SIXTY-SEVEN

“MATT! What took you so long?”

“So long? I got here from my Red Hook warehouse in one hour, in heavy traffic, in the pouring rain!”

Matt didn’t have to tell me it was pouring outside. As he stepped into my apartment, he shook off his yellow slicker and water sprayed everywhere.

“It’s been over an hour, and you should have been here sooner.” I jumped clear of the Matt monsoon. “Did you stop along the way?”

“Only once.” He held up a speeding ticket.

“Great,” I called from the kitchen. “I hope Emmanuel Franco didn’t write that.”

“No, it was some other poliziotto fascista.”

“So you weren’t actually speeding?”

“Yes, of course, I was speeding! I was trying to get here! And I’d appreciate your leaving the Mook’s name out of our conversations from this day forward . . .” Shaking his shaggy dark hair, Matt continued shedding water like a wet dog. “So when can I see this security camera recording?”

I handed him a fistful of paper towels. “As soon as we mop up Lake Allegro.”

While we dried the flood, I told Matt about Gus being poisoned, Hunter’s arrest for the crime, and Sophia’s more than understandable freak-out.

By now, the poor woman was passed out in my bedroom.

In the hour and twenty minutes it took Matt to drive here, I’d even convinced her to have actual food—a smart idea on top of all that whiskey and a single Pretty in Pink cookie. And since I wanted to provide something delicious and nutritious for her, I whipped up a big batch of my Pumpkin Alfredo, which also made good use of the leftover pumpkin puree from my morning baking. The beautiful pastel orange fettuccine had all the buttery fall flavor of pumpkin ravioli and the rich and decadent creaminess of regular Alfredo, but with more fiber and vitamins from the winter squash.

After swooning over the bowl and inhaling the mound of pasta, Sophia showered in my upstairs bath and borrowed a change of clothes: a pair of my jeans with a belt notched tightly enough to hold the roomier size on her slender frame. And because chic styling was second nature to her, she automatically knotted my oversize T-shirt, adjusting it cleverly enough for a casual-girl-at-home magazine spread.

By the time I finished cleaning the dishes, she was sleeping soundly on my bed, Java and Frothy curled up, almost protectively, on either side of her.

Fortunately, she left my laptop linked to the jewelry store’s security system, and the software was user-friendly. I jumped around a bit to confirm my suspicions, then I sent several screen grabs to my printer.

I’d just finished up when I heard my waterlogged ex at the front door . . .

After mopping up the rainwater, we moved to the kitchen, where I ran the footage of Madame and the mystery man in the white suit.

“That’s got to be the guy from Rome,” Matt said, pacing the length of the counter. “The blackmailer Hunter talked to you about, don’t you think?”

“Yes, and so does Sophia. But we don’t have his name, or the name of the others I saw in that same car—the thuggish guy with the U-shaped cheek scar or that fashionista with the cat glasses, a woman who is suspiciously close to the same height as the Phantom.”

“The Phantom? Another comic book character?”

“The Phantom is how I think of that figure in the black raincoat, the one who ran me down on the day Gus was poisoned.”

“Do you think this woman poisoned him?”

“It’s possible, but we need more answers. And real evidence.”

Matt bent over the screen, squinted, and shook his head. “I can’t make out the license plate on the car. The angle is wrong.”

“The question is: Do you believe your mother is in danger?”

“I don’t know, Clare, we could be overreacting . . .”

I had to admit, I was leaning in that direction. While waiting for Matt, I had calmed down from my initial emotional response and tried to think things through logically.

“It’s possible the man in the white suit only wanted information from your mother and simply took her for a drive and maybe to dinner. Whatever Gus and this blackmailer told her may have been deeply upsetting to her, especially if it involved your late father. Maybe she decided to get out of town for a while to think things through. She could have hopped a plane to visit a friend—she has them all over the world. And if she did, she’ll be in touch soon, right?”

“I guess so. My mother does act on impulse.”

“Not unlike her son.”

“And she’s often taken trips at a moment’s notice—or no notice.”

“Ditto.”

“She could have taken off for Europe or Brazil or Bali—”

“So we could either wait another twenty-four hours to hear from her, or we could call the police now. What do you want to do?”

As Matt started pacing again, he noticed the extra Pumpkin Alfredo on the stove. Grabbing a fork, he began eating straight out of the pot.

“Mmm . . . this is good,” he absently garbled, shoveling in the food.

Hungry much?

“Matt?” I prompted. “You can eat your feelings but there’s no time to chew on this decision. Should we wait? Or err on the safe side and call the police now?”

I could see he hated the idea of calling the police, because (frankly) he hated the “fascist” polizia. Not so much Mike Quinn, not after all that Quinn had done for him in the past. But Franco and those false arrests Matt had been subjected to were another matter, along with every cop who ever wrote him a speeding ticket, every corrupt official he’d had to pay off in the developing world, and . . . authority figures in general.

Which is why I knew how worried Matteo Allegro truly was when he finally said—

“Let’s call the police.”

Just then, my smartphone alerted me to a new message.

“Esther is texting me from downstairs,” I said, scanning the words.

“What is it?”

I met Matt’s gaze. “Looks like the police came to us.”