66

Callahan
The expression on Diamente’s face is a grim one as he walks into my study.
“It’s late,” I say, looking at my watch although I know what time it is. He’s made a point of arriving when no one else would be here.
“Whiskey?”
“Yeah,” he says, surprising me. He doesn’t drink when doing business and there’s no doubt this is business. He sets the thick envelope he brought with him on the desk, unbuttons the button of his tailor-made suit and takes a seat. “A double.”
I study him as I pour a glass for him and refresh mine. Something has him ruffled. He was one of the people Antonio called when he found us that morning after the massacre.
I still think about that. About what it must have been like for my brother to be greeted by that horror.
He’d gone out the night before. Snuck off the island to meet a girl when he was supposed to be at home. He told me he hadn’t been able to make sense of what he was seeing because he wasn’t sure if it was all the alcohol. If he was still drunk. If that’s why he retched so badly.
I wonder if it’s the deaths themselves or finding us like we were that did the most damage. I’d bet the latter.
He doesn’t talk about it. He’s never talked about it.
“Is Antonio around?” Diamente asks.
The timing strikes me considering my thoughts.
I shake my head. “He went to bed already.”
“That’s good.” His face is grave. Diamente is Antonio’s godfather. He’s always been good to him. To both of us. I know he worries, too, about Antonio’s state of mind at having been the one to find us. Sometimes I wonder what he’ll do when this is over. When revenge is taken. What’s next for my little brother? Is there anything? Or is he like me? Like I had been until only very recently.
“Here you go,” I hand Diamente a tumbler and take my seat behind the desk.
He holds his glass up in a toast that I know isn’t a happy on Diamente in his late forties now. His thick dark hair has a single, wide gray patch at his temple. He’s had it as long as I can remember, and it makes him look distinguished.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“No, you’re not.”
He opens the large envelope and pulls out the thick stack of papers inside. From here I can see bundles clipped together made up of photographs, sheets of paper and even some newspaper clippings.
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
He smiles but it’s half-hearted. He extends the pages out to me, and I reluctantly take them. I only glance down quickly before shifting my gaze back to his.
I feel the tattoo I’d drunkenly carved onto my arm burn. I knew this was coming, didn’t I? It’s why I asked in the first place.
“Those are the names you asked me to look into.”
I breathe. Try to manage the tension growing inside me.
I know what he’s going to say. I’ve suspected it on some level. But I’m still not ready for it.
“Those people,” he gestures to the stack. “They all have exactly one thing in common.”
I remain silent still.
“They’d made an enemy of your uncle.”
I drop the stack and get to my feet, shaking my head. “You’re wrong.”
Turning to the window, I look out onto the water. I wish I could be out there. Out there with her. I wish I could hold her and listen to the waves with her and not have any of this other shit going on.
“You’re wrong,” I repeat, turning to face him again. Although I’ve never thought Diamente and David enemies, they are not friends. They never were.
“I’m not wrong and you know it. It’s taken me over a year to get this together. I’ve been diligent, considering who he is to you.”
I turn to him. “You hate him. It’s no secret.”
“No, that’s not a secret.”
“Why?”
“Look through it, Callahan.”
I pick up my whiskey and swallow the contents of the glass, feel it burn down my throat.
“Go on,” he insists. “You suspected it. It’s why you asked me to look into it. Look at them,” he says.
“My uncle saved my life. He could have let me die.”
“He’s using you. He’s always used you.”
I slam a fist into the desk. “To what end? He saved my fucking life!”
He stands, leans over the desk to reach the pages, turns them so he can sort through them.
“I’ll start at the most recent,” he says, unperturbed. Diamente isn’t a violent man. He’s an attorney. But he’s not afraid of me.
I don’t look directly at the bundles as he lays them out but the first set of names I recognize at quick glance. The latest couple.
“They were in business with David for some years, but that business came to an abrupt end when they realized he was stealing from them. Just putting a little aside every month.”
“Why would he do that? He has more than enough money.”
“He’s greedy. He’s always been greedy. Always had his eye on what didn’t belong to him.”
“What does that mean?”
He exhales, looks away like maybe he’s said too much.
“Diamente. What does that mean?”
He turns back to me. Studies me. “You weren’t that young. You had to have seen it.”
“Seen what?”
Diamente’s expression changes, emotions he is so good at keeping hidden creeping to the surface. Sadness, then anger. I recognize both.
“How he looked at your mother.”
“My mother?”
He grits his teeth. I watch his struggle to maintain control. He never mentions missing her or missing the family. David does. He tells me often that he misses them.
But I see it in Diamente sometimes. He hides it well, but now and again, I’ll catch him looking at a photo or a painting or something of mom’s especially, and it’s been happening more since I came back to the house.
Diamente and my mom had a special connection from the beginning. I remember my uncle’s sneer when Antonio first mentioned it. When he told me the story of their friendship.
Diamente and my mom were good friends from university days. And at the time in his life when he’d been coming out, she’d been a support to him. I’d never known whether my uncle’s dislike of Diamente had to do with his sexual preference or his close relationship with my mother.
“No,” I say. Because if I’d seen that, even if I can’t remember it, wouldn’t I have some sort of muscle memory, some instinct to warn me against David?
“The next man, Fred Barnaby, this one got a little uglier. He blackmailed your uncle. Or attempted to until you took care of him.”
I remember Barnaby. Remember the comment he’d made asking me if that cheat had sent me, his thug.
“I could go on,” he says. “But I think you’re intelligent enough to do this yourself. It’s time you opened your eyes, Callahan. The stakes are higher now.” There’s a pause. “There’s Portia to consider. Her life is in danger.”
Am I so obvious to him? Who else sees right through me? Sees this vulnerability?
“She’s under your protection now. As is her cousin brother. And I know you take those things seriously.”
I don’t deny it. Instead, I nod, my gaze on those pages although I’ve unfocused my eyes so the words are a blur.
“You didn’t see his face when he told me they’d taken her, Diamente.”
He doesn’t comment, just holds my gaze, as if to say you and I both know that’s bullshit. And he’s right. My uncle has a different face for every occasion. I just never thought of him using them with me.
“He didn’t know Portia’s location. It couldn’t have been him who tipped off Heathcliff.”
“Couldn’t he have known? Didn’t he come get you from that strip club?”
I did have two soldiers with me who came from that house. Which ones were they? I can’t remember. I was too wrapped up in my own head to note their names or faces.
“I have one more thing for you.” He reaches into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulls out a single sheet.
“I don’t want anything else,” I say when he holds it out to me.
“The doctor who looked after you when you were in the coma, did you know he died a few days after you woke?”
I glance up at him, confused. I hadn’t even thought about that. I’d been introduced to another doctor. I’d assumed he was the one who’d looked after me.
“Drove off a bridge in the middle of the night,” he says. “A bridge about eighty miles from his house in a town he had no ties to. Absolutely no connections, no reason to be there.”
“What are you saying? If you’re accusing David, you and I both know he doesn’t do that sort of work.”
“No, he has others do it for him. Why don’t you talk to Lenore?”
“What does Lenore have to do with anything?”
“She came to me once. Years ago. She was worried about the drugs they were giving you to keep you in the coma.”
“They did that so I would heal. It’s detailed in the medical reports.”
“By a doctor your uncle employed who was subsequently killed in a strange sort of accident.”
No. Uncle David wouldn’t have done that to me. He wouldn’t.
“I wish I were wrong, Callahan.” He finishes his whiskey.
I bow my head, letting my eyes focus on the papers before me.
“You read through those. Let’s talk tomorrow, make a plan.”
I nod once, sit back down and skim one of the reports. Diamente’s thorough. He’s always been thorough. It’s the reason he worked for my father and one of the reasons he works for me. The other reason is that I trust him. He may not be blood, but I’ve always trusted him.
But if I believe him now, then my own blood has betrayed me.
No. It’s not possible. Uncle David’s been like a father to me since the murders.
Diamente walks to the door. “Callahan,” he calls.
I look up. I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I don’t say anything. I just let him walk out the door.