Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 126060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
It was extremely rare for a woman to be held in that room. In fact, Geno couldn’t remember the last time it had ever happened. She had her head down, partially lying on her forearm where it was tied to an arm of the chair. She looked tiny, so slender she could have been a child.
“Who is she?” Stefano asked.
“Her name is Amaranthe Aubert. She arrived in the country five months ago from a region in the South of France. She dances and teaches ballet at the Ferraro Performing Arts Theatre Company. She is also working in Little Italy at their Performing Arts Center. From all accounts she’s an excellent dancer.”
“I take it your investigators have checked up on her in the short time they’ve had?”
Geno nodded. “She’s danced all over the world. I’ve got a file on her, but nothing about her makes the slightest sense. At least there’s no reason she should be sitting in a chair waiting to be taken apart by a man willing to be as brutal and as disconnected from emotion as I can be. I had even planned to ask Dario for help if need be.”
“You changed your mind.” Like Geno, Stefano hadn’t taken his gaze from the prisoner.
“Something is very off here, Stefano. This is the third time she’s done what she’s doing. That stealthy scan of her surroundings. I don’t go to the ballet. I’ve never had the time or the inclination to go until just now, just watching her, and that’s a huge red flag given the circumstances.”
Both watched as Amaranthe’s dark eyes slowly moved around the room, taking in everything from the ceiling to the walls to the floor.
“I guarantee she knows the exact position of every single tool in that room. She’ll be able to tell you the distance to every exit. She probably knows our escape routes,” Geno said. “No ballet dancer would be sitting there that cool after being dragged into a basement by two bodyguards and tied to a chair with torture instruments surrounding her. She may be trying to look scared and intimidated, but she’s not in the least afraid. Her brain is working on something.”
Stefano considered the various possibilities, just as Geno knew he would. “You’re keeping everyone away from her because you believe she’s an assassin.”
Geno’s nod was slow in coming because he didn’t want to believe it. She looked the least likely person in the world to be an assassin.
“The first murders were Viola and Marcelle. The hat shop was robbed, and both were stabbed repeatedly. Brutally. In fact, each had twelve stab wounds. It appeared personal to me, Stefano. Viola was seventy-two. Marcelle seventy-five. There was no need to kill them. Marcelle would have turned over the cash. The police were called. Naturally, our family was approached. For me that was a relief, although I would have insisted we investigate anyway. Viola and Marcelle were family.”
The moment the murders had been reported to the police, he knew friends from Little Italy would end up in the parlor of his parents’ home.
The way their family business worked was simple—yet not. Anyone could ask for a meeting with his parents. In their world—the Ferraros’ world known as shadow riders—his parents were described as “greeters.” They had a psychic gift, one that made them able to discern whether someone they spoke with was lying. Former shadow riders often took the job of greeters because every rider had to be able to discern a lie. Geno knew the gift was also aided by the casual conversation they had with the petitioner in the beginning of the interview establishing breathing patterns, heart rate and inflection in the voice.
No cell phones were allowed. No recording. Those asking for a visit were invited guests simply having tea or coffee and telling his parents what crime had occurred, what evidence they had and any suspicion they had of who might have done it.
The greeters listened but didn’t participate in that part of the conversation, never taking part in discussions of crimes and never making any promises. That way, if a policeman slipped through their precautions, there was no chance of being trapped. If the greeters believed a crime had been committed and were willing to have the Ferraro family investigate, they never said so.
The greeters never indicated in any way that they were going to help. They simply inclined their heads, gathered whatever evidence had been brought to them and murmured their sympathies. They made polite conversation and then indicated the meeting was over, adding that someone from the family would check in with them occasionally to see if they needed anything.
At that point, all evidence was turned over to the investigators. The New York Ferraro family had two sets of investigators. Usually, one team investigated the petitioner and the other the suspect. Geno’s cousins Lanz and Deangelo Rossi were exceptional investigators. There was very little they couldn’t do on a keyboard. Team two was also made up of cousins, Beniamino and Davide Latini, and they were equally as skilled. Geno relied on them not only for their skills as investigators but for their accounting skills as well.