Page 61

T hey sped home in the dark with Julia watching the outside mirror to make sure they weren’t being followed. Traffic was light, and she updated Courtney on her vision in Gianluca’s hospital room and the drawing of her biological mother, which she’d seen in the hallway.

Julia was trying to process what happened. “So the drawings must’ve been a vision, too. But who sent it to me? Who’s trying to communicate with me?”

“Your bio mom?” Courtney sipped her coffee, holding it since the car had no cupholders.

“Maybe. Do you think she wants me to find her?” Julia felt old emotions coming back, darker ones she hadn’t had in a long time. “I mean, she did give me up. She didn’t want me.”

“Correction, she didn’t want a baby.” Courtney looked over, her expression sympathetic in the soft light from the dashboard. “You know it’s not a rejection of you , right?”

“I know it, in theory.”

“You know it. It’s the truth.”

Julia let it go. “I got a tingling, so it has to be my birth mother.”

“It’s confirmation enough for me.”

“Do you think Rossi’s daughter Patrizia is my biological mother?”

“Did the drawing in the hospital look like the self-portrait in the underground cell? Or like the baby picture on the passport?”

Julia tried to remember. She’d been so stunned that the drawing looked like her. “A little, but mostly it looked like me. I wish I’d taken pictures.” She thought a minute. “Then again, I doubt an iPhone can take a picture of a vision. Not even Apple can do that.”

Courtney shook her head. “Girl, you had two visions tonight. Maybe you should lay off the espresso.”

“Wait, I got an idea.” Julia went to her phone, opened Google Maps, and typed elementary schools near me, with a wide search radius.

The screen showed nine schools around the hospital, each with a little red droplet that reminded her of blood, a little too on the nose.

“So, there are nine elementary schools around the hospital. The next step is to research them online, then visit them first thing in the morning. It can’t be hard to find where she teaches. ”

“Maybe you should let the family investigator take it from here? You hired her.”

“No, I want to do it myself. I’ll fill her in tomorrow. Maybe she’ll have some ideas or records she can help with.”

“But what about the conspiracy? They tried to kill Gianluca. I’m worried they’re going to try to kill you.” Courtney looked over, tense. “I’m starting to think we’re in over our heads.”

“You know, we have two different things going on, like two different investigations, but what if they’re related?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we’re trying to figure out what this conspiracy is up to.

We think it has something to do with me and my inheritance.

” Julia tried to parse their situation. “And the other thing we’re trying to do is find my biological family.

Obviously, both are related to me, but there must be some other relationship between them.

They’re both mysteries, and I feel like if we solve one, it’ll help us solve the other. ”

“Why?” Courtney shrugged. “You could find your bio mom at a school tomorrow, but it wouldn’t tell us why they ran Gianluca off the road.”

Julia paused to plumb her own reasoning, then had an answer.

“I think they’re related because I got the two visions together, tonight, at the hospital.

I have to wonder, why did I get them back-to-back?

And why at the hospital? The first vision was in Gianluca’s room and it was about the conspiracy.

The second vision was in the hallway and it was about my biological family.

Whoever’s sending me these visions sent them together, in the same place, on the same night.

That’s why I’m joining them. I think somebody’s trying to tell me these things are connected. ”

Courtney listened, driving, but Julia got excited as the notion took hold.

“Helen said there are places called ‘thin places.’ They’re where the material world comes in greatest contact with the spiritual world, where the veil between the worlds is thin. They’re mostly in nature.”

“Okay.” Courtney cocked her head, listening.

“But a thin place doesn’t have to be in nature.

It could be in a place like a hospital. It could be a hospital.

” The more Julia thought about it, the more sense it made.

“Where else do life and death come into contact more than a hospital ? People are born and die there every day. There’s a nursery and a morgue. ”

“Okay, I’m with you.” Courtney nodded. “So what do we do?”

“I say we go to the schools first thing tomorrow morning and see what happens.”

“Okay, you’re the one with the Spidey sense. But what about the cops in Florence? Maybe we should go to them.”

“The problem is we have no evidence. What would we tell them? I’m a rookie medium?

I had a vision about a murder attempt by a conspiracy that includes a Tuscan cop?

My evidence is imaginary, I can’t prove anything.

The only hard fact that I’m being followed is the license plate from the white Fiat, but that alone doesn’t prove anything.

” Julia sensed she was right. “Plus if we go to the Florence police, it shows our hand to Torti. Right now he doesn’t know I suspect him.

He thinks I’m satisfied that he’s investigating. ”

“Agree, and I doubt the Florence police would believe us.”

“We’re on our own.” Still, Julia didn’t like risking Courtney’s life. “You should go back home.”

“Not without you.”

“I can’t leave Gianluca. Please, go.”

“No.”

“Courtney, please?”

“No. End of convo.”

Julia tabled it for now. Edgy, she checked the outside mirror.

Courtney downed her coffee. “Anyway, we’re not completely on our own. We have a gun.”

“Can you shoot?”

“Sure.” Courtney shrugged. “How hard can it be?”