Betrayal Read Free

renting of the next room for an hour.
    Arianna Marino was a force to be reckoned with.
    Not to mention that Penelope found a measure of comfort in the memory of that time with her mother, and these days Penelope took comfort where she could.
    “Okay,” Primo said. “I need a photo ID before I run this credit card.”
    She passed her Oregon driver’s license over the counter.
    “Penelope Caldwell,” he read aloud, then compared the two and held the license up to compare the photo with her face. “Looks good.”
    She sighed in relief. Her last name had changed, but her first name was fairly uncommon. If Primo was going to remember, he would have when he looked at her license. He really wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box.
    “No one else in your party?” He looked at her car, searching for another guest.
    “I’m alone.” An understatement.
    “Okay, I’ll put you in number fourteen. It’s far enough away from the bar to be quiet, but not so far you couldn’t yell for help if you got into trouble.”
    She didn’t like that comment. “What kind of trouble would I get into?”
    “Sometimes the guys at the bar misunderstand about a single woman at the motel, especially after a hard night of drinking. Don’t worry. You’ll be safe.” Primo shrugged his massive shoulders. “I do security. Aunt Arianna says it keeps me off the streets.”
    Penelope relaxed. “I’m sure you do a good job, too.” She couldn’t imagine any man going up against a behemoth like Primo.
    “I’ve had a few guys who thought they could take me,” he said.
    “What happened?”
    “They lived.”
    She laughed.
    He didn’t.
    He handed her a key card. “The ice machine’s in here. We had to move it inside when the drunks started peeing in it. But you can always get ice—we keep the office manned at all times. No cooking in your room.” He spread a map out on the counter, then got an envelope and stuffed a bunch of slips of paper inside. “Present one of these tokens at any of these fine eateries in town”—his big finger moved from one mark to another—“and they’ll give you breakfast, a value of up to ten dollars.”
    Since the room was sixty-two fifty a day, she thought that was a pretty good deal. “Thank you.”
    “You can always ask us for recommendations—wineries, restaurants, activities. The Marinos have lived here for over a hundred years. We know the valley inside and out. We won’t steer you wrong.” He pointed toward his right. “Number fourteen is that way. Park in front. Welcome to Bella Terra.” In a none-too-subtle invitation to buzz off, he picked up his e-reader, flipped it on, and stared at the screen.
    He was probably “reading” the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated .
    “Thank you,” she said again, and backed out the door, immeasurably cheered to have the first hurdle of her visit to Bella Terra successfully leaped.
    She might just pull this off after all.
    Primo waited until Penelope had moved her car into the parking space in front of her room. Putting aside his e-reader and the open file of Dante’s Inferno , he picked up the chipped pink princess phone—Aunt Arianna didn’t believe in replacing perfectly working equipment, even if it was fifty years out of date—and placed the call. “Aunt Arianna, you aren’t going to believe who just pulled into the motel and booked a room.”

Chapter 2
    A t the Di Luca family home, the pounding of hammers and the sound of nails being wrenched from old wood echoed through the open front door screen and down the hall to the kitchen. There Sarah Di Luca placed a King Ranch casserole into the three-hundred-fifty-degree oven. The chicken dish was loaded with fat and sodium, cheese, sour cream, and canned cream soups, but the boys—her grandsons, Eli, Rafe, and Noah—loved it, and working as they were in the heat, they’d burn off the calories.
    Her bodyguard, Bao Le, stuck close most of the time, but right now Bao had gone to check on the