Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (22 page)

 

Chapter 44

A
NDERS
F
RANK WRAPS
his arm around my neck. I don't feel the pressure of the knife anymore, and there is some space between us. Now is my chance. I lift my foot and shove my heel into his crotch at the same time my opposite elbow arches back into his gut. He releases his hold on my neck, but before I can turn, he punches me in the lower back. I double over in pain and fly forward as the knife goes skittering off the gangplank, landing with an echoing, metallic ring on the deck below. I land on my stomach on the gangplank, one leg over the side underneath the lowest rail. I slip, and for a second, I'm half on and half off the cold steel. I could easily slide under this rail, which is two feet off the gangplank.

For a few seconds I eye the deck of the ship about three stories below. If I land right on my feet with my knees bent, I might not break my legs and will be able to run away before he can make it down there. If I land wrong? A whole different story. But I'm not leaving without Grace. I roll over to the middle of the cold metal gangplank, seeing between slit eyelids that Frank is pointing a gun at me. I keep my eyes closed and give a loud groan. For two reasons. To give myself time to stall and think of a plan to disarm him. I am like the mama bird that pretends she has a broken wing to draw the predator away from her babies in the nest.

From under my eyelashes I watch his reaction.

“Not yet. The sun isn't up yet,” he says.

Then he mutters under his breath. “She couldn't have lost that much blood.”

He paces, holding the gun now as I watch him through the slits of my eyelids. The gun hangs down by his side. Every once in a while he lifts it and points it toward me. As he speaks, he takes his other hand and rubs his palm on his jeans, a nervous habit I remember from the beach. The way he holds the gun—­loosely in one hand—­gives me hope. He's an amateur. That's probably why Donovan is alive right now. A one-­handed shot can veer off target very easily.

“Before you die, you are going to see your little girl die. Actually, I don't care if you die at all. Maybe it is better you live with the pain of her death. An eye for an eye. Your kid for my dad.”

I moan, so low I worry he can't hear, but hoping that he will think that it would be louder if I was faking it. I barely hear it, but I tense slightly when he lifts the gun toward me. He's going to shoot me. Now? After all this?

“Get the fuck up.”

The gunshot is deafening, but I'm not hit. I felt the whiz of the gun a few feet away. He's trying to scare me, but he's blown it. Now Noah West and his crew will know exactly where we are.

He realizes this. “Shit! All bets are off, lady. We've got about ten minutes before the patrol boat makes its way over here to investigate. I have one last thing I want you to see before you die. Get up.”

It takes all my willpower to stay flat on my back. Unless he comes closer, I'll lose this entire game. So I keep my eyes slitted and wait and watch.

“Ah, hell,” he says, leaning over. At the last moment, he reaches for me with the gun still in one hand. I think he's going to shoot me for real this time, but he reaches down and grasps both of my shoulders. I gasp in pain when he touches my wounded shoulder. At the same time, I rear my head up with every ounce of my being and head butt him, our foreheads smacking so hard for a second that I see stars. But he receives the worst of it, and he groans and rolls off me onto his side on the metal gangplank. The gun lies beside him.

I have an instant raging headache, but I manage to crawl onto all fours and scramble for the gun. I grab it at the same time he does. His hands are gripping mine, his fingernails digging into my skin, drawing blood, but I yank myself away and am up on my feet, pointing the gun at him before he can roll over.

“Don't fucking move.”

He looks up at me and starts to laugh, but I also notice he doesn't budge an inch.

“You won't shoot me.”

“Try me.” I grit the words out, and his eyes narrow. “You already said I'm a killer just like you.”

But unlike him, I know how to hold and shoot a gun like a motherfucker. I stand with my legs spread apart, my right hand gripping the gun as high as possible under the trigger guard to prevent slippage and recoil. My left hand is wrapped around the other side of the weapon at a forty-­five-­degree angle, filling in the gap on that side of the grip. The gun is in line with my elbows, straight ahead, and both my thumbs are pointed toward my target—­Frank.

I'm feeling dizzy. Between the head butt and blood loss from my shoulder, I'm not sure how long I can hold him at gunpoint. I need to keep him talking and distracted, because West's men have to be here soon. I only have one more question for him.

“Why did you kill Michael Dillman?”

His face scrunches in confusion for a second, and then recognition sets in. “You mean that kid at the weekly? He called me. Thought we should meet. So I met him.”

Oh, Michael. He was trying to get a scoop and help find Grace.

Then I hear a sound behind me.

“Mama?”

Grace.

Without thinking, I react on instinct and glance back. That is the break he was waiting for. With one swift slide and kick, he has swept my feet out from under me, and I land on my back. The gun goes tumbling off the edge of the gangplank. He's on top of me now and pulls me up, my shoulder screaming in pain.

Once we are standing, he grabs me from behind, grasping my neck, choking me.

I jam my heel in a stomp kick on the top of his foot where it meets the leg. The crunching sound of the bones in his foot breaking combines with his scream, and he instinctively releases me from his chokehold. At the same time, I elbow him with the opposite arm, making contact with something hard. Hopefully, his ribs this time.

I turn, and my punch to his gut connects. The force sends him prone, then into a slide on the slippery deck, where he plunges off the edge of the gangplank, slipping under the bottom rail. He manages to grasp the edge with the fingertips of one hand. I lean over the lowest rail to brace myself, then I reach down, grabbing his forearm, my nails digging into his flesh. I have hold of his arm with both hands and am pulling on it. It is pure instinct. So is what I say: “Give me your other hand.”

His other hand is flailing wildly, trying to reach the rail, which is too high. My hand is only a few inches from his. My body is braced on the lower rail so his weight can't pull me down with him.

“Reach up.”

But he shakes his head. His arctic blue eyes bore into me. There is nothing human I can see in them.

“You'll let me drop,” he says.

For a split second the temptation is nearly too strong to resist. He's right. I have sworn to kill him. I can tell by the look in his eyes he knows this. If I pull him up, he's still going to go after me. If I let him go, Grace and I have a chance to escape.

As a woman holding the fate of the man who kidnapped her child, I want vengeance. As a mother, I want mercy.

“No, I won't let go,” I say firmly. “Give me your other hand. Let me help you up.”

He looks at me with a smirk in his bestial eyes. Then his fingernails slide down my arm, drawing blood in long rivulets as they go, until his fingertips graze my own and he is free-­falling. For a second, it is as if time is suspended. His arms paddle wildly in the air as he tries to right himself and fall feet first, but he doesn't have time. For a split second he meets my eyes, and I whisper, unsure if he can even hear me.

“You're wrong. I'm not like you.”

And then there is a sickening thud as his skull hits the metal deck below.

At nearly the same time, I see a dozen heads pop up on the sides of the ship, and within seconds, bodies hurdle over the edge. Noah West's team is here. West rushes to Frank's body, checks his pulse, looks up at me, and slowly nods.

I turn and am already running toward the captain's quarters when I see Grace's little face in the window. I freeze, staring at her. She was watching. There is something in her eyes I never saw in Caterina's eyes. A fierceness of will. My daughter is a survivor. Not that it is Caterina's fault that she died. But when I look at Grace, I sense a strength in her that makes me look at her in wonder. She is not a victim. No matter what happened during those six days, she will be okay.

And then she puts her palm up on the window and smiles.

That smile nearly sends me to my knees. But I race toward her, smiling and crying all at once.

“D
ONOVAN?
T
HERE'S SOMEBODY
here who wants to speak to you.”

“Hi, Daddy.” Even though Grace is holding West's phone, I can hear Donovan sharply inhale at the same time a sob escapes from his mouth.

I listen to her with my eyes closed, my fingers wrapped around her tiny hand.

“I miss you, Daddy. I want to go home.”

W
E WAIT ON
the gangplank for them to bring a tarp to cover Frank's body before we go down to the deck, where a helicopter is waiting to rush us to San Francisco General. They will check Grace out, look at my shoulder, and let us see Donovan. He's recovering from surgery. The round missed all his vital organs. They said he's doing great.

“Mama, look.”

I turn just as the sun peeks over the horizon, bathing the sky in pinks and oranges. Grace is in front of me and I hold her shoulders, trying not to hold on too tightly even though I want to pick her up and bury my face in her curls and never let her go again.

But instead, we stand, Grace and I, facing the sunrise as the wind blows my hair back from my face in a stream, making the sides of my trench coat flap back behind me like wings.

 

Chapter 45

A
N EMERGENCY ROOM
doctor put eight stitches in my left shoulder. Marco pulled some strings and got Grace in Donovan's room, though I don't know how he did it. The nurse is going to set up a cot between the two of them, but I would've slept on the floor. There is no way I'm not being with my family tonight.

Her pediatrician came to visit her here. He says she's doing pretty good and that it will be okay for her to stay in Donovan's room overnight for observation. They had initially put her on an IV, saying she was dehydrated and malnourished from her ordeal, but she wasn't on one for long.

Every once in a while, she grows quiet and distant, withdrawing inside herself. I try not to let her see the anguish I feel. Instead, I hold her hand and tell her I love her and make silly jokes until she comes back to me, her eyes focusing on me again and a smile playing at the corners of her lips. We've kept the darkness at bay for now. And I am still in awe of the look I saw in her eyes on board that ship. She's a survivor.

One day, I know I will ask her to tell me what it was like during those six days. For now, I'm just going to concentrate on celebrating that she is alive.

The hospital room is filled with family. My mother, brothers, sisters-­in-­law, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Most ­people brought something to eat. My aunt Lena brought a huge pan of lasagna and paper plates. Everyone is laughing and crying and shouting and eating.

It is just like a Sunday at Nana's, except we are all jam-­packed in a small hospital room.

The Saint is here, too. He has his henchmen stationed outside the hospital room, even though I told him it wasn't necessary. He's talking to my mom, and she's laughing and blushing, which makes me do a double take. Her boyfriend died a few years ago, and she hasn't dated since. I watch them for a few seconds until Donovan catches my eye and winks. Then he shrugs. I shrug, too.

L'amore vince sempre
. Love conquers all.

When the bottle of wine and Dixie cups get passed my way, I take a big slug. Why not? It's a celebration. A celebration of life. I scoot over to Donovan's bedside. A circle of more than a dozen cousins surrounds Grace's bed, and she is laughing and having too much fun for her mother to intrude. Besides, I don't want anything to quell the sweet music of her laughter.

But not everyone is enjoying the festivities. An exasperated nurse has just checked Donovan's vitals and is making huffing noises that I suspect has nothing to do with his monitors.

“Would you like some lasagna?” I ask.

“No, thank you.” Her voice is clipped.

“I'm sorry for the noise and commotion. We're Italian,” I say, as if that is enough.

She purses her lips together and squeezes out of the room.

My grandmother is sitting in a chair near the window. I make my way through the crowd and kneel beside her. “I love you, Nana.”

She pats my hand resting on the chair. She juts her chin toward where my mother sits with Vincenzo Santangelo. “I never let her date a Santangelo in high school,” my grandmother says, and her chin bobs up and down, as if she is agreeing with herself. “And believe me, this one, he tried. He never gave up, did he?” she asks, looking at Vincenzo Santangelo and my mother, heads close together, laughing. “I think maybe she is old enough now to decide on her own.”

I laugh. “I think so, too, Nana.”

After leaning down and kissing my grandmother on her cheek, I go sit on the edge of Donovan's bed and hold his hand as he speaks to my uncle Dominic about the San Francisco Giants, of all things. But better than talking about the past week of our lives, I suppose.

A newspaper is sitting on the bedside table. It's my paper, the
Bay Herald
. Working at the paper seems like another life after what has happened. I pick up the paper and flip through it. Nicole wrote about the murder of the weekly reporter kid, Michael Dillman. Lopez found a picture he must have taken of the kid at the fire. The house with flames coming out the windows looms in the background spectacularly, and in the forefront stands Michael Dillman, his brow furrowed. He looks intense. He looks determined. He looks like a true journalist.

I tuck the page into my bag. I will go visit his family. I will tell them what he did and how he helped me find my daughter. I will both lie and tell the truth. I will lie and say he was just offered a job at our newspaper. And I will tell the truth—­that he was a real journalist.

Watching my family crammed in this small room, laughing and eating and talking, I'm filled with hope and love and gratefulness. I refill my Dixie cup, make the sign of the cross, and sip my wine.