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

“It was my pleasure,” he said.

Then I showered and dressed and was at the door.

He looked at me for a long time as I stood in the doorway.

“I called a car. It’s here. I have to go.”

“I wish you’d stay,” he said finally.

“I have to go to him.”

“I know.”

While I was sitting in the back seat of the car I’d hired, my phone rang. My heart leapt into my throat. Somehow, I knew it was about Nico.

And the news was as terrible as my worst fears.

Nico was dead.

22

Before I stepped off the plane, I took out my compact mirror to check my makeup. I’d spent the entire flight crying behind my dark glasses. By that point, my makeup had washed away. Now my eyes were bloodshot and puffy.

When I saw Dante standing there on the tarmac waiting for me, fresh tears pricked my eyes. I was so lucky to have him for a best friend.

I walked over to him, and he wrapped me in a hug.

I melted into his embrace. He kissed both my cheeks and then we drew away from one another.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

I sniffed and nodded.

I wiped my nose on my sleeve. Like a little kid.

He gave me a look full of sorrow.

“Did you get ahold of Rose?”

I shook my head. She wasn’t answering my calls, and her voice mail said it was full.

Nico had made preparations years before, as soon as he found out he had Alzheimer’s. His wishes were to be cremated. He’d picked out a plot in the Barcelona cemetery.

Dante took me straight to the memory care home. Of course, they’d already removed his body. I wouldn’t be able to see it. In fact, I would be picking up his ashes the next morning.

I asked to be alone as I packed up his things. I stared at his empty bed for so long that my eyes glazed over. Then I found myself crawling into the bed, burying my face in the pillow. It still smelled like him—of the soap and shampoo he’d always used and his own Nico smell. I don’t know how long I lay there, but I must’ve fallen asleep because when I next realized it, the light had changed and someone had come in and pulled the quilt up over me. Photographs on the dresser of me and him and Rose. I’d hoped that they would help him remember us to the end, but that was too much to hope for…

I stacked the items that I would keep on the bed and filled another bag with items to donate. The items I would keep included his watch, which I would give to Rose, the photos, maybe a clothing item or two, and that was it. So little remained of such a full life.

I pulled one of his button up shirts off a hanger in the closet and held it to my nose. It didn’t smell like him. It smelled like fresh laundry detergent. But it was still a favorite shirt. I flashed back to him wearing it out to dinner once. He’d looked so handsome and his dazzling grin was white against his dark skin and this white linen shirt. I held it between my fingers and remembered how we’d sat at a café table outside the restaurant. The air had been warm and the night filled with stars. We could hear the waves lapping the shore not far away. We’d shared a bottle of red wine and a huge platter of paella. We’d talked about everything and nothing at all—the latest art exhibit, what we thought of the movie we’d just seen, how we would have to agree to disagree on the latest book I’d read at his suggestion. And Rose. We always talked about Rose and how proud of her we were. She was out with her friends that night. After the waiter had cleared our plates, we’d ordered espresso and sat back in our chairs, smiling at one another.

“This moment, this magical night, is one I shall never forget,” Nico said, his eyes narrowed and locked on me.

Remembering his words, a sob rose in my throat.

I knew that if Nico had even the slightest choice in the matter, he would have kept his word.

The heartbreaking thing was that he, like everyone who gets this cruel disease, doesn’t get a choice.

I grabbed the tote bag and then, at the last second, I pulled the pillow that still smelled like Nico off of his bed and tucked it under my arm. I walked out without another glance.

23

We were sitting on the balcony of the Gothic Quarter apartment. I was clutching Nico’s pillow in my lap. I hadn’t been able to set it down since I’d plucked it off his bed.

Dante had looked at it once but never said a word.

“You going to keep this place?” he asked.

“It’s not mine to keep,” I said. It belonged to Rose. Wherever she was in the world. I still hadn’t been able to reach her. I’d tried waking in the middle of night to call her and that hadn’t worked either. I couldn’t help but think she was avoiding my calls. Eva, an expert hacker, said it looked like Rose had turned off her phone.

Then she’d asked a question I hadn’t wanted to face. “Is there any chance she’s just avoiding you?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. What I didn’t say was that I was worried sick. I didn’t need to. Eva knew. But Rose was an adult now. I couldn’t rein her in. She was on a mission to hunt down and kill the Sultan. To me, who had only heard the stories, the Sultan was an ominous cult leader with strange powers I didn’t even want to admit existed in this world. Rose had almost become his victim. And when he had her boyfriend, Timothy, murdered, Rose had dedicated her life to hunting down and destroying him. The