A Wicked Song - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,37
before your first show I attended. Another last night around three AM. I never get hang-up calls.”
His brows furrow. “Do you think it was Gio?”
“Why call and hang up? And the first call was different than the second. It seemed like someone was there, on the line for a few seconds. I actually thought maybe it was Sofia, but the minute I said her name, the caller hung up.”
“And the second call?”
“Voicemail of just static before it went dead.”
“You need to be with me at my place and Walker needs to be actively involved until we find Gio.” His brows dip and he lifts his chin toward the painting. “Is there a safe behind it?”
“Not that I know of but apparently there’s a lot that was going on with Gio that I didn’t know about.”
“Let’s find out,” he suggests. “If you don’t mind me taking it off the wall.”
“No, of course not. Please do.”
I scoot back and lean on the desk while Kace lifts the side of the painting and rotates to face me. “I don’t have to take it down. There’s nothing there, but the hook is slightly pulled out of the wall. The painting’s too heavy for the frame. That’s probably why it tilted.”
I grip the edge of the desk and nod, a stab of disappointment inside me. For a moment, just a moment, I’d thought we were onto something. I’d thought we were closer to finding Gio.
But I was wrong.
I’m back to Kace’s comment moments before. “You said that if you already suspected that I was Aria Stradivari and you saw this painting, you’d have known you were right.”
“Absolutely. And Aria and Gio aren’t common names. Your mother should have changed your names.”
“I asked her about that when I was old enough to understand the implications.”
He leans on the desk next to me. “And?”
“She said she hit some roadblocks changing our names and didn’t know how to get around them.”
“I imagine she didn’t know who to trust.”
“Considering she trusted no one, I’d agree. She used her middle name. She had her birth certificate and no one she trusted to help her change her name in any other way. She never got a driver’s license.”
“Which is easy to get away with in New York City.”
“Exactly. That’s what she said. That’s one of the reasons she chose New York for us to live. She’s from Texas. She said New York was far from Texas and an easy place to get lost in, but unfortunately not an easier place to be poor.”
“One of the most expensive cities in the country.”
“Her plan seemed to work, though,” I point out. “We came here when I was eleven. I’m twenty-eight. No one found us. Until Gio crawled out of the hole. Sofia approached him, not the other way around. You got that from the Nancy interaction, right?”
“Or maybe Gio went hunting and found her. He lured her to him and then away from you.”
“And that means what?”
“She thinks she’s the lion and he’s the gazelle and it might just be the opposite.”
This assessment brings me hope that Gio is alive and it also has me silently vowing to never, ever be the gazelle again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Once we’re cozy and warm inside Kace’s fancy car, he glances at the clock. “It’s almost six now. How about I order the food so it can be waiting for us?”
“My stomach approves. I’m actually starving.” My phone buzzes with a text and I pull it from my coat pocket to glance at the screen. “I almost forgot. We need to detour to the pharmacy first. They just sent me a message to tell me my prescription is ready.” I motion to the upcoming street. “Turn right here, please. The Duane Reade pharmacy I go to is a block up.”
“Pharmacy?” he asks, casting me a worried look.
“Yes,” I say primly, trying not to smile. “My doctor approved me starting on the pill.”
“Really?” His eyes light like a kid in a candy store about to indulge.
“Yes. But,” I quickly warn, “I have to be on it for seven days before we’re safe to go without a condom.”
He maneuvers the car onto the street I’d indicated and grimaces. “It’s going to be a long seven days.”
“It’s one week. Only seven days of practice.” I motion to the pharmacy. “Just drop me at the door. I’ll run in and out.”
He cuts to the curb in an emergency lane to let me get out, and I don’t blame him. Parking sucks