After Gabe left, Dani decided to search the mansion to see if she could find the two elusive paintings her great-grandfather Luzio had brought back from The Grove nearly a hundred years before. Fausta had alluded to “secrets,” so maybe she knew they’d been stolen and not given to her ancestor as a gift. Dani wouldn’t know the truth until she found them. She frowned. And maybe not even then.
She couldn’t remember where in the house she’d seen them as a child, but they should be easy to spot; both were dark and moody, like the house, but they weren’t religious in nature, like most of La Tana’s furnishings. Instead, each depicted a woman in the midst of an extremely emotional event. She shuddered at the thought, made worse by the childhood memories that were already beginning to engulf her.
Growing up in a palazzo the size of La Tana meant learning how to run, not when any responsible adult could see her (Fausta would never have countenanced running), but whenever possible, darting past the cold, dark, sinister spaces to get to the good, warm, happy places. Dani and her parents had lived on the top floor, the only members of the family to do so. Her father had told her once it was because they were special, but now Dani realized they must have drawn the short straw in terms of accommodations.
Living at the top of the mansion meant running (and sometimes sliding) down the stairs one flight and racing all the way to the end of the north wing to Nonna Stella’s welcoming suite, where she slept when her parents were out of town.
Agnese’s room required an even longer sprint: all the way down to the ground floor and across to the opposite side of the mansion beyond the kitchen.
From the time she’d learned the estate’s name meant “The Panther’s Lair,” Dani had been afraid of the dark stretches between the light. Had she been a boy, maybe she would have relished stalking the “panthers” of the house. But for a little girl with a vivid imagination, it was all too believable that wild beasts lurked behind the doors of those gloomy, forbidding halls. And wasn’t she vindicated when one of them—of the human variety—tried to snatch her when she was fifteen? The key word, so everyone said, was “tried.” The rest, she’d been told, was merely in her head.
Now, at the age of twenty-seven, Dani set out to truly explore her childhood home for the first time. She hadn’t conjured the paintings out of her imagination; she remembered them from somewhere. No one but staff was home at this hour, so now was as good a time as any. She decided to search from the bottom up, and fully expected common sense to prevail over her childish fears.
That expectation lasted exactly two floors.
The ground floor and what Europeans called the first floor (which was logically the second floor, because didn’t the ground floor have a floor too?) posed no problem—and revealed no paintings. Those levels housed the “public” rooms the family never seemed to use. By and large they were filled with religious artwork and sculpture that somehow appeared lonely, as if the pieces had been assigned a shepherd’s task where no sheep could be found. The large front reception area, filled with wooden furniture created for short visits, smelled of vinegar and flowers past their prime. The dark paneled library, where she and Gabe had waited that first night, still reeked of musty books whose spines had probably never been cracked. Dani peeked into the ballroom and waited for memories to intrude, but none did. So much of La Tana was what architects called “transition space;” the true living areas of the house were few and far between.
It was only when Dani reached the next level up—where she and Gabe were staying, and where Aunt Ornella had died—that her heart began knocking against her chest, warning her to beware.
Why now? she thought with a tiny spurt of panic. She’d been staying at La Tana for a week—on this very floor—and hadn’t felt afraid. But she hadn’t felt quite so alone, either. Gabe had been with her, or she’d been coming or going or working; never had it been just her and…the lair. She tried to slow down her breathing. It was just a house, right? Too large and way too pretentious, maybe, but still, just a house.
At the top of the landing she paused. She heard nothing. The space felt desolate.
The mansion encompassed four wings, each of which had its own hallway, dimly lit with wall sconces. To the far right was Nonna Stella’s wing and the suite that she and Gabe shared; no need to check there. The next closest hallway housed Aunt Ornella’s rooms. One by one she poked her head in, saving her aunt’s actual bedroom for last. She doubted Ornella would have wanted the darkly themed paintings anywhere near her, but Dani hadn’t paid attention when she’d visited earlier, and she had to be sure.
The yellow tape that marked the room as a possible crime scene sagged low across the doorway. The police would not be coming back, but no one, not even Fausta, had cared enough to remove the garish sash. She gingerly opened the door, stepped over the tape and flipped on the light.
Death greeted her.
Ornella’s body was gone, of course, but the aura of loss lingered along with the slightly sour smell of a sickroom. Nothing hummed, nothing stirred. All was quiet. The bed lay empty, the soiled sheets still crumpled on top. The shelves still held the accoutrements of a life that no longer needed them: pads and tubing and small metal pans…a jar of body cream, some hand sanitizer. A person had lived in this room for many years, and even though she was ill and immobile, she still had thoughts and feelings and memories. Now there was nothing. Aunt Ornella had experienced untold sadness during her life and now even that life was gone. Dani fought past a lump in her throat. Maybe she’s with little Ciro now. She sincerely hoped that was true.
As Dani suspected, the room held no paintings. She took a moment to collect herself before moving on to the third wing, which served as her Uncle Aldo’s living quarters. Her sense of unease began to grow, and her heart, which had let her grieve briefly for her aunt, resumed its frenzied pulse. You should not be here, it seemed to say.
Pushing on through sheer willpower, Dani told herself she was doing no harm, merely touring the house. Her Uncle Aldo’s rooms were unlocked—a sure sign he wouldn’t mind her presence. Right. She found more religious artifacts and truly Spartan furnishings. Maybe Uncle Aldo considered himself a modern-day monk. Whatever he was, he was no connoisseur of Amelia Starling originals. Lia’s paintings were nowhere to be found.
That left one wing to search: Uncle Santo’s. As she forced herself to walk down the hall, memories finally began to assail her. She was ten years old and her cousin Ciro was having a family birthday party, too sick to invite outsiders. Uncle Santo stood in the main hallway, asking her to turn around and show him her new blue dress. She twirled for him and he smiled, giving her a piece of chocolate for her trouble. “You are a very pretty little girl,” he’d told her.
She walked down the hall and visions emerged of another night. She’d worn blue then, too, but her dress was daringly short and the makeup Agnese had applied to her face made her feel much older than fifteen. She’d drunk a mixture of wine, rum, and Coke, and way too much of it. Her stomach had begun to churn, like it was right now. Dani fought to keep her mind in the present, but the sights and sounds and smells of that earlier time were too powerful. She could hear the melody of the string quartet from the floor below. They were playing Verdi and she wanted so much to hear Avril Lavigne. She wanted to dance! But she had put on too much of her mother’s Chanel No.5 and the cloying scent of it was making her gag. She could hear the murmur of voices and laughter and the clink of glasses and knew she had to find her room and lie down before she threw up all over her pretty blue dress.
And she remembered the man’s arms as they came around her from behind and touched her small breasts and whispered in her ear with hot, liquor-smelling breath: “Come on, little girl. Let me show you something.”
And she was saying “No…get away…please…” and tried pushing him away but the man just gripped her tighter and forced her up against a wall and she shut her eyes as he began lifting her little skirt and rubbing himself against her…
…and a deep voice, her uncle’s voice, saying “Basta!” and the sound of a hard slap.
And the man whimpering “Mi dispiace, signore,” and nothing more…until she felt another pair of arms, around her shoulders this time, leading her to a room and a couch.
Engulfed in her memories, Dani opened the door to her uncle’s suite of rooms. A small lamp on a table cast a soothing glow over what looked like an office of some sort. She saw the same couch she’d pictured in her mind from so long ago. It was long and soft and black and her hands began to shake. She had sat on that couch, shaking like she was now, and her uncle sat next to her, brushing her hair back from her face and whispering to her that it was all right, that she would be all right now that her Uncle Santo was here. And when he left her, even for a moment, she felt alone and scared, but he came back and sat down next to her and handed her a small glass of water. Or she thought it was water, but it tasted strange. And he said it would make her feel so much better, if she would just drink it all, and she tried to, but she had already drunk so much. And then he helped her up and said, “You can lie down in my room. You’ll be safe here,” and he took her into the other room, and—
“Daniela, what are you doing here?”
Dani whirled around to see her uncle standing in the doorway. “Mio Dio!” she cried, clapping her hand to her mouth. Her stomach roiled and she thought her lungs were going to burst. “You…you scared me.”
Santo stepped into the room and closed the door. Dani’s heart beat even faster. Get control, she told herself. He can’t do anything to you. He won’t do anything to you.
“I said, what are you doing here?” He spoke the words more sharply.
“I…I…I…”
Santo walked over to a sideboard and poured himself a glass of some type of liquor from a crystal decanter. He poured another glass and handed it to Dani. “Brandy,” he said.
She took the drink with severely shaking hands and immediately set it down so she wouldn’t spill it.
“You’re obviously upset,” he said calmly. “My guess is that you were reliving that night.”
Dani swallowed hard. He’d cut right to the chase. “You…you remember what happened?”
“Of course I do.” He took a sip of his drink. “Here, why don’t you have a seat and I’ll tell you what I can—assuming you want to hear it, of course.” He gazed at her benignly.
“Yes…yes, I do want to know.” She ran her hands through her hair. “I was…I was looking for some old artwork I remembered from a long time ago, and memories just started popping up.” She looked around. No paintings. “I can’t remember anything that happened, really, except when I came in here, images started to bombard me.”
“Please sit,” he said, gesturing to his couch. He did not join her, but stood over her, exuding power. “I’m not surprised you remember being in here, because in fact, you were in here. This is where I brought you after the man tried to…have his way with you the night of the party.”
Dani nodded. That much she knew. “What did happen?”
“I had left some papers up here in my office, and when I reached this floor I saw the monster with his hands on you. I…dispatched him and brought you in here to calm you down. You were, needless to say, quite upset, not to mention extremely inebriated.”
Dani felt her face redden as long-held shame washed over her. “I remember, I felt sick. You gave me something…”
“Yes. What is that expression? A little ‘hair of the dog’ to settle your nerves.”
“And then what?”
Santo paused, his glass halfway to his lips. “What do you mean?”
“And then what happened? I don’t remember after that.”
“Ah. Well, you…you fell asleep. There was a commotion in the hall and someone knocked on the door to tell me that my father—your Nonno Ciro—had had a stroke. I had to leave you momentarily, but I sent someone to fetch you back to your room, where you spent the rest of the night.”
“My mother said you had a doctor examine me.”
Santo walked casually back to the sideboard and poured himself another shot. “Yes. My mother was a bit manic in her grief. The doctor who attended my father could do nothing more for him, so when she heard you’d been…approached…she insisted the doctor check to make sure you were all right. I tried to spare you the indignity since I had seen the incident unfold, but she would have her way.” He drank the rest of the brandy in one swallow. “She always has her way.”
“But there was nothing.”
“That’s correct. Because nothing happened.”
Dani sat quietly, trying to absorb it all. The story seemed to match her memories, but something was missing…something was incomplete.
Santo interrupted her thoughts. “I’m sorry for what happened to you at the tender age of fifteen, but I must confess I’m glad you are here now.” He pinned her with his eyes. “Have you given any thought to my proposal?”
Dani rose from the couch. As shaky as she was feeling, it was time to shift gears. She’d never be able to go “head to head” with her uncle, but she needed all the height she could get, even if it was just a few inches over five feet. “I don’t think Alberghi Paradisi is a good investment,” she began. “I—”
Her uncle’s studied benevolence dissolved in an instant. “You’ve been listening to your cousin,” he bit out. “Dante has not been running this company for the past thirty plus years—I have. I assure you I know what constitutes a good investment.”
“I was going to say, I’ve been looking at the numbers,” Dani countered. “I understand profit and loss, Uncle. I can spot trends. Dante happens to share my view, but neither he nor Nonna Stella influenced me, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I’m implying nothing,” he said, taking her arm firmly. “I’m telling you that you must vote your shares with mine to make this happen. It’s imperative.”
Dani looked down at the arm he held captive. Santo’s losing it, she thought. The situation must be worse than they all imagined. She looked directly at him and pulled her arm away. “I’m not ten years old anymore, Uncle,” she said, forcing herself to remain calm. “You can’t force me to do anything.”
“Oh can’t I?” he murmured. He stepped back.
Still quivering, she turned to leave. “Thank you…for helping me to remember.”
Santo paused, then spoke in a tone that demanded her attention. “You should know something, Daniela.”
She turned and looked at him. “What?”
“There are others, close to you, who could be adversely affected if the vote does not take place, and soon. Do you understand?” He held her gaze a moment longer than necessary before walking to the door and holding it open for her. “Oh, and those two paintings you mentioned? They are unavailable at the moment. I would appreciate it…very much…if you asked for permission the next time you come to my chambers. I would be more than delighted to invite you in.”
Dani tore her gaze away and headed back down the hall, trying desperately not to run.
Thoughts jostled for the front seat of her mind: He’s desperate. Desperate people do desperate things. He needed her vote and implied that people would get hurt if she didn’t comply.
But there was something else.
Something darker.
The paintings. How did he know which ones I was talking about? How did he know there were two of them? I never said how many. And perhaps worst of all: I didn’t see the room beyond his office.
She felt a sickness inside—the same combination of pain and horror she’d experienced in so many nightmares as a teen. Had she conjured the feelings from nothing…or were they based on a memory?
One thing she knew with certainty: the Lair would eventually give up its secrets. The truth, she feared, would be unbearable and perhaps even dangerous. One thought emerged to crowd out all the others: I cannot bear to have Gabriele caught up in this. I cannot risk him getting hurt on account of me. She swallowed a sob, and once she’d turned the corner, she ran all the way back to her suite.