An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,118

ashamed of her part in that cursed thing. He couldn't imagine why she was bringing it up now, but he wouldn't let the shock of their finding her father's remains lead her to make admissions that would only hurt her. His conscience couldn't take the added weight of that too. Tears stung the back of his eyes and the bile churned inside his belly.

"Johnny - "

"No, Tea."

Impatient as usual, Joey called out again. "Well, if somebody has something more to say, they better say it right now now."

It was Beppe Cirigliano, Rachele's father, who spoke up first.

"I killed him. God help me, it was an accident, but I killed my best friend. I killed Sal."
Chapter Thirty-Six
"You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" Dean Martin This Time I'm Swingin' (1960)

Rachele rocked back as if her father had struck her with his fist. "Papa?"

He took a step toward her, then halted. "My little girl. My Rachele. I never wanted you to know I killed Salvatore."

Tea's mother, Bianca, tried to put her arm around him. "Beppe, you must not be feeling well."

He spun away from her touch, his lumbering movements making him look like an overwound mechanical bear. "It's true, Bianca. I killed Sal."

"Beppe?" Old Mr. Caruso could have been carved from stone. His voice was hard too. Cold and hard. "Calmati. Get ahold of yourself."

Rachele's father laughed. "I haven't had ahold of myself in sixteen years."

Rachele crossed to her father. He didn't know what he was saying. He must be sick. "Let me take you home, Papa. After a good night's sleep - " She reached for his hand.

He jerked away from her and she froze, stung by the rejection. But he'd been rejecting her for years, she reminded herself. She'd just been too immature to see it clearly.

"It's been eating at me all this time," he said, looking at Tea's mother. "I know you won't understand, Bianca, but I thought I was helping you."

"By killing Sal?" she answered, her voice faint.

Eve moved to stand beside her mother, but Joey seemed transfixed, all her earlier attitude gone. Mr. Caruso's stiff posture gave nothing of his emotions away. Rachele felt as frozen as Johnny and Tea looked.

"I was working on the rockwork around the lagoon," her father said, his gaze still on Bianca. "It was getting dark and I'd sent the other laborers home, but I had cement mixed in my wheelbarrow that I wanted to use before I called it a day. Then Sal showed up. He'd been in Vegas the past week and said he'd stopped in at your house, but you and the girls were out shopping so he came here."

He looked down and shook his head. "You know Sal. Couldn't stand to be alone with his own company. Always had to have some action going - somebody to talk to or something to do."

His head came up and he looked over at Cosimo. "Remember that, Mr. Caruso? Sal was always the life of the party. Hell, he was the party. I always loved that about him."

"I remember, Beppe," Mr. Caruso said, his voice soft. "I know you loved him. So what happened that day?"

"Night," Beppo corrected. "It was almost night. I'd been working a lot of hours because the house seemed so empty with my Maria gone. Rachele was invited to a friend's for dinner. There wasn't any reason for me to hurry." He stared off into the distance. 'The house seemed so cold and empty without Maria."

Her mother would have been dead for about a year, Rachele thought. Taken by pancreatic cancer that had been as quick as it was deadly. Rachele's only real memory of her mother was a white face on a white pillowcase. Pale lips, pale, chapped lips, that had smiled at Rachele even while her eyes had filled with tears. 'Take care," she'd whispered. 'Take care of Papa." And Rachele had tried to live by that promise.

"Beppe, we know you were hurting over Maria," Bianca said. "Sal and I both worried about you."

His head swung toward her and he smiled. Rachele couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him smile. "You were so good to me, Bianca. To me and to Rachele. Always. It's why I couldn't stand what Sal was doing."

"What was he doing?" Cosimo Caruso asked. "What bothered you, Beppe?"

His smile faded away. "I don't want to say."

"It was a woman," Bianca said, her voice matter-of-fact. "I always knew when there was another woman."

"But they didn't mean anything to him," Rachele's father protested