Stunner (13 page)

I wish I could show Carmela the picture of Juliana at our party and definitively connect the dots between Teresa and my brother’s new girlfriend. But Carmela might still be way too jumpy, and I need more information from her.

“Do you remember the name of the woman who offered Terry the job, or maybe the name of the club?” I pull out my phone to enter the contact information. “It might help me find her.”

But Carmela shakes her head. “Can’t remember the name of the club, just that Terry said it was exclusive and lots of celebs belonged,” she says. “Don’t know the name of the lady either—sorry—but she was definitely the boss.”

“Let’s trade emails and phone numbers in case you remember something later,” I say, and she fishes out her card for me. I enter her information into my phone and text her my email.

“Did you and Terry stay in touch?” I ask.

“Like I said, Ronnie, Terry and I were never actually close.” Carmela gets up from the Cinderella Castle steps. “She did send a couple of postcards from New York right after she moved, but I haven’t heard from her or seen her since.”

Now what? Is this Manhattan club even around anymore? Where do I start? I groan.

“Hey, Ronnie, are you OK?” Carmela asks.

“I ate something weird last night,” I fib. “I have a little bit of an upset stomach.” Which I do at the mere thought of all the work ahead once I’m back in New Jersey trying to track down a private club that was big during the dot-com era and might or might not still be around. But if I get stuck, thank god I can ask Will for help.

“I can imagine the three of you as kids running around this place, playing hide-and-seek,” Juliana says. “You all had so many good places to hide.” Her tone isn’t exactly cozy, but she’s OK.

She and I stand together in the Meadow Farm cutting garden next to some purple phlox and coral-colored coneflowers, looking toward the house. I ask, “And where would you hide if you had been a child here?”

Juliana gives me a funny look and glances around. “Let’s see.” She puts her finger to her chin and then points. “How about the tree house near the side terrace?”

I look at her, surprised. Frank must have told her about our secret tree house hidden in the low branches of that huge leafy sugar maple.

Juliana has a twinkle in her eye as she gazes toward the tree that now only holds broken boards, the last remnants of our childhood hideaway. “Growing up here must have been wonderful…” She returns to selecting and snipping the stems of several of the phlox and coneflowers.

I lean against the stone wall of the cutting garden. “Frank told you about us as kids, huh? Even Peter?”

“Well, not much about Peter. Only that you haven’t seen him in years,” she says. “That’s very sad.”

“Yeah. It seems every family has some kind of drama. How about you?” I ask. “Do you see any of your family often? I remember you said you’re an only child…”

Juliana carefully lays the flowers she’s cut in a large, flat-bottomed basket. “Not all of us are so fortunate to come from a family like yours, Ronnie. That’s a gift of God.” I hear a touch of sadness in her voice.

“Where does your family live?” I ask. “Where did you grow up—”

“Questions, questions, questions.” Her tone becomes guarded. “Why do you ask so many questions? Ronnie, what is it you really want to know?”

“Just friendly curiosity—”

“Oh, look,” Juliana interrupts. “There’s Frank!” She beams and waves to him.

He signals us to come on over. “Rita just made this iced tea,” he calls out, holding a pitcher.

“You go ahead,” Juliana urges me. “I want to finish up here, and then I’ll come.” She moves to another section of the garden to examine the multi-colored cosmos and zinnias.

I walk across the small field and join Frank on the terrace. He pours a glass for me, and together we watch Juliana. It’s a lovely scene, this graceful woman working her way through the flower bed with her shears and gently adding blooms to others already in the basket.

“She looks at home here.” Frank sips his iced tea with an expression of, dare I say, bliss on his face. Uh-oh.

“She’s the perfect guest,” I throw in quickly.

“Ronnie?”

“Yes, Frank.”

His voice is quiet. “What if Jules wasn’t always a guest?”

“She’s definitely a triple-A guest over there, cutting flowers in Joanie’s garden.” I’m trying to stall what I think may be inevitable, and I keep my voice soft, too. “You always loved when Joanie cut fresh flowers from her garden. So it’s very thoughtful of Juliana.” Okay, so I mentioned Joanie twice in my little speech, as a reminder.

“Juliana is thoughtful, Ronnie,” my brother says.

“That’s great, Frank.” I suppose if I don’t want to anger him, I should bite my tongue. But I just can’t help myself. “This is such a nice, but
new
relationship for you. And given time, I’m sure the two of you will get to know each other even better.”

“We already know each other well,” he says, his tone taking on an edge.

I pick my next words carefully. “I mean
really
know each other, Frank.”

“What are you trying to say, Ronnie?” my brother asks. I think he’s struggling to keep it civil. “Just spit it out, Sis.”

I do, spit it out. “Do you know her family? Her friends? What do you know about her world? Her history?”

“Well, she doesn’t have children—”

“Are you making serious plans with Juliana?” I ask, managing to keep my voice low and glancing over at the woman in question, who is fortunately still focused on the flowers. “Like spend-the-rest-of-your-life-together plans?”

He laughs. “Ronnie, we’re not there yet…but I can foresee a time—”

“Have you thought about the financial consequences of marriage?” I blurt out. “Have you talked to her about money, or a pre-nup—” Ouch. Nothing subtle there. I’ve really stuck my foot in it this time.

“Ronnie! Enough!” His voice is sharp. “You certainly know how to be a spoilsport.”

“OK. Keep it down, Frank. You’re right. I’m sorry,” I answer. “But I’m thinking about your children, the kids you had with Joanie—”

“That’s it. We’re not discussing this any further.” My big brother gets out of his chair. “I’m fortunate to have met Juliana. Why can’t you just leave it alone? You’ve always been this way, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Now back off.” He walks directly into the house.

I glance over at Juliana, who has stopped snipping flowers and looks toward our terrace. I toast her with my iced tea glass, smiling at her, and all I can do is hope she didn’t overhear the exchange with my brother.

She nods and goes back to her flowers. Does the nod mean she heard Frank and me or she didn’t hear us? But something familiar nags at the edges of my memory as I watch her. Just like the first evening when I met her at cocktails. I can’t put my finger on it. Hmmm. I’m going to have to hurry my investigation so I can speak up, and then Frank will understand my caution.

It’s noon class now at the dojo. This time we practice with
tantos
, a word that always makes my mind flash on an image of the Indian character
Tonto
in
The Lone Ranger
. But no, this
tanto
is a wooden weapon carved to look like a dagger.

We spend the entire class working on disarming techniques. Since we switch partners every time we practice a different skill, I’ve worked with just about everyone in the room at this point.

Isabella
Sensei
demonstrates the next technique,
yokomenuchi gokyo
with Will Benson. When they finish, he turns toward me and bows. I smile as I return the bow, agreeing to train with him. His quiet charisma is appealing, making him way more attractive than any of the macho big-screen Hollywood martial arts stars out there. Focus, Ronnie!

I move toward Will with an attack intending to slice him diagonally across from one side of his head down the opposite side of his body with the pretend dagger. Rather than run for cover the way I myself would if someone came at me with a blade, Will quickly slides toward me and enters my space. As he does so, his arms come up as if he’s beginning to raise a sword.

One of his hands nearly hits my face, but I jerk back in time to avoid being struck. At the same time, Will extends the edge of his other hand between the elbow and wrist of my knife-holding arm and stops my attack.

While I try to regain my balance, the hand that first went for my face now grabs the wrist of my hand grasping the dagger, so his two arms are crisscrossed. As Will turns his body one-hundred-eighty degrees, he continues to hold onto my wrist and then clasps his other hand securely behind my elbow. My body lunges forward and down from the force of his turn with my arm twisted and stretched out straight in front of him. Will continues to drive me all the way down to the mat face first and kneels beside me. Not so gracefully, I land on my stomach and just miss getting my face smashed in.

My outstretched arm holding the
tanto
now faces palm-up as Will lifts my elbow toward the ceiling to draw my arm upward, forcing the wrist he’s gripping to bend at a ninety-degree angle, a position that can hurt like hell! I tap the mat as fast as possible, letting go of the
tanto
, which is obviously the point of the disarming technique, and he releases the pin.

I grunt and shake my wrist. “Need to talk to you after class, Will.”

“Got more info for you, too, Ronnie.” He smiles, and I try to smile also, still shaking my wrist.

At the car, he hands me a folder. “I’ve located the address of a woman on the outskirts of Scranton who may be Teresa Gonzalez’s great-aunt. If you give me the go-ahead, I’ll pay her a visit, try to find out more about Teresa. And Juliana.”

“Let’s wait on that.” I quickly flip through the folder.

He eyes me suspiciously. “Ronnie, I hope you’re not getting any smart ideas about checking this out on your own.”

I widen my eyes in a way that I hope telegraphs
whatever
.

Will doesn’t buy it. “Call me when you want to investigate or follow someone. You don’t want to end up in another alley—”

“I may be thick-headed…” I put my hands on my hips and look at him, face to face, almost nose to nose. “…but I do try to learn from my mistakes, Will.”

He raises his hands in surrender. “You’re the boss.”

“Damn straight, Will. Some things I can handle.”

~~~~~

My GPS guides me to the address that Will gave me for the great-aunt, a Mrs. Consuelo Gonzalez de Torres. The street is lined with dilapidated clapboard houses on the hilly outskirts of Scranton—I’m getting to know this town way better than I ever intended.

Quietly sitting in the van I’ve again borrowed from Daniel, I reread Will’s report on Mrs. de Torres. She’s eighty-five, widowed for thirty years, and has been living in her tan house on this street for nearly fifty. She’s the youngest sister of Teresa’s grandfather, Manuel Gonzalez, who seems to have pulled his own disappearing act around the time Theresa was growing up.

Vanishing must be in the family genes—first her grandfather, Manuel; then her father, Tony, who, according to Joe Taylor, wasn’t around as she grew up; later, her own runaway venture from the group home as Teresa; and now a possible vanishing act as Juliana with her threats of leaving the country if Bobby Taylor doesn’t back off. I worry what that would do to my brother.

Warrior sits next to me, snoozing in the passenger seat. Suddenly his head pops up, and he alerts me with a whining sound. I look out to see an elderly, grey-haired woman locking her front door. Could this be
Tía
Connie from Juliana’s phone call, the one I overheard in the library at Meadow Farm?

Mrs. de Torres carefully walks down the steps, grasping the banister with one hand and pushing something metal and flat with wheels ahead of her with the other. The metal shopping basket awkwardly clunks down, and when she gets to the bottom, she opens it up. She leans a little on the cart as she pushes it down the street. My guess is that she uses the thing like a walker to help her with her balance.

Telling Warrior to stay, I quietly exit the van to follow Mrs. de Torres at some distance. I hope my nondescript jeans and shirt plus hair stuffed under a baseball cap help me blend into the neighborhood.

The stooped octogenarian pushes her cart into a small bodega, and I enter, too, discreetly keeping an eye on her as she gathers provisions for the day. She chats warmly with various employees she seems to know well as she walks through the mini-mart, choosing bananas, grapes, and lettuce in the produce section, as well as sandwich meat at the deli counter. It doesn’t take long for a small, friendly cluster of people to clog up the narrow aisle around Mrs. de Torres, eager to help her with her groceries.

The smell of fresh-baked bread permeates the air. Sure enough, as the group continues to advise her, Mrs. de Torres spends a little time selecting the very best loaf. I pull out my phone to pretend-read a text, and inconspicuously snap off a few pictures. A girl breaks away from the assembly and dashes through swinging doors to the back of the store, calling out to the elderly woman, “I’ll check for you in the stock room, Mrs. de Torres.”

I hear the girl yelling “Frankie!” in the back, as I tuck my phone again in my pocket and ladle soup into a carryout container. Wait a minute. Is she talking about the same Frankie as
Teresa & Frankie
on the scrap of paper in the dead bird’s beak? The same as in Juliana warning Bobby Taylor to
stay away from Frankie
?

I wait impatiently while other people rush up, happy to see Mrs. de Torres. She asks them about family and whatever else is going on in their lives. They all treat her as a beloved friend.

Finally, the swinging doors fly open again and a gawky girl, all arms and legs, dashes through. My guess is she’s twelve or thirteen, probably in seventh or eighth grade.

“Hi,
Tía
Connie!” she says to the old woman, and they hug. The girl takes Mrs. de Torres’s arm. “Please let me help you.”

Hold it. Is
this
Frankie? Well, she, not he (as I thought), and Juliana appear to be connected to the same
Tía
Connie. I quickly pull my phone out of my pocket again to supposedly read another text and cautiously snap off a few more shots of Connie, this time with the girl.