The Raven (The Florentine #1)(31)

Batelli and Savola knew her legal name. But they’d seen her Uffizi identification card and knew she was called Raven.

The intruder seemed to want to steer clear of the police, for whatever reason. He certainly hadn’t learned her legal name through someone who knew her. At least, not someone who knew her in Italy. In Florida, it would be a different story.

Horror stabbed through her.

What if he talked to . . .

She couldn’t finish the thought.

No, there was no point in entertaining the possibility. Florida was far away and so was any trace of her former life. Even her diplomas displayed her chosen name. If he’d opened the bottom drawer to her dresser, he would have found them, still encased in protective sleeves.

Putting the pillow and quilt aside, she stood in the center of the bedroom and took stock of her surroundings. The drawers to her dresser were closed, as was the door to her closet. Nothing seemed amiss, with the exception of the missing sketch and . . .

Her gaze alighted on the nightstand, on which were stacked several of her favorite books. She noticed the volume of the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe had been moved from the bottom of the stack to the top. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had been demoted to second place.

Once again, she wondered if, in a moment of distraction, she’d moved the C. S. Lewis book herself. It didn’t occur to her to ask what, if anything, the intruder had against lions, witches, and/or wardrobes.

Raven rubbed her eyes in frustration. She had to report to work in a few hours, but she was too upset to go back to sleep.

With a sigh of resignation, she sat at her desk and opened her laptop. She’d catch up on her e-mail, which she’d been ignoring. When she logged in, she found a number of new messages, including one from her sister.

Hi Rave,

I tried calling you through FaceTime, but you never answer. Are you avoiding me?

Mom’s wedding was beautiful. It’s too bad you missed it.

Stephen is really nice. He was a plastic surgeon before he retired. He and Mom just moved into a big house on the ocean.

Raven paused her reading to roll her eyes.

Since you won’t respond to Mom’s e-mails, she asked me to ask you to come home for your birthday. She’ll pay for your ticket and you can stay with me and Dan. Did I mention that we moved in together? I can’t remember.

Mom wants to introduce you to Stephen and his kids. They’re older than us—married with kids of their own. His son is a doctor and his daughter is a dentist.

Come home for a visit. We miss you. We can celebrate your birthday and I’ll show you all the great hot spots in Miami.

You haven’t seen Mom in years and I think it’s time you two got over the past. I like Stephen a lot and he makes Mom happy. I think you’d like him, too, if you gave him a chance.

Dan is planning to take me to Europe to celebrate our two-year anniversary. I’m hoping we’ll be coming over in the middle of June. We’ll stay in a hotel, of course, but I’d like to visit you in Florence. Whether we visit Florence or not, I still want you to come to Miami.

Hey, what happened to that guy you had a crush on? I can’t remember his name. Did you ever ask him out?

Let’s talk soon.

Love,

Cara

XO

Raven sat back from her computer, resisting the urge to send a terse and angry reply.

She loved her sister more than anyone, but they had lived radically different lives. Carolyn was seven years younger, so she didn’t remember their father or the happy life they’d had as a family living in New Hampshire. She certainly didn’t remember the accident.

Raven took a moment to muse on the way her mind always attached a euphemism to the event that had disabled her. She flexed her feet beneath the desk, reminding herself that whatever she called it, its effects had disappeared. That fact alone made her more positively disposed to her mother, but barely.

When Carolyn was old enough, Raven had told her what had happened. Carolyn, to her credit, had listened carefully. But her memories were so at odds with Raven’s account, she had trouble believing it.

On one level, Raven viewed Carolyn’s lack of memory as a good thing, so she didn’t revisit the subject. She remained silent, even in the face of their mother’s revisionist history.

But she refused to see her mother, speak with her, or be in the same room as her until she acknowledged the truth. Which meant she hadn’t seen her mother since she’d left home for college over ten years earlier.

As for Carolyn’s question about her old crush on Bruno, who was her neighbor’s grandson, well, of course it had come to nothing. She’d almost forgotten about it, and him, given the previous day’s events.

Hi Cara,

It’s good to hear from you.

I’ll think about coming to Miami, but if I do, I’ll pay my own way. I won’t be seeing Mom. She knows why. There’s no point in getting into it.

As for your visit, it would be great to see you. But things are really busy at the moment. Let’s talk later about this, okay? I’m swamped at work.

I love you,

Rave

Raven sent the e-mail and closed her laptop, not bothering to scroll through the rest of her in-box.

She walked to the bathroom, putting thoughts of her troubled family life aside.

She wondered why some unnamed group would take an interest in her. She wasn’t going to abandon everything she’d worked so hard for, just because a mysterious criminal with connections to a secret association told her to leave the city.