Dark Shadows (Gia Santella Crime Thrillers Book 11), Kristi Belcamino [ereader with dictionary .TXT] 📗

the apartment, but I was feeling careless, reckless, and a small part of me thought that burning the place down would be apropos—leaving the charred remains of my life behind. But then I remembered other people lived in the building and leaned over to blow them out.

Then I steeled myself for some hard-core shopping. I wished I had some marijuana but would have to shop stone-cold sober.

But if I was being honest with myself, I was happy to spend another few hours with Dante.

He had flown into Barcelona from San Diego when he heard I was taking off for a few months…or forever.

It would be strange to leave Nico behind and not visit him daily while hoping there might be a glimmer of recognition in his eyes when he saw me.

There never was.

Nico was in good hands. I paid a small fortune every month for the memory care center to treat him like a king. It took about six months of him not recognizing me for me to realize my daily, doting presence there was no longer for him, only for me. And that it hurt like hell to be around him.

I was a coward.

I was going to leave him. Maybe forever.

If I thought there was the slightest, smallest part of him that still remembered me, I would stay. But there wasn’t.

My heart was shattered.

Every morning I woke and lay in bed waiting for the dark shadows to recede from my nightmares only to realize that it wasn’t a bad dream. It was my life.

Finally, I realized I had to leave Barcelona. At first I wanted to buy a house in the mountains somewhere and live like a recluse. There was still a chance I might. But right then, all my body craved was sunshine.

I’d spent the past few years as a caregiver, taking care of Nico, trying to glimpse fragments of who he used to be before he became angry and confused.

We rarely stepped outside unless it was to take him out to the garden for a walk. But now he refused to do even that.

I needed to lay in the sun and do things that weren’t good for me so I didn’t have to feel or think anymore.

Cannes would be the backdrop for my debauchery.

And I was happy to play it out there with all the other privileged fuckers who had everything that money could buy and yet wandered around hungrily trying to fill the empty void in their souls by spending recklessly, drinking too much, fucking everything with a heartbeat, and taking massive amounts of drugs.

2

Nico was slouched in his leather lounger watching TV when I walked into his room.

He looked up at me, and for the smallest fraction of a second there seemed to be a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. Then he gave a wolfish smile.

“You my new nurse?”

I played along. “Do you want me to be?”

He shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

I laughed out loud. It was that or cry.

He laughed too. But then he said, “I’m just giving you a hard time. You are a beautiful woman. When I was much younger I would’ve pursued you with everything I had.”

I blinked back my tears. “I bet you were something else.”

“Oh, boy, was I,” he said and frowned. “At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

Even having a picture of me hugging him on the dresser in his room wasn’t enough to jog his memory of our life together. He might look at it for a few seconds but would then ask why and where we had taken it.

But as hard as it was for me, Rose couldn’t handle it at all.

She’d taken every picture of us as a family and herself out of his room.

I don’t even know if she still came to visit him. She wouldn’t answer when I asked.

She was in a dark place, and I couldn’t reach her.

I called her on my way over to tell her I was leaving Barcelona for a while.

She didn’t answer her phone so I left a message. Typical.

“What’s on the agenda today?” Nico said, standing. I tried not to notice him reach out to grip the arm of the chair to steady himself. He was frowning.

“I thought we would take a walk in the garden,” I said. “Get a little fresh air and sunshine.”

“That’s what you all say.”

“That’s because it’s good for you.”

He shuffled over to me. Along with the decline in his mental health, he had grown frail over the past few years. It was just another knife in my heart.

I wanted to help him, but I knew his ego couldn’t handle it.

Outside, we walked for a while and then sat on a bench near a row of flowers.

He looked over at me., wringing his hands. At first it had bothered me, but the nurses told me it was common with Alzheimer’s patients, and I’d gotten used to it. It was, like everything about Nico now, including the colostomy bag, so unlike the man I’d loved for so long.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

I smiled. “Yes.”

“I mean before this?”

“What do you think?”

He stared at me hard. “I get really confused sometimes.”

“It’s okay,” I said in the most comforting voice I could. Sometimes when I was with him and he was confused, he would grow angry and violent. It scared me. But I also didn’t blame him. I was pissed off too.

Then he shook his head. He turned and stared straight ahead and said, “Maybe in another life.”

“I think you’re right. In another life.”

“Do you believe in that?” he asked.

“Of course. Don’t you?”

I’d never seen anything in my life as beautiful as his smile just then. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

I looked away so he wouldn’t see the tears falling down my cheeks.

Suddenly, he stood.

“I’m tired, nurse,” he said. “I’m sorry I don’t remember your name. I forget most things.”

“I never told you my name. It’s Gia.”

He nodded. “That’s a nice name.”

“Thank you.”

“Can you show me back to my room? I think I should take a