Move the Sun (Signal Bend #1)(19)

Where. She just does not exist before three months ago.”

That was certainly interesting news. Made Lilli a lot more dangerous. “It’s okay, man. Pull back. Get some rest. I’ll find what we need to know another way. No sense pushing our luck here. Who the f*ck knows who’s guarding her story.”

“When I said military grade, boss, I didn’t mean it metaphorically. Ten to one this is military protection.

I don’t know what the f*ck that means she’s hiding, but I’m sure that’s who’s helping her. Be careful.”

“Noted. Now, I’m serious. Go back and crash. You did good, my brother.”

Bart smiled gratefully and closed his laptops. He trudged to the hallway leading to the dorm rooms.

Isaac watched him go, thinking.

With a wave of his hand, Isaac called over LaVonne, one of the regular girls, who gave especially good head. She’d been lolling on one of the couches, reading a magazine. When she saw Isaac call her over, she came right away, adjusting her skirt up and her knit top down.

“Yeah, Isaac?” Nobody attached to the club called him Ike. That, he could control.

“Do me a solid, sugar, and go back with Bart, help him relax.”

She looked a little disappointed at first; Isaac figured she thought he was calling her over to service him.

But she recovered quickly and smiled. Bart was a decent looking guy, not a bad hookup for a club girl.

There were uglier patches, that was sure. “Sure thing!” LaVonne turned with a little shimmy in her hip and sashayed after him.

Isaac sighed and went behind the bar to pour himself a cup of what was clearly stale, sludgy coffee from much earlier in the morning. He was too tired to wait for a fresh pot, so he chewed on the black goo he’d oozed into his cup.

One problem addressed and not even remotely solved. On to the next. Maybe he’d have better luck there.

INTERLUDE: 1997



“Mr. Accardo, Lilli’s on Line 3 for you.”

“Thanks, Anne.”

Johnny picked up the handset and pressed the blinking button for Line 3. “Hey, Lillibell. What can I do for my little girl?” Not so little any longer. She was graduating high school in two days, and in three months, she’d be headed off to college. He and his mother would be alone.

As soon as she spoke, he knew it was trouble. “Papa, I need you to come home. It’s Nonna.”

oOo

Johnny walked up the front walk with a leaden heart. This was the second time in his daughter’s young life that he’d walked into this house when she’d been alone with the body of a woman she loved. Her mother, when she was ten. Now, eight years later, his mother. Her grandmother, her beloved Nonna, the woman who taken the place of mother in her life.

Lilli was sitting quietly on the living room sofa, still the red floral piece Mena had so carefully picked out when they’d bought the house. The living room was rarely in use, and it was strange to see Lilli, wearing jeans and a t-shirt from one of the concerts she’d been to, her hair loose and hanging mostly over her face, sitting in the center of that sofa, her face without affect. He came and sat next to her.

He picked up her hand, lying slack in her lap. “Lilli, talk to me.”

She turned her head. He’d been wrong; her face was not without affect. Her eyes were stormy with feeling. “She’s still on the floor in the kitchen. I called 911, and they came, but when they decided she was dead, they just went away. I’m waiting for someone else to come to take her away.”

Johnny could not even grieve for the loss of his mother, his beautiful, obstreperous, hovering mother, who had filled their lives with the brilliant aroma of Italian love. He would have to set that aside. His daughter was his only concern. He pulled her to his chest and held her tightly. “Tell me what happened, cara.”

“She was in the kitchen, and I was watching TV in the den. She was singing at the top of her lungs. She sounded terrible, and I couldn’t hear my show over her. I was thinking, ‘shut the f*ck up, Nonnie!’ And then she did. I heard a crash, and when I came in, she was just lying on the floor. Her eyes were open. The last thing I thought about her was that I wanted her to shut up.” She began to weep. Johnny was glad of it; the quiet calm unsettled him. It had taken her weeks to come out of a fugue like that after Mena’s death.

“Oh, cara mia. It’s not the last thing you thought about her. You’re thinking about her now. She was singing. She died happy. She died happy.”

He knew it was true. It helped to know it was true.





CHAPTER FIVE


Lilli pulled into the garage of her rented house. She’d had to go all the way to the little shopping center on the far outskirts of the St. Louis suburbs to find everything she needed. Besides the 7 Eleven, there wasn’t even a grocery in Signal Bend. But now, after spending several hours and several hundred dollars, she had a full stock of food and sundries. She had fresh linens for the bed and bath. She had the small appliances that the house had lacked—coffeemaker, toaster oven, things like that. And she had the supplies she needed adapt one of the small extra bedrooms to a room she could work in.

She opened the trunk and started hauling her purchases into the house. She supposed she could have parked on the grass, closer to the house, for the unloading, but she hadn’t thought of it. She didn’t really have a country mindset.