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“I love you,” Rieta says, tracing the daisy tattoo on my arm while gazing up at me with sparkling eyes.
I breathe in sharply. “You do?”
She nods, smiling. “Me and this baby. I think they know their daddy is home. I feel so warm in my belly.”
I get down on my knees under the spray and kiss her stomach. “I’m home, baby.” I stand up and press a kiss to Rieta’s lips. “I’m home, Mama.”
Rieta strokes my hair back, and her touch feels like forgiveness, love, and safety, all wrapped up together.
Suddenly, her expression grows serious. “The police are going to come after you,” she tells me. “Whatever it takes to keep you out of jail, I’ll do it. I’m not going to lose you again.”
As Rieta predicted,the police show up at our door that very night, and they’re full of questions about how I found Harriet and brought her home.
They take my statement, and I give them a more or less truthful version that leaves out the names of the men who helped me.
The police don’t leave for hours, and I can tell that they’re highly suspicious about my involvement in Harriet’s disappearance. I expect to see them again soon, and I’m right.
The police are back the following morning.
I’m alone as I speak to them in the living room. As much as I’m grateful for Rieta’s promise to keep me out of jail however she can, I’d rather she didn’t go through the stress of speaking with the police while she’s pregnant.
“This morning we found remains at the property where you located the missing children. There wasn’t much left except teeth, and we matched those to Luca Lombardi’s dental records from a few years ago. I’m sorry, Mr. Lombardi.”
The detective doesn’t sound very sorry. In fact, his eyes are boring into mine, hoping to uncover whatever I’m hiding from him.
“It’s no loss to me. My brother and I were estranged most of our lives. I suppose his associates turned on him.” I put the remains there myself. It was too risky having them in the back garden.
The police go over and over my statements and movements again and again. For a while they focus on Paul Shields being a guest at my wedding and the fact that several people saw me leave with him. I’m sure they’d like to charge me with his death, only they don’t have any evidence. In fact, I think they’re so frustrated they’re unable to arrest anyone in Harriet’s disappearance that they’d like to charge me with something. Anything. But they’ve got nothing on me.
Or so I think.
“Have you ever put your hands on a woman in anger, Mr. Lombardi?”
“Of course not.” The lie prickles my conscience. I put my hands on Rieta in anger several times, and I regret every single occasion. Rieta has chosen to keep this matter private, and I have no wish to discuss it with the police. I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it.
The detective seems to pick up on my guilty conscience. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Lombardi?”
“Do you want to tell me what you’re really asking, or shall we keep playing guessing games?”
“We have a witness who claims that you’re involved in the trafficking of children, and when they confronted you about it, you strangled them almost to the point of unconsciousness. Is that true?”
I burst out laughing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about or who this witness is. Someone delusional, no doubt.”
The detective reaches into a briefcase for a manila folder and lays out a series of photographs on the coffee table. “So you never broke into a woman’s house in the middle of the night,shouted at her, threatened her, and left these marks on her neck?”
The photographs are close-ups of a woman’s neck. Even though they’re cropped at the chin and the collarbone, I recognize who it is right away.
“A witness?” There’s an exclamation of outrage from the hallway, and Rieta comes marching in. She must have been listening in on the interview.
“You’d better not be talking about who I think you’re talking about.” Rieta’s furious gaze lands on the photos on the coffee table, and she says something that you should never say to two detectives, especially with as much vehemence as she injects into the words.
“I’llkillher.”
25
Rieta
Manon Restaurant is an upscale restaurant in a leafy, expensive part of town. Everything is crisp white and gleaming glass and metal, and the clientele are rich. I don’t come here often. I prefer places with a more relaxed, cozy vibe, but I didn’t choose this venue for me. This venue is bait.
