Fatal Cover-Up

“I just need to go.”

A second later, she disappeared into the crowd. He grabbed a couple of bills from his wallet, dropped them onto the table and hurried after her.

* * *

Talia searched the narrow street as she hurried toward the subway past the row of shops and restaurants and apartment buildings. She shouldn’t have left the café, but she wasn’t sure she could trust Joe. She wanted to. He seemed an honest man. But so had Thomas until she’d found out the truth about him. Which was why for three years, she’d done everything she knew to put the past behind her and forget. But now suddenly, in the last twenty-four hours every memory and fear she’d had after his death was being dredged up.

I don’t want to go back there, God.

Not now. Not ever.

She’d accepted the fact that her husband had betrayed her trust. She’d even accepted his death. But it had completely changed her life, and the way people looked at her. There were those who thought there was no way she didn’t know what he’d been involved in. Others simply felt sorry for her. And even though she’d finally healed to the point that she was able to go on with her life, it didn’t mean that the familiar apprehensions didn’t sometimes rise to the surface.

She wove her way through a group of young people standing at the top of the stairs that led to the underground Metro. She needed to leave, and get away from Rome. But where would she go? She had friends, but she didn’t want to get them involved. And the only person here who knew what was going on was Joe Bryant.

But could she rely on him?

She hurried down the stairs toward the subway platform through the throng of commuters waiting to get onto the next train. The ground was scattered with cigarette butts. Advertisements were pasted onto the walls. She quickly stepped into the car before the doors slammed shut, then let out a sharp breath of air. A street musician began playing the accordion in the corner of the crowded space as she grabbed on to the metal pole in order to keep her balance. She should feel safe, but even surrounded by people, she had to fight the urge to run. They were out there somewhere. Watching her. Following her...

A group of students chattered in the corner. A woman bounced a toddler in her lap. A businessman talked loudly on his cell phone. Her surroundings faded and were replaced by memories. The day they told her Thomas was dead. The day she buried him. The day she’d sat in the interrogation room for hour after hour, answering their questions. The police had eventually dismissed the possibility of her involvement, but there had still been lingering questions. How could she not have known? She was, after all, his wife.

She fought to push away the memories. She could go home, pack up a bag and take a train to Naples. Or maybe she’d go across the border into France. But that would only delay the inevitable. Until she found the paintings, and discovered who was after them, this wasn’t going to be over. And she wasn’t going to find out the truth by running.

The sun had slipped behind a line of clouds by the time she made it to her stop and climbed the long flight of stairs to the street level. She breathed in the smell of freshly baked bread from the bakery nestled beneath her apartment building, wanting to turn back time to yesterday, when everything had felt normal. She’d fallen in love with the area the first time she’d visited. Ivy leaves climbed the sides of the century-old building, with its green shutters and flower boxes. Laundry blew in the breeze on a clothing line on the second story. She glanced at the glass display case in the bakery window. Flaky croissants filled with homemade custard, cannoli and her favorite, chocolate mousse on a chocolate biscuit covered in dark chocolate... She wished she could stop now and consume one; it’d be a stress reliever.

Instead her phone rang. A wave of adrenaline rushed through her as she pulled it out of her pocket. If it was them again...

She checked the caller ID and hesitated.

She recognized the area code. It was someone from Texas. She opened the door to the apartment building and took the call.

“Hello?”

“Talia...it’s Captain Blythe.”

She started up the narrow flight of stairs to her apartment on the fifth floor. It had been months since she’d heard from the department where her husband had once worked. “I was actually planning to call you today. It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has.” There was a pause on the line. “Listen, I felt you needed to know that your husband’s case has been reopened. The gun that killed him was involved in another, more recent murder.”

Hearing him repeat what Joe had just told her made the situation seem so much more real.

“The FBI’s gotten involved,” he continued. “There’s an agent—”

“Joe Bryant,” she said, finishing his sentence. “He’s with the FBI and here in Rome. I just met him.”

“So you know about the reopened case?”

“Yes,” said, starting for the third floor. “Can I trust him?”

“I didn’t meet him, but the chief did and was impressed when the guy came by. He believes there were pieces of stolen art at the raid where your husband died, which is the reason the FBI is involved. The bottom line is that maybe after all this time they’ll find out who killed Thomas.”

She was breathing harder as she took the last flight of stairs to the top floor. This was the closure she’d prayed for. They’d never been able to find the owner of the gun. Never been able to find who’d pulled the trigger and murdered Thomas.

The case is breaking open again, God. I didn’t want to go there, but if this ends up helping me put it all behind me for good...

That was what she needed.

“I won’t keep you,” Captain Blythe said, interrupting her thoughts, “but if you need anything, call me.”

She said goodbye and hung up, wondering if she should have told him about the threats. But something had made her hesitate. Joe had implied that his reopening up the case had prompted someone to come after the paintings. But did that mean that someone else—someone inside the department—had been involved in Thomas’s death?

She pulled out her key and opened the front door to her apartment loft, trying to make sense of everything. The implications of the matching bullets, the text messages and inconsistencies she’d seen with the case... The man she’d married never would have been involved in stealing evidence, but she’d never been able to get anyone to listen to her. And eventually she’d come to accept that Thomas wasn’t the person she’d known all those years.

Inside the one-bedroom apartment, the space was a small, open layout with a cozy terrace and views of the neighboring rooftops and monuments in the distance. But it wasn’t the familiar layout of home that caught her attention as she stepped into the room. Someone had been here. Talia felt a sick feeling wash over her, along with a wave of panic. Books had been pulled down from their shelves, red couch cushions and half a dozen throw pillows lay scattered across the hardwood floor, while her artwork had been ripped from the walls. She picked up the shattered glass frame holding the photo of her with her parents and little sister that had been taken before her mom and dad had been killed in a car wreck.

Who had done this?

Wind blew through the open terrace door, causing the white sheer curtains she’d picked up at a local flea market to flutter in the breeze. Something clattered against the floor in the bedroom. She froze beside the kitchen counter. Whoever had trashed her house was still here. Without thinking, she set down the photo, grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen counter and started for her bedroom.

When she stepped through the doorway, he was going through her dresser—the same man who’d grabbed her bag outside the Colosseum. Her intrusion into the room seemed to startle him for a second, then he pulled a gun out of its holster and pointed it at her.

“You should have shown up with the paintings,” he said in English with a thick Italian accent. “Toss me your bag.”

She hesitated, then threw it at him, still holding the knife. But the blade would be useless against a man with a loaded gun. He dumped the contents on her bed, scattering them across the dark blue bedspread.

She gripped the handle of the knife between her fingers.

“They’re not here,” he said, rummaging through her things. “The paintings. Where are they?”

“I don’t have them.” Talia fought to keep her voice steady. “I never did.”

He shook his head as if trying to figure out his next move. Light streamed in from the bedroom window. The man was in his mid-to-late twenties. Brown eyes. Dark hair with a streak of blond across his bangs.

He took a step forward. “I was told you’d say that. You knew you couldn’t fence the art right after your husband’s death, so you decided to be patient and wait to sell them.”

She shook her head. “Who told you that?”

“It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that I wouldn’t cross the person I work for. They were involved in the death of your husband, they’ll kill again if they have to.”

“Over a piece of art?” She pressed her lips together, trying to fight the panic. But that wasn’t the only thing that sent a chill through her. He knew who’d killed her husband.

The intruder didn’t answer her question. But he didn’t have to.

“I don’t have them,” she repeated.

“And I said I don’t believe you. They were in your husband’s personal items, which were later given to you by the police.”

As he moved to the smaller bedside table, his gun still pointed in her direction, another memory surfaced. A few weeks after Thomas had died someone had broken into their house while she’d been out visiting with a friend. The only things that had been taken were a few pieces of her jewelry. At the time, she’d thought it was nothing more than a random break-in, but now... What if there was another explanation? What if the thief had been looking for something specific, like three valuable paintings?