Kate Concealed Page 6

  “Interesting,” her dad said. “But, I think you’ll find you are the master of your destiny and not those who came before. Have you ever heard of such a thing, Abrie?”

  Her mom gave her dad an exaggerated frown from the front passenger seat. “It sounds like a perverse take on nature vs. nurture to me. Kate, you have control over who you are and what choices you make.”

  Kate had thought about saying, you mean like your parents had control over their decision to kill all those people? but held back. She’d get nowhere doing that and she hated feeling that way. Her grandparents were probably not even involved. Maybe she could do a little research while in Italy and find out if her mom was Italian and who her grandparents were if they had been involved with anything terrible. Maybe this trip would change her deeply and permanently in her ideas of living. She stared at the back of her mom’s head. A feeling of pity and then pride washed over her, surprising her. Abrie had turned out okay despite what Kate thought her grandparents had done. Even though her gut ached thinking about it, she was able to come to a conclusion. Her mom had escaped her genes through her choices, maybe she could too.

  Her dad pulled up to the airport curb and helped her and her luggage out of the car. Both her parents hugged her tight and her mom whispered, “Let us know when you land.”

  When Kate pulled back she said, “I will. No worries there.” Her mom’s phone vibrated and she pulled it out of her pocket. Kate saw a message pop up on the screen. Not in English. Italian. She quickly pocketed the device after a glance. Kate should have asked her right then and there what it was all about, but her dad said, “You’re going to have to hurry, sweetie. We’re a bit later than expected.” Her mom’s eyes filled with tears as Kate walked into the Dallas Fort Worth airport terminal, two hours from home. Kate had forced herself to push the pictures and her dad’s words to the back of her mind, but Ellie had noticed something was wrong the second she’d seen her.

  “What’s wrong? You look pale.” They hurried to the long security line.

  “Nothing.”

  “Seriously? You’re not getting sick or something are you?”

  “Me, sick? No way. I think I just got a little carsick. Potato salad for dinner.”

  “Eww. Sorry. I’ve got stomach meds if you want some.” They shuffled forward.

  “Let’s see how it goes now that I’m not in a moving vehicle.”

  Ellie nodded. “Okay. Just let me know.”

  Kate felt a bit guilty for lying. She’d had roasted chicken for dinner, but she would not do anything to disrupt this trip for Ellie. It wouldn’t be fair. She would tell Ellie when they got back on Sunday, or maybe even on the flight back home. She would have to wait and see. It took all she had not to let it weigh her down. She was ultra-aware of the search journal tucked snugly in the fine leather bag on her shoulder and tried to let that fill her thoughts instead. Her parents had suggested she take a backpack, but that, she thought, would make her look like a tourist. She wanted to blend in.

  “I’m so excited that you’ve decided to become Italian.” Ellie kept her eyes trained on the customer service desk where two agents helped a line of passengers.

  “That’s not what I said.” Kate scoffed. Ellie’s eyes whipped toward her. “I want to explore what it means to be Italian. Who the Italian people are and what, if any, traits are a natural part of being Italian.” A sick feeling hit her. What chance did she have of escaping the horrors of her heritage if her adoptive parents were also caught up in bad stuff? How could she escape both nature and nurture? Now that would be a real science project. Maybe she should suggest it to Colby.

  “Fine,” Ellie said, “but I don’t think there’s much difference. I bet you’re going to discover that you love that part of you. But, listen. If you do discover you love your Italian side, you can’t leave me and live there.”

  Kate laughed. “Don’t be absurd. I couldn’t stay if I wanted to.”

  “Good, ‘cause I need you.” She batted her long eyelashes at Kate.

  “And I need you.” Kate batted right back. “You’re my best friend and I couldn’t live without you.”

  “Ditto. But, if you found an Italian guy to marry, you’d have the cutest little Italian babies.”

  “I’m not even close to thinking about babies, Italian or not.” She moved away from Ellie like she had rabies or something.

  “Still, they’d be adorbs.”

  After boarding the plane, they settled quickly into their first class seats courtesy of Ellie’s parents’ mileage upgrades. After dinner, they watched a movie before going to sleep. Neither wanted to face jet lag without at least six good hours of sleep on the plane. The flight attendant woke them as the plane descended into Heathrow Airport in London.

  “It’s a downright shame that we’ll be in London for a few hours and not get to go exploring.” Kate moaned as they got ready to deplane.

  “No kidding. It’s an injustice, really.” Ellie grabbed her bottled water and swallowed the last little bit.

  They shuffled off the plane with their carryon luggage and hustled through Customs and then to their connecting flight, sneaking glances of the surrounding country through the windows as they went.

  The plane ride from London to Italy wasn’t that long and soon the dense, orangish-red roofs of Bologna, Italy stared up at Kate as she looked out over the city from the plane, the early morning light making everything seem bright. It was as if she was entering another world, far distant from her own and yet the beauty and foreignness of it dazzled her. The fourteen hour combined flight had been thirteen too many and Kate was excited to be on the ground again.

  Kate stared at her phone. She needed to tell her parents they had arrived. She’d been trying to forget the pictures the whole time on the flight and now they were pressing through her mind. She couldn’t think about either of her parents without those pictures teasing her. After quickly sending a text to her parents telling them she’d arrived, Kate inspected her white shorts to make sure they were still white and she hadn’t spilled anything on them. She walked off the plane with her bag over her shoulder and rolling a suitcase behind her. She followed Ellie to Customs, and cringed a little seeing the welcome sign as they entered the cue: Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport.

  “I truly hope it’s not some bad omen or something that we flew into an airport named after a Marconi. We better not run into any Marconis here.”

  “Hello. We’re in Italy. If we don’t run into Marconis and Bellinis while here, it would be weird. Don’t you think? They’re like the perfect Italian names.”

  “It’s still scary.” Kate glanced at her phone, not really expecting her parents to text back since it was only one a.m. in the U.S., but wishing they would. She also hadn’t heard from Johansen even though she’d left three more messages. She had a vague recollection of having nightmares while on the plane. If only Johansen would call her back, maybe she could set her mind at ease. She’d go see her counselor when she got back. She had hoped doubling up on her self-defense classes and working harder than ever would make them stop, but they hadn’t.

  “I think so too, but we only need to remember,” Ellie said, looking at the sign too, “the Marconis you’re hiding from are in New Jersey, not here.”

  “I guess, but still, it’s creepy that the name of the very family that wanted to hurt me and did hurt my birth parents has their name on this airport.” She couldn’t help but worry about the apparent success of the Marconi family in Italy and in the U.S. Perhaps the Marconis who had stayed behind in Italy were the good ones. “Wasn’t there another airport we could have flown into?”

  “No. This is the closest one to Bologna. It’s right here. We’ve been over this.”

  Kate huffed. “It would be just my luck that the Jersey Marconis own this airport and have their big goons all over it.” She swept her gaze around the area.

  Ellie snorted. “Not likely.” She lowered her voice. “Those bullies left Italy because they wanted
to become important, right?”

  “I guess.” They breezed through Customs and went straight to the baggage claim, then hauled their luggage to the area marked for ground transportation. Kate whipped her head around after seeing a guy who looked eerily familiar, but on further examination she could see that he wasn’t Galtem Marconi, just someone who looked like him. The man could have easily been his cousin. While the knowledge that it wasn’t Galtem she had seen did calm her a bit, she hoped he hadn’t told any of his relatives in Italy, should he have any, about her. A rush of uncertainty waved through her, and she questioned whether or not coming to Italy had been a smart move after all.

  Humid, heavy air filled with exhaust fumes hit them the second they walked out of the airport, clogging Kate’s throat and making it hard to breathe. The unpleasant smell of too many people in too small a place hit her. She had thought it would smell like pastries and perfume for some reason.

  Ellie walked straight up to a man holding a sign that said “Lambert”. He immediately lowered it when he saw the two girls. The picture Ellie’s mom had sent to the driving service must have made it easy for him to recognize them.

  “Welcome to Bologna, Italy,” the driver said in Italian and then repeated it in English. “Right this way.” His rich accent brought back both good and bad memories from Kate’s time in New Jersey. While Vinny and Duran didn’t have heavy Italian accents, the man who’d questioned her in Jersey, her biological grandfather, had. The driver put their luggage in the trunk and helped them and their bags into the back seat of the luxury car. The smell of leather and some type of sweet cigar filled the air. Before he pulled away from the curb, he said, “I will now give you a quick tour of the city to help you get acclimated to Bologna. My partner or I will be at your disposal while you’re here. I’m Devlin Marconi.”

  Kate sucked in a breath. The two girls gave each other a look, but didn’t want to bring attention to the name and make him think anything, so Ellie said, “I love your accent.”

  “Thank you. It comes with the territory.” He handed them some brochures and the girls started sifting through them.

  “Look at this place,” Ellie said. “We’ve got to go here.” She waved a brochure of what looked like a medieval market in front of Kate.

  “Don’t look at those now,” Devlin said. “You’ll want to be looking out the windows as I show you the most beautiful place on earth. Look at them after I’m gone to help you remember what I show you.” He drove the winding streets, telling them all about the ancient city. The differences between the U.S. and Italy were immediately apparent as they zipped along the extremely narrow streets of Bologna. The sprawling streets and wide open spaces of Texas and even New Jersey were a distant memory. They had obviously been an extravagance. The plethora of multi-colored stucco houses and people cruising the city on bikes captured Kate’s attention. “Can you believe how many people are on bikes here?” Kate asked Ellie.

  “I know. I swear there are more bikes than cars. It’s kinda cool, don’t you think?”

  Kate did think it was cool. Had her birth parents not lived in the U.S., she could have been one of those bike-riding people. Eventually, they drove up a big hill and Devlin pointed out the outlines of the campus and the surrounding area as well as the famous Basilica. “You should come back up here with those brochures later today and locate all the many places you will want to visit. Make a list, you know?”

  “We will for sure,” Ellie said. “It’s beautiful up here.”

  Kate’s mind had wandered over thoughts of her heritage. Could she really belong to these people who had such a rich history? Perhaps, but as far as Colby’s perverse choice connection, that was insane.

  “Now, look at those,” Devlin said, his accent along with the ancient surroundings making it impossible to forget they were in another world as he pulled their attention to the tall towers and porticos surrounding them. “You will find this is a city full of these beautiful porticos.” He pointed out other architectural oddities, and every now and then Ellie would squeal with delight and clutch at Kate’s arm as they passed something she recognized.

  As they drove, Colby’s words reached out, teasing and taunting her. You’ll be able to see where your people come from. I don’t mean just your parents, but who you are as an Italian. Like we are from England and they’re our people. Maybe he had been right. Here, she could get to her roots like Colby had suggested and find out what made an Italian tick. And, she didn’t need to only stick with the Italian collective. She could look into her ancestors, both adopted and birth. She had always considered herself to be an American, although both her birth mother and father were Italian. And now that it seemed undeniable that Abrie was also Kate wondered if she was doomed to follow in the violent footsteps of her past both genetic and social.

  She hoped while she was here she could find out if Abrie’s parents, Kate’s adoptive grandparents, were truly terrible people too and if Abrie had had anything to do with it. She really should uncover what it meant to be Italian. What it meant at a very basic level—the level of genes. She thought of the Germans and how inclined they were toward engineering. What were Italians inclined to be? Religious? Mafia? She shook her head trying to get the idea out of her head. You can find out who you are, Colby had claimed. And better understand why you do the things you do. It’s all in your genes, you know?

  No. She had to believe she was in control of her choices. Her genes did not tell her what to choose, and she couldn’t accept that her adoptive parents could claim that control either. She looked down at her hand that she discovered was stroking the outside of her search journal still tucked away inside her bag. She jerked her hand out and clasped her hands together on her lap. Ellie gave her a concerned look, but Kate only smiled at her.

  A few minutes later, Devlin interrupted her thoughts again, “We are now passing the Piazza Magiore. Peaceful, open, and lovely in every way. There will be tourists in there, but the greatest concentration of people will be locals.” A few minutes later he continued as they entered a different section of town. “This is the university district where you will be staying. Looks different when you’re in the middle of it, doesn’t it?” He drove several blocks and down a main street, pointing out this building or that, but jetlag was settling in and his words jumbled together. Kate needed to get out of the car.

  “You mean this is the campus?” Ellie asked, incredulity coloring her words. “It seems more like a business district than a campus.”

  Kate perked up at this, noting the same things Ellie had. The University of Bologna was nothing like the campuses back home with sprawling green lawns and obvious boundaries. The lack of trees and green made her feel compressed. People milled about everywhere. Streets were filled with cars and an equal amount of if not more bikes, motorcycles, and mopeds. Ellie kept tapping Kate’s leg and squealing every time they passed someone she deemed hot. Kate feigned interest, but in truth, she compared them all to Duran and found them lacking.

  The once majestic columns and stonewalls were covered with flapping advertisements and invitations. And graffiti littered every possible surface, words hastily painted, destroying the beautiful architecture and atmosphere.

  “Is it safe here?” Kate asked, the marked walls and area making her feel unsure.

  “Safe? Why, yes. Just beware of pickpockets and stay with your brother in the evenings. It is like any large city and one must be vigilant in keeping oneself safe. But, my brother and I are here for you this week, to take you where you need to go should you find yourself in need.” Devlin pulled to an intersection and stopped and looked at them through his rearview mirror. He smiled. “Italy is a wonderful, beautiful place for you to visit.”

  It almost felt like Devlin should get a kickback from a Visit Italy Campaign. Anything that had to be sold with a speech like that had problems for sure. Kate did not feel safe in the least and would not go gallivanting around on her own. Message received.

  They approached
an ancient looking light green stucco building with about fifteen stairs leading up to a maroon door and pulled into a free spot along the street. “We have luck today. The Gods are smiling at us.”

  Kate assumed Devlin was talking about the free parking space so near Colby’s apartment, because it seemed all spots everywhere were filled with cars. His mention of God also calmed her. As soon as the two girls climbed out of the car, Colby and six other guys came tumbling out of the apartment to greet them.

  “It’s about time. Devlin must’ve forced you on his ‘quick’ tour of Bologna.”

  “Hey, now. Don’t be cheeky. I always get my charges where they need to go.” It was funny to hear him speak English with both a British English accent and an Italian one mixed together.

  As Devlin unloaded their luggage, he said, “If there’s anything you ladies need, let me know.” And he meant it, Kate could tell. She already liked this Italian man. Despite his name, she hoped there were others just like him. She’d made up her mind. The Marconis in Italy were good.

  Colby hugged Ellie first and then Kate. He acted like he hadn’t seen either of them in months or even years and it’d been less than a week. They laughed as the other boys from all over the world introduced themselves. For ease, Kate called each one by their country of origin. Canada, England, Germany, Finland, America, and the Netherlands. They rushed the girls indoors and led them to one room with one small twin bed and a pallet on the floor. The room was the size of Kate’s closet back home.

  “You’ll be nice and cozy in there, wontcha?” Colby said, grinning. “I’ll be on the couch.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Kate sat on the bed, thinking about unpacking and realizing there was nowhere to unpack. Ellie must’ve realized the same thing, because they shared a look and then busted out laughing.

  Colby called out from the living room, “We’ve got to get back to class. Eat whatever you can find. There’s a map of the campus on the table for you to explore. I suggest a hike up to the basilica. It’s awesome. There’s an envelope from Mom with some euros in it for you guys to use while here. Some places don’t like to take cards.” The door slammed behind the guys and the girls emerged from their tiny room.