My heart sped up even more when I picked up.

  "I'm at the door," Skylar said.

  "Be right down."

  I flung the door open and pulled her inside. "Give me the keys," I demanded.

  She did, and I ran to the car. Thank God the gun was still there. I moved the Mercedes into the garage.

  I walked back inside, not even trying to conceal the weapon.

  "Luca, oh my God. What is that?" She gaped, and backed up a few steps.

  I locked the door and turned to her. "Uh, it's a gun. We need to talk."

  Her bottom lip quivered, and she gulped in air. She hiccuped a few breaths, then tears slid down her cheeks. Oh shit. She'd seen a dead body in the swamp and now this. I hadn't meant to scare her.

  I gingerly rested the gun on a table near the door and took her in my arms. "Amore mio, please don't be scared. I'd never hurt you. Ever. Quite the opposite. Please stop crying."

  She shuddered in a breath. "This is about Gianni, isn't it?"

  "Yes."

  She swore and shook her head. "The motel manager said he was waiting to meet his girlfriend. That he was a nice guy. A tourist."

  "Skylar, he works for Bruno Castiglione."

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Casting A Spell

  SKYLAR

  I knew I was rambling, recounting what the chief told me about Gianni as Luca pulled me into the den and flipped on a light.

  "Why is it so dark in here? Why are the curtains drawn?"

  He looked at me, incredulous.

  "Oh. Right. You don't want anyone to be able to see in. Duh."

  Luca's shoulders tensed toward his ears. His hand squeezed my arm tight.

  "Luca, you're hurting me. Please stop squeezing like that."

  "Amore mio, I'm sorry. I'm worried."

  Luca moved me to the leather sofa and he sat, pulling me onto his lap and hugging me tight. He was breathing fast, and I could feel his quick heartbeat. I felt self-conscious because I was sweaty and stinky, but he didn't seem to mind as he buried his nose in the hollow of my neck.

  "Sky, this is not good. At all. We might have to leave Palmira."

  I wriggled to look at him. "Hold on. What? We?"

  Luca's voice was firm. "Yeah. I need to think about this. It might be safer if we leave. Maybe my uncle can help put us up somewhere. But yeah. We."

  Was he crazy? What was he talking about? If I left Palmira, I wouldn't have a job. If I didn't have a job, I wouldn't be a journalist. If I wasn't a journalist, I'd be giving up on my dreams.

  "Luca, I can't just leave Palmira. I've got a job, remember? Can't we just call your uncle?"

  "Skylar, our lives are in danger. Your life is in danger because of me. My uncle's life is in danger. If Gianni was here, he was looking for me. If he was parked by your office, he must know who you are." His voice was co
ld and harsh, and I felt a familiar sense of panic, almost as if James had suddenly appeared in the room to berate me.

  "How do you know that? What if it's just a coincidence? What if he really was here with his girlfriend? And anyway, who killed him and why? And could there be more, um…hitmen?" I felt odd just saying the word, like I was an extra in some bad TV crime show. What was this, CSI: Palmira?

  "That's the big question." Luca sighed.

  "I seriously doubt anyone knows we've been spending time together. And would they want to kill an American journalist?" I reminded myself that Luca wasn't trying to sound like a jerk, that he was legitimately scared for us both. His parents had been killed in retribution, right? But—

  "I wouldn't put it past them just to torture me. The other alternative is I leave Palmira. Alone."

  "Huh? But I don't want you to leave. We're…I…" my voice trailed off. I had almost just told him I loved him.

  Great timing.

  Luca didn't seem to notice. "Would you rather go somewhere with me and have me alive, or be here with you and die?"

  When he put it that way, everything seemed so bleak. I blinked several times. "But your uncle…"

  "I've tried calling him. I got his assistant. He's out on his yacht."

  I let out a long breath.

  "Money isn't an issue. I can support you," Luca said.

  I bristled. What kind of a statement was that? Did he think that's what I wanted? His money?

  "What? No. I can't leave my job. I can't have you support me. I don't think you get it. I don't want to be supported by you. I wasn't raised that way. What would I do? I've worked for years to do this one thing. Do you know how hard it is to get a job at a newspaper these days?"

  "Sky. Sky. I know what you're feeling," he said as I sniffled.

  I couldn't help the anger. "How do you know what I'm feeling? How could you know what I'm feeling? You barely know me at all. You never wanted to."

  Luca's mouth dropped open.

  "Oh God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be harsh." Fat tears slid down my cheeks, and I tried to keep the hysteria out of my voice. "I'm not handling this stress all that well."

  He kissed the top of my head. "It's totally understandable."

  "I know this is stupid of me. It makes me think of my mother."

  "What about her?"

  I exhaled, pushing out my lips. "It was when my mother was in the hospital, about six weeks before she died. She was trying another round of radiation. My mom was really angry the treatment wasn't working, and she told me not to end up like her."

  Luca shook his head. "Wasn't your mom a yoga teacher?"

  "Yeah, she was. She also worked at a health food store. We were pretty poor when I was growing up. My grandmother put all of her retirement savings into her condo and couldn't help."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Don't be. But my mom made me promise I'd do something with my life. She made me promise I wouldn't get married young or have babies until I was older. That I would try to make a difference in this world first. That I wouldn't screw up my life like she did when she was young."

  "Ah, now I get it."

  "You get what?"

  "Why you want me to keep writing. Why you don't want to leave with me. Why your career is so important."

  I grimaced. "I…I can't just run away with you and have you support me. There are other reasons too."

  "And those other reasons? Want to talk about those, amore mio?"

  "I love the paper. I love being a journalist. And…well, if I leave the paper and everything I love here, you could eventually leave me. Then I'll be alone and poor and aimless, just like my mother. I'll have to be a yoga teacher or a waitress, and I'll never use my mind for anything."

  Luca was silent for several seconds. "That won't happen. You're too smart and ambitious. And you're a fighter."

  "I don't know, Luca. I feel like a failure a lot. I worked so hard in school, and all I was able to get is this job at a small paper. I want more for myself. I feel like I'm not living up to my mom's expectation of me, and that just fills me with guilt, you know?"

  Luca paused. "Skylar, have you thought about what will happen when you start living the life that's right for you instead of the one you promised to live for someone else?"

  I looked at him with raised eyebrows. "I think I could ask you the same thing."

  He nodded and drew me close. "Calmati. Calm. We need time to think about this, no? How we'll handle what's going on. Okay? I want to talk to my uncle. For now, let's just stay here. We're as safe here as anywhere, I guess. The cops said Gianni was dead for days, no? If he had a partner, you would think he'd have made a move by now, right?"

  I chewed on my lip. "Can we just go to my house for a few minutes? I need some things."

  Luca shook his head vigorously. "No. Why risk it before I talk to Federico? We have all we need here. We're a little trapped, but we have a fridge full of organic food and a full wine cellar."

  He tried to kiss me, but I wriggled away. "I need to go home. I need my birth control. I don't want to get off my cycle. Please? We'll only be a few minutes. It's two miles away."

  "No."

  "I'm sorry. We have to. Please? I can go alone. That might be safer."

  He sighed. "Out of the question. I'll go with you."

  "It'll be fine. Like you said, Gianni's been dead for days, and I'm sure whoever killed him won't do anything to us while cops, FDLE, and FBI are crawling around the island. So, let me take a shower, then we'll go. I feel gross and dirty after today."

  We walked upstairs, and Luca followed me into the bathroom. He set his gun on the marble sink counter and locked the door.

  "Um. What are you doing?" I stood in the middle of the large bathroom, looking from the gun to him, back to the gun.

  Luca took off his shirt. "I'm keeping you safe, streghetta mia. And I'm going to help you bathe."

  "What did you just call me?"

  He grinned. "My little witch. It's a term of affection in Italian. Really."

  I playfully swatted him, and he caught my wrist and kissed the palm.

  "Witch? You think I'm a witch?"

  "A little bit, because you've cast a spell on me."

  That elicited a laugh, breaking the tension that had built up. "That is so cheesy."

  I watched as he stripped naked and turned on the shower, then walked to me and lifted my dress over my head. He unhooked my bra, then slid my panties down my hips and legs. Even now, even after our tense talk, after the weird and sick day, after all the fear, the sight of his body made me ache with lust.

  We stepped under the spray, and Luca soaped up his hands, caressing and cleaning every part of my body. I closed my eyes and reveled in the pleasure of his touch, unraveling every time he stopped to kiss me. He poured shampoo into his palm and scrubbed my hair and massaged my scalp, an act so kind and intimate, I wanted to weep.

  I sighed pleasurably, and we kissed long and deep, under the rain-like showerhead.

  "We were made for each other, you know that?" he murmured, smoothing my wet hair away from my forehead. "Please, please, let me take care of you. Will you?"

  "I will. But I'm not going to change. I'm still going to be me."

  "That's exactly who I want you to be."

  Chapter Sixty

  The Reckoning

  SKYLAR

  "Do you have to put your hand on that gun like we're in the Wild West?" I hissed at Luca as we climbed out of his Mercedes and walked up the stairs of my condo.

  "Stay close to me. I don't feel safe anywhere."

  As I scanned the corridor of my sleepy, retiree-laden condo, I didn't know what to think. Was Luca overreacting? Was I under-reacting? It seemed my whole life had suddenly taken a turn for the surreal, between the revelation of who Luca really was, the mind-blowing sex, and seeing my first murder victim, who'd turned out to be a Mafia hitman.

  Who was probably on the island to kill my boyfriend.

&
nbsp; Wait. Was Luca my boyfriend?

  I opened my mouth to ask, then closed it when I saw his eyes flit around in fear. No, this definitely wasn't the time for that question. I suspected the answer anyway. I was just being needy because I was so tense.

  We reached the door. "Give me the keys," he said.

  I did, and he unlocked the top and bottom lock.

  "I'm going inside first."

  "Oh, please. Come on." I brushed past him, impatient to just grab some things and get back to his house so he'd stop making me nervous, stop being so paranoid, stop making me afraid.

  He reached out to take hold of my arm, but I powered past. "Let me just grab my pills and a few things and we'll be good."

  I heard him lock the door as I hustled into the bathroom for my birth control. I rested my purse on the counter, then flicked on the light.

  I screamed.

  It was a woman. Holding a knife.

  I backed up, but the woman was too fast, like a little lethal hummingbird. She grabbed my arm and—holy shit.

  It was the woman from the café. The woman I'd spilled coffee on.

  I writhed and twisted, not wanting to get cut by the crazy woman's knife, which looked sharp and steely.

  "Amore mio, wha—?" Luca came to the doorway and stopped. His expression morphed from one of concern to a look of pure confusion. He lifted his gun and pointed it.

  The three of us stared at each other. I looked at Luca, who looked at the intruder. The woman, who had huge, tawny eyes, gazed at Luca. I'd never seen a woman look so intently at another person. Almost worshipful.

  What the fuck?

  The woman's nails dug into my upper arm and yanked me closer, and I let out a whimper. With a slow rhythm, she feathered the blade down my upper arm as if she were sharpening it on my skin, not quite cutting me.