Whispering Bones (15 page)

“Julia, do as I say!”

The belt struck Serafina again, and she pushed her daughter out of the room. “Go!”

When she was certain Julia was out of harm’s way, Serafina turned to face Alberto. Her fear rose when she observed the way he shook with rage and the wild look in his eye, but unable to control her own anger, she shouted, “How dare you!”

Her husband raised the belt again and she reached out to stop him. He blocked her with his free hand and brought the heavy leather belt down, striking her across the face with it.

“I’ll teach you to interfere!” Another blow landed on her neck.

She twisted out of his grip and circled the table to get out of reach. Rossi chased her, lashing out at her with the belt as he went, hitting her back, her face, her arms and legs. Serafina bolted from the room, but he caught her before she got to the stairs and dragged her by the hair back to the kitchen. Suddenly, she was on the floor, the belt rising and falling, rising and falling.

The blows stopped. Barely conscious, she looked up through swollen eyes to see Alberto rubbing his shoulder, as if his arm had become sore from the effort of using the belt on her. A second later, he dropped the belt and walked away, entering his study and slamming the door shut behind him.

Serafina stumbled to her feet and worked her way to the cupboard. From the drawer, she grabbed the large deboning knife, carrying it with her to the staircase. Blood ran down the front of her dress from her nose and mouth. She touched her swollen face and winced. Although she couldn’t bear the thought of her children seeing the condition she must be in, she was also terrified the madman who had once been her husband would try to harm them again. Once upstairs, Serafina called through the locked bedroom door and Julia opened it. Her daughter stopped snuffling and burst into frightened tears when she saw her.

“
Shhh
, it’s all right.” She put the knife on a nearby dresser and pulled her daughter close after locking the heavy door behind them. Vittorio sat on the bed hugging his knees, his eyes wide with fear.

“You’re bleeding, Mamma,” Julia said.

“I’m all right. Listen to me.” She crouched to get at eye level with her daughter. The raised red welt across Julia’s cheek caused her anger to surge again, but she kept her voice level as she said, “For tonight, we will stay together here, with the door locked. After your father is gone tomorrow morning, we will leave, and we will not be returning.”

Julia nodded in understanding and Serafina brushed the child’s tears away. She called Vittorio to her and the three of them huddled together, comforting each other. Then Serafina put her children to bed. After they were tucked in and no longer crying, she retrieved the knife from the dresser and dragged a chair next to the door. Serafina sat, holding the large knife in her lap. She intended to stand guard all night, until Alberto left in the morning. And if he tried to enter the room to hurt them again, she
would
find a way to stop him.

* * * *

The front door slammed shut and Serafina woke with a start. Something was wrong with her eyes. She couldn’t seem to open them more than a sliver and her head throbbed mightily. The memory of what had happened the previous night flooded in, and she jumped from the chair where she’d fallen asleep during the night. Daylight had broken. She moved to the window, pulling the curtain back a fraction, to see Alberto walking down the street in the direction of the docks. In his hand, he carried a large valise.

Thank God! She would gather what she could, and while her husband was on the island, she would take the children and leave.

Julia and Vittorio still slept and she left them for the time being to get their things together. As she passed the mirror on the bedroom wall, Serafina caught her reflection and stopped in her tracks. The face staring back at her was a pulpy mess of swollen eyes and unrecognizable features. One side of her face had begun to turn purple and dried blood encrusted her nose and mouth. She swallowed hard, telling herself she would get to a doctor once she and her children were safely out of the house. Where they would go, only God knew, but she would not risk their lives by staying under the same roof as Alberto for another minute.

She dragged herself downstairs to retrieve the travel luggage from the closet, driven by a sense of urgency. At the bottom of the stairs, she spied a cream envelope on the front hall stand and walked over. Her name was scrawled across the envelope in Alberto’s handwriting. With trembling hands, she lifted the flap and removed the note to read what he had written. There was no salutation, only:

I have decided to take up residence on the island in order to work undisturbed. What you fail to understand, in your usual self-centered manner, is that my work is of paramount importance. My work is everything. I can no longer tolerate the distractions in this unruly household. You and the children will need to fend for yourselves until I see fit to return, if ever.

Alberto

Serafina stared at the note incredulously. She could only conclude her husband had indeed lost his mind.

At the same time, relief washed over her. Alberto had been carrying a valise. He would not be returning tonight, and probably not anytime soon, judging from the words he had written. She had no money of her own and no idea where she could go with the children. Alberto’s leaving would give her an opportunity to correspond with her sister in Genoa. Possibly, she and the children could live with her sister’s family for a while, at least until she had a better idea of how she might be able to support herself and her children. Her marriage, she knew, was irrevocably over. Whatever shred of emotion she may have once harbored for Alberto had withered and died last night.

She returned upstairs and cleaned herself up as best she could. After checking on the children, she left them sleeping upstairs to walk down the street to Sophia’s house. It would be humiliating to have her friend see her like this, but Sophia’s husband was a locksmith. Sophia, she felt sure, would be able to convince him to change the locks on her doors as a favor to her, no questions asked. Just in case. If Alberto decided to return, she had to make sure there would be no repetition of what had happened last night.

Poveglia Island

Present Day

Anna turned south past the grove of poplar trees and ran headlong into Alejandro.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

“I found something,” she said in a shaky voice. “You’d better come have a look.”

She led the way back to the spot where she had discovered the skull and pointed it out to him.

A look of surprise crossed his features when he saw it. “Jesus Christ. Where—”

“I found it sticking out of the ground over there.”

Alejandro’s face turned grim as he moved to the small excavation. He bent and brushed away more of the earth with his hands.

A few minutes later he uncovered another bone, part of the skeletal remains of whoever had been buried there.

“This doesn’t look recent,” he said. “These bones have been here a long time.”

They looked at each other. When no answers fell out of the sky, Anna said, “What do we do?”

“We’ll have to contact the police and advise Falcone as soon as we get back to the mainland. The fact we’ve uncovered human remains is a matter for the authorities,” he said.

“Damn that driver,” Anna muttered. If he had stayed with them, they could have gone back to the mainland now. As it was... Her eyes remained glued to the skull, the empty eye sockets staring back at her accusingly, as if demanding to know why she had torn it from its resting place.

“Let’s get away from this thing. We can discuss what to do in the trailer,” he said, taking her by the arm and leading her away.

As they made their way back, a dark mass of storm clouds moved in their direction, suffocating the day’s light. Or maybe the sky just looked ominous because of what she had uncovered. She extracted a cigarette from the pack she’d slipped into her jeans pocket that morning, but her hand shook so badly she couldn’t get the cigarette lit. Alejandro took the lighter from her trembling hand to assist.

“Didn’t know you smoked.” He returned the lighter to her.

She tucked the lighter back in her pocket. “Only after digging up skeletons.”

He smiled at her weak attempt at humor, but it was not a lively smile.

Something occurred to her. “Do you think... Do you think what we found might have something to do with...”

Alejandro studied her. “The apparition you saw?”

She nodded.

“I doubt it. I’m no expert, but the bones looked too large to belong to a child.”

They arrived at the trailer. Inside, Alejandro searched around in the cabinet over the small fridge and retrieved the bottle of cognac he’d discovered the previous day. He grabbed a couple of plastic cups from the shelf and poured a dollop of the amber liquid into each. “Here.” He handed one to her. “Drink this. I think we could both use it.”

She took a swallow and allowed its warmth to spread through her.

“I don’t like this place,” she blurted. “There’s something wrong with this island. I can
feel
it.”

At that exact moment, her grandmother’s warning popped into her head.
Jesus
. Had she known something about the island? She had put her grandmother’s remarks down to her concern Anna wouldn’t be around to visit. Maybe if she had spent more time trying to find out the reason for her grandmother’s reaction, she might have learned something.
Damn
it
. Anna yanked her phone from her purse, just in case. It was still dead.

Alejandro sat next to her on the couch and put an arm around her shoulder. “I promise you, this will all be straightened out. The police will investigate. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I wish we could leave now,” she said miserably.

He looked pensive for a moment. Then he said, “I’m going to walk over to the landing. Yesterday the
carabinieri
were patrolling the waters nearby. If they’re doing the same today, I might be able to get their attention and flag them down. If I’m able to, then we can report what we found to them and go back to the mainland on the police boat.”

Thank God one of them was thinking clearly. “Good idea... I’ll come with you,” she said. The sense that they should leave the island seemed suddenly overwhelming.

“No, you’re still shaking. Why don’t you stay here and try to relax for a few minutes? If they’re nearby and I manage to get their attention, I’ll come right back for you. I won’t be long. Ten, fifteen minutes tops.”

Anna glanced nervously at her watch. It was just going on eleven o’clock.

“All right. But hurry back,” she added, giving him a small smile.

He looked at her for a moment, then without warning, he leaned toward her. She didn’t draw back, and they joined in a warm kiss that deepened before he pulled away. She felt safe with him and some of her tension melted.

“I won’t be long. We’ll be back on the mainland before you know it, and all this will be behind us.”

After he left, Anna watched him from the trailer window until he disappeared onto the path leading to the landing. She gathered their things and sat down to wait, telling herself Alejandro would manage to flag down the vessel and return with the police in tow.

When twenty minutes passed and still Alejandro did not appear, apprehension crawled back in. She lit another cigarette and waited ten more minutes. Finally, nervousness drove her outside to go in search of him. Maybe he was having trouble getting the attention of the police vessel. She followed the path to the landing, not liking the look of the bruised sky overhead.

Alejandro was nowhere in sight when she arrived at the dock. She called out to him, but only the deafening silence of the island responded.

The wind picked up. She scanned the dull water, and spotted a speck in the distance that might have been a boat, but it was too far away to tell. Even so, she yelled at the top of her lungs and jumped up and down, waving her arms. A second later, the speck disappeared.

Small whitecaps had formed on the water, and she didn’t spot any other boats. Looking around again, she called out for Alejandro in a loud voice. Why didn’t he answer? He should have heard her, if he was anywhere nearby. Could he possibly have gone back to examine the bones they’d uncovered? She turned around and set off at a trot for the north shore, calling for him as she went. In passing, she peeked inside the trailer, but he had not returned, and she continued on her way.

Moments later, she arrived at the small excavation and came to a standstill, blinking in surprise. She did not see Alejandro, but...

She stared at the ground in disbelief. The skull. It was no longer there. Had Alejandro taken it with him? Why?

The forest loomed next to her, unnaturally silent and shadowy. She called out again.

Where had he gone? Why didn’t he answer?

Anna took off at a run, turning south to travel down the east side of the island. She called out as she went, scanning the field on her right for him. Nothing. She came full circle and arrived back at the trailer.

When she yanked the trailer door open to find he still had not returned, a premonitory sense that something had happened to him hit her hard.
It’s this place
, she told herself. Her insides clenched with worry. She knew Alejandro would have answered if he heard her calling. Where could he be? She turned and focused her attention on the old hospital complex. Maybe he’d gotten curious, like she had yesterday, and had decided to explore one of the unlocked buildings. Anna hoped like hell that was the case, even though her gut screamed at her that something else entirely had happened, something not good.

She headed for the building nearest the trailer, the office she had entered the day before, worried sick now. The door creaked loudly on its hinges when she opened it. Anna slipped inside, leaving the door open behind her. The empty room looked exactly as it had the day before. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed. She walked the length of the room and opened a door leading into a bathroom of sorts, with an old cast iron tub. Also empty. She turned and went back outside.