Page 64

T he next morning, Julia and Courtney were back in the car, heading to the first school on the list. Julia had barely slept worrying about Gianluca and hadn’t been able to communicate with him.

Toward morning, she’d texted Raffaella about how he was doing but hadn’t heard back.

She was barely able to focus on the day ahead, as astounding as it was to be close to finding her birth mother.

The Tuscan scenery whizzed past, a blur of golden sunshine, rolling vineyards, cypress trees, and stone villas, but Julia was glued to the outside mirror, on the lookout for the white Fiat, the white van, and a police cruiser.

She’d stowed the gun in the glove box, but the fact they needed it gave her no comfort.

Julia’s phone pinged with a text, and she startled, checking the screen. “It’s Raffaella! She texted me back.”

“Read it to me.”

Julia read the text aloud:

My brother is doing a little worse. His temperature is up. They continue his antibiotics.

“Oh no.” Julia’s chest tightened. “What does a ‘little worse’ mean? I hate this. I wish I could see him. Do you think we could try at the end of the day?”

“Sure, can’t blame a girl for asking.”

“Let me text her back.” Julia typed:

Thank you so much. Please give my love to your parents. We will stop in at the end of the day.

Courtney braked at a red light, glancing over. “Lose the ‘so much.’ You’re worse than my mom.”

“I want her to like me.”

“Too late.”

They reached Scuola Elementare di Biaggio, a small stone schoolhouse in Biaggio, a hill town like Croce. Cypress trees screened the parking lot from the road, and when they pulled up, Julia and Courtney could hear children on a playground behind the school.

They parked, got out of the car, and headed for a shiny red lacquer door. Julia pressed a doorbell in a recessed squawk box, and in the next moment, a woman started speaking in rapid Italian.

Julia leaned close to the box. “I’m sorry, I only have English, but I need to come to the office. It’s about one of the teachers. It’s very important.”

“Come in,” said the woman, and a buzzer sounded. Julia opened the door, and they found themselves in a large, tiled foyer that led to a wide hallway, an older building renovated to accommodate the school. The office was to the left under a door that read UFFICIO .

They crossed to the door, opened it, and entered the office, which had high ceilings, ornate crown molding, and white plaster walls.

A modern counter of blond wood divided the public area from a staff of three women, who were working on computers in front of a mismatched line of file cabinets. An Italian flag stood in the corner.

“May I help you?” asked one of the women, who looked up, rose, and walked to the counter with a pleasant smile. She had dark hair in a long braid that rested on her shoulder, and she wore a flowered shirt with a denim skirt.

Julia introduced herself and Courtney, then said, “I’m here on a personal matter. I’m adopted and I believe my birth mother might be one of your teachers.”

The woman’s eyebrows flew upward. “What is her name?”

The other women stopped working and exchanged astonished glances.

Julia answered, “It might be Patrizia Rossi or Patrizia Ritorno. She may not even know her real name.”

“ Davvero? ” The woman gasped, and the other women burst into excited chatter.

“She took her class on a field trip to a hospital, I assume recently. She’s about fifty-something and she looks like me. Oh, and she’s a good artist.”

“Excuse me.” The woman left the desk and crossed to the other women, then they all started clacking away in Italian. The woman returned, smoothing her hair into place. “We’re sorry for your situation. We’re afraid no teacher here fits your description.”

Julia’s heart sank. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. We have three teachers in their fifties. None look like you.”

“Did any class here take a field trip to a hospital?”

“No.”

Julia tried another tack. “Do you know if any other elementary schools visited the hospital recently?”

“No.”

Damn. Julia managed a smile. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”

“Good luck.” The woman smiled back, with genuine sympathy, and Julia felt touched. They left the office, then the school, and regrouped outside on the steps.

Julia straightened, hopeful. “Well, we have a bunch more schools.”

“To the Ferrari!” Courtney said, raising a fist.

Three hours later, they’d visited three picturesque Tuscan hill towns like Croce, each a cluster of stone houses with red tile roofs set above valleys lush with vineyards, olive groves, sunflowers, and lavender.

They’d visited three more elementary schools and met scores of sympathetic women, but they hadn’t found Julia’s birth mother.

None of the office staff knew a teacher who looked like Julia, or a class that had gone to a hospital.

Julia and Courtney sat in the car at the parking lot of the fourth school, in another small hill town called Vincenza.

They were waiting for the carpool lane to clear, since primary students went home for lunch.

Adorable boys and girls streamed from the school into the open arms of happy moms, dads, and babysitters with strollers.

Julia watched them, hoping she’d get that lucky someday. She wondered if most people knew how blessed they were in a family. “We still have plenty of schools to go, right?”

“Absolutely. We’ll find her.”

Julia consulted her list, which she kept on her phone in Notes, organized geographically.

The first half of the list were schools on the northern side of the hospital, and the second half were on the southern side, closer to Croce.

“At this rate, we’ll get through half of them today.

We’ll have an answer either this afternoon or tomorrow. ”

Courtney smiled. “Exciting!”

“Totally.” Julia smiled back, rallying. She’d kept an eye in the rearview mirror the entire morning. “I saw only a few white vans, and they weren’t the same because they had windows. I saw a white Fiat, driven by an old lady, and there were no police cars.”

“So we’re not being followed—” Courtney stopped abruptly, her eyes flashing with alarm.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Courtney signaled Be quiet , then started feeling around the dashboard.

Julia realized that Courtney was checking the car for cameras, which made sense given the cameras in the house. Julia should’ve thought of it herself, but she’d been too preoccupied. Courtney motioned to her to keep talking, but Julia got a better idea.

“Court, I have to use the bathroom. I’m going back inside.”

“No problem.” Courtney finished the dashboard and started running her fingers along the seam at the roof.

Julia got out of the car, closed the door, and went to the back of the car to see if it had a tracker. She felt underneath the bumper, starting on the right and moving to the middle. She didn’t feel anything. She kept going to the driver’s side.

There. Julia felt something hard and plastic. She slid her phone out of her jeans, tucked it underneath the bumper, and took a few pictures. She pulled the phone out and checked the photos.

Damn. There was a black plastic square under the bumper, and it looked new.

Courtney got out of the car, closed the door, and came toward her with a frown. “I found a microphone near the visor. A bug, not a camera.”

Julia held up the picture. “Is this a tracker?”

Courtney nodded. “Fuck these guys.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Julia’s mind raced. “The tracker is new and that means it was put in recently. In other words, Rossi didn’t do this. My guess is the bug in the car and the cameras in the house were installed by the conspiracy. We know Anna Mattia and Piero would’ve let them in.”

Courtney pursed her lips. “So we can’t talk in the car anymore.”

“Right, and we can’t talk in the house, either. How will we live if we can’t talk? We’re us.”

Courtney smiled. “Did you just joke about a life-and-death situation?”

Julia smiled back. “I think so.”

“You’re not afraid?”

“Oh, I’m afraid, but I’m not stopping.” Julia felt a new determination, deep inside. “I didn’t come this far just to come this far.”

Courtney grinned. “That’s my girl! You’re back, baby!”

Julia burst into laughter, hugging her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Hey, it’s lunchtime, isn’t it? I’m hungry.”

“Me, too. Let’s go eat our feelings.”

“With fries.”

“I don’t think they have fries in Tuscany.”

“They better. You know what I miss?”

“Paul?”

“No, ketchup.”