eyes. “Eighty-eight degrees,” she said. “In November! At,” she paused to consult the diamond-studded watch he had given her, “eight-thirty in the morning.”
“In November, it is not warm like this in...Virginia?” he asked. It was a little game they played. When he met her two years ago on a beach on the French Riviera, she had been wearing a slip of fabric shaped into a bikini and had refused to tell him where she was from. Her accent marked her as American, but she wouldn’t provide any specifics, saying it was better that way. Of course, Costa had her investigated and knew that Anna Whitmore had grown up in Illinois with two older brothers, had attended college in Washington state, and then worked in computer technology for a firm in California where she had an affair with her married boss. She’d come to the Mediterranean after the boss broke off the affair. When Costa offered her a job, she’d taken it and hadn’t returned to the States since.
“No. Wrong again,” she said with a smirk then returned to her previous topic. “It shouldn’t be this hot so late in the year. It’s not right.”
“Then you will be glad.” He set his cup in the saucer with a click. “We are leaving.”
“Now?” She tensed.
“No, there is no rush. Later, this afternoon.”
She leaned over the arm of the wicker chair, her delicate eyebrows drawn tight over her narrowing brown eyes. “Ernesto heard something, didn’t he?”
Costa shrugged one shoulder, then waved his hand at the iPad she held in her lap. “ Prego ,” he said, indicating he was ready to begin.
The corners of Anna’s lips tightened. He could tell she was displeased that he wouldn’t say more, but she tapped the screen and went through the business items that needed his attention. He relaxed in the chair, dealing with the issues while he admired the way her skirt molded to her thighs.
“Last thing,” she said, consulting the notes on her calendar. “It has been six months since Jack Andrews was seen.”
Costa’s lazy gaze had been meandering up her hips to the triangle of deep brown skin at the “v” near the collar of her shirt, but at her words, his light gray gaze snapped to her face. “Nothing?”
“No sightings. Not in Italy. Not in the States. He really must be dead.”
He turned and stared at the water. “No matter,” he said after a moment. “There is still the girl. She will have to do.” Costa had waited long enough for this investment to payoff. If Jack Andrews wasn’t available to be the scapegoat, his ex-wife would do just as well.
“What would you like me to do?” Anna asked.
“Nothing yet,” Costa said. He would take care of it. He would put the plan in motion himself on Monday.
––––––––
Tuesday, the third week of November
Dallas
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Z OE saw the silver car out of the corner of her eye and knew before her careful second glance that it was the same one she’d seen earlier that morning in the parking lot of the grocery store. She forced herself to keep up the same leisurely pace down the driveway. As she opened her mailbox and grabbed the stack of junk mail, she ducked her head and snuck another glance through the curtain of her hair as it fell forward.
Same crack in the upper corner of the windshield. The bright Texas sun, still warm at the peak of the day despite the November date, glinted on the jagged fracture that tilted up and down like a line graph. She paced slowly up the driveway. The papers wrinkled in her tight grip, her heart hammering as if she’d just jogged around the neighborhood.
Zoe slammed the kitchen door behind her, dropped the crumpled flyers on the island, and climbed the stairs two at a time, barely pausing at the top. She hadn’t been upstairs in six months, not since she’d returned from her unscheduled trip to Italy last April. At that time, she and Jack had been living in the same house. Their short-lived, impulsive Vegas marriage
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