Chapter 2 - The Warning Before Landing
Evelyn stared at Marco for several seconds before deciding she had misunderstood him.
“A photograph of me?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I wish it were.”
Rain streaked the terminal windows behind him.
Evelyn folded her arms.
“Where was it taken?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know it’s me?”
“Because Antonio identified you.”
Her anger arrived before her fear.
“I’ve never met Antonio before tonight.”
“He knows that.”
“Apparently someone else doesn’t.”
Marco said nothing.
Evelyn reached for her phone.
“I’m calling airline security.”
“They already know.”
“Then the police.”
“They know too.”
“Good. Then I don’t need you arranging my hotel.”
She started walking.
Marco followed.
“Evelyn.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“The photograph was taken yesterday.”
That silenced her.
Marco continued.
“You were leaving your apartment in Queens.”
Evelyn felt the terminal tilt beneath her feet.
He showed her a photograph on his phone.
There she was.
Navy coat.
Hair down.
Coffee in one hand.
Her apartment building behind her.
The image had clearly been taken from across the street.
Someone had followed her.
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
Evelyn looked up.
“Why was this inside Antonio’s medication case?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
“We?”
Marco’s expression remained controlled.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Antonio requested that you be protected.”
“I don’t work for Antonio.”
“He knows.”
“Then tell him thank you and tell him no.”
Marco studied her.
“You’re stubborn.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You stood between three armed security men and a dying man.”
“I stood between three passengers and a medical emergency.”
A faint expression almost became a smile.
“Exactly.”
Evelyn’s phone rang.
Rachel.
Evelyn answered.
“You okay?”
“Define okay.”
Rachel sighed.
“Fair point. Airline operations says we’re staying overnight. Police still want statements tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“Where are you?”
“Terminal.”
“We’re heading to the hotel.”
Evelyn looked at Marco.
“So am I.”
Marco shook his head.
Evelyn ignored him.
“I’ll meet you downstairs.”
She ended the call.
“You’re not coming with me,” she told Marco.
“Antonio will not like that.”
“Antonio nearly died an hour ago. He has bigger problems.”
Marco’s expression changed slightly.
“Yes,” he said. “He does.”
At the hospital, Antonio Vitelli was awake.
He had already refused a sedative.
The emergency physician disliked him for it.
Antonio disliked the physician’s insistence that he remain overnight.
Neither man cared.
Antonio’s attention was on the black medication case sitting inside an evidence bag across the room.
The photograph of Evelyn had been removed.
Beside it was another object.
A folded note.
Marco arrived forty minutes later.
Antonio looked behind him.
“Where is she?”
“At her hotel.”
“You let her go?”
“She insisted.”
Antonio closed his eyes.
“You had one job.”
“My job is protecting you.”
“Tonight it’s protecting her.”
Marco stepped closer.
“Why?”
Antonio looked toward the photograph.
“Because whoever put that picture in my case expected her to be on the plane.”
Marco waited.
Antonio continued.
“And they expected me to die in front of her.”
“Why Evelyn?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco handed him the note.
Antonio unfolded it.
Three words were printed in black ink.
ASK HER FATHER.
Antonio read them twice.
Then a third time.
Marco watched.
“You recognize something.”
Antonio did not answer.
“Antonio.”
“My father used those words.”
“When?”
“Twenty-two years ago.”
Marco frowned.
Antonio stared at the note.
“When he thought someone had betrayed him, he would never accuse them directly. He’d say, ‘Ask his father.’ Or ‘Ask her father.’ He believed sins traveled through families.”
“Your father has been dead twelve years.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then someone is imitating him.”
“Maybe.”
Marco lowered his voice.
“Who was Evelyn’s father?”
Antonio looked toward the window.
“I don’t know.”
That answer bothered him.
By morning, it bothered Evelyn too.
She had barely slept when someone knocked on her hotel door at 6:15.
She checked the peephole.
Marco.
She opened the door but left the security chain attached.
“You have thirty seconds.”
“I need your father’s name.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“You came here at six in the morning to ask about my father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Marco held up a photograph of the note.
Evelyn read it.
ASK HER FATHER.
Her fingers tightened against the door.
Marco saw it.
“You recognize something?”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“My father is dead.”
“So is Antonio’s.”
“That doesn’t make this normal.”
“What was his name?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“Thomas Foster.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed.
“Occupation?”
“Why?”
“Please.”
Evelyn almost closed the door.
Then something stopped her.
“My father worked in aviation.”
“What kind?”
“Aircraft maintenance. Later private aviation.”
Marco went completely still.
“Where?”
“New York. Why?”
“Did he ever work for Vitelli Aviation Services?”
Evelyn stared at him.
“I don’t know.”
Marco took out his phone.
Twenty seconds later, he turned the screen toward her.
It displayed an old corporate photograph.
A group of men stood in front of a private aircraft.
Antonio’s father, Vittorio Vitelli, was unmistakable in the center.
Evelyn recognized another man near the edge.
Her father.
Thomas Foster.
She unlocked the chain.
“Give me that.”
Marco handed her the phone.
The photograph was dated eighteen years earlier.
Her father had never told her he worked for the Vitellis.
Not once.
“What was Vitelli Aviation Services?” she asked.
“A legitimate charter company owned by Antonio’s father.”
“Legitimate?”
Marco met her eyes.
“Mostly.”
Evelyn looked again at the photograph.
Thomas Foster was smiling.
Beside him stood another man.
She zoomed in.
“Who’s that?”
Marco’s face changed.
“Dr. Samuel Vitelli.”
“Antonio’s doctor?”
“His uncle.”
The same physician who had prepared the medication case.
Evelyn looked up.
Suddenly the room felt very small.
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
Evelyn watched his expression change.
“What happened?”
Marco listened.
Then turned toward her.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Now.”
He moved toward the window and looked outside.
Evelyn’s pulse quickened.
“What is it?”
“The hospital ran tests on the contents of Antonio’s case.”
“And?”
“One of the emergency injectors was replaced.”
Evelyn felt cold.
“With what?”
“Something useless.”
She understood.
If Antonio had suffered the same reaction alone, his own medication might not have saved him.
Only the aircraft’s emergency kit had.
Only Evelyn had noticed quickly enough.
Marco continued.
“And there’s more.”
“What?”
“The case was sealed in New York.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“So whoever changed it did it before the airport.”
Marco nodded.
“Which brings us back to Antonio’s private physician.”
“His uncle.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn looked again at the old photograph.
Her father.
Antonio’s uncle.
Antonio’s father.
All standing together.
“What happened eighteen years ago?”
Marco’s eyes remained on the photograph.
“That’s what Antonio wants to know.”
Evelyn picked up her coat.
“I thought you wanted me to stay away from him.”
“I did.”
“And now?”
Marco opened the door.
“Now Antonio thinks the answer to whoever tried to kill him may have been buried with your father.”
Evelyn stepped into the hallway.
Marco followed.
Neither noticed the housekeeping cart parked near the elevators.
Neither noticed the man in the maintenance uniform watching them through the reflection in the polished metal doors.
And neither saw him send a single message.
She knows about Foster.
The reply arrived almost immediately.
May you like
Then she cannot reach Rome.
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