“Hey? Hey,” Humphrey held Gabriel back when he would have scrambled across the floor to his brother. Humphrey took Gabriel’s face in his hands and kept him there. “Listen to me, Gabe. Listen!” He waited for Gabriel’s stricken eyes to move to his face.
“I’m going to fix this,” Humphrey said. “I’m going to fix this but I need to know what happened. What do you remember?”
Gabriel was already shaking his head, the agitated shifts perfectly matching the wild look in his eyes. “N-nothing I-I came in and St-Stow said he was l-leaving but he was-he was the one who left the message...”
“He left you a message...” Humphrey prompted when Gabriel trailed off.
Gabriel nodded. “I left it on my desk. He asked me to come. He...Stow...” tears welled and streamed Gabriel’s pale face.
“Easy, Grek, easy...” Humphrey soothed. “Grek? Grek, listen. Was anybody else here?”
Gabriel started to shake his head, then stopped. He reached up to touch the back of his head. “Yeah...someone hit me.”
Humphrey searched his brother’s troubled eyes. “Did you see who?”
Gabriel thought it over, then shook his head decidedly. “No. No...I didn’t see anybody.”
Humphrey sent a look to Vale and nodded.
“Did the killer hit me?” Gabriel asked.
Humphrey and Vale traded another round of looks.
Gabriel frowned. “What is it?”
“Nobody else was here, Gabe. You and Stone were the only two still listed on the guards’ sign-in pads. I sent Vale to check. The guards don’t know what’s happened yet. Vale just went to ‘em, said he was curious.”
Gabriel searched Humphrey’s face. “What are you saying?” He looked to the gun again. “What are you saying, Hump?”
“There’s no record of anyone else being here, man.”
New panic blazed in Gabriel’s eyes. “No...no, no, call the guards! Hell, call the police. Order them to start checking-”
“If we do that, they’re gonna ask why you were here with a gun,” Vale said and nodded to the desk. “Then they’ll ask about that.”
Again, Gabriel followed the trail of Vale’s eyes. He saw the newspaper laying over Stone’s shoulder. He could see the headline. “Fire At The Stonewall”.
“It’s a gay bar,” Vale said. “That’s the secret he couldn’t tell the three of us. The one that was making him so crazy. Stone was gay.”
Gabriel was shaking his head, disbelief evident in his eyes as his shoulders slumped in a defeated stance. “So the fuck what? I don’t care about that! I loved him-I wouldn’t have killed-” as if the idea had completely overwhelmed him, Gabriel returned to hunch on all fours, his body shaking as he dry heaved.
Humphrey smoothed a hand over Gabriel’s trembling shoulders. “This looks bad, Grek and I’m going to need you to trust me. I can make this go away, but you’re gonna have to listen to what I say-”
“There’s nothin’ to fix! I didn’t do this! I couldn’t. What about whoever hit me over the head-”
“Listen to what you’re saying Grek,” Humphrey cautioned. “They could easily say Stone did that- that the two of you fought over what was in that paper. That you killed him to save the family business from the shame he brought to it with his choices.”
“That’s nonsense!”
“How do you know, though? You say you can’t remember.” Vale noted.
“I couldn’t have...” Gabriel hid his face in his hands and then clenched fists to his temples. Quiet suspicion eased into his eyes.
“Look Grek, me and Vay, we believe you, but it’ll be tough to prove and the cops aren’t the only ones you’ll have to convince if we handle it this way. Ma...” Humphrey fixed Gabriel with a stern look when their eyes met.
“She came down on Vale and me when we only mentioned the story to Stone-a joke considering the name connection. We had no idea how real it was to him. Ma didn’t care. She came down on us like fire for the joke. Made it clear that the next person who even looked at Stone wrong, would regret it. What happened here...” Humphrey swallowed and surveyed the scene. “I don’t know if she’d be on your side here, Grek.”
Gabriel blinked rapidly as though he were powerless to stop the reaction. The dazzling blue of his gaze seemed to pale somewhat as unwanted resignation took hold. “If you made this go away,” he took his time meeting Humphrey’s eyes, “what would I have to do?”
Humphrey patted his brother’s cheek. “Exactly what I tell you.”
~30~
Montecatini Valdi Cecina~ Italy
The newlyweds spent the next leg of their trip in almost total isolation.
Liam Tesano’s wedding gift to his son and new daughter-in-law was a palazzo nestled amidst green hills and dense forest. Jagged peaks of the mountainside rose up behind the construction in striking fashion. The palazzo was a gleaming creation of white stone. Its fortress-like appearance was offset by the warmth of its interior. It was spacious, yet cozy and the newly married couple launched right into the joyous task of Christening every room. Once that chore was complete, they decided a repeat of the process couldn’t hurt. Then, they repeated the process twice more after that.
Three weeks passed before Roman and Imani chose to venture out and take the full measure of their environment. Roman had promised they would go into town for more sightseeing, but neither he nor his wife felt up to leaving home, much less getting dressed.
They lounged in the high grass along one of the rolling hills surrounding the palazzo. They’d established a new task-to find a different spot along the vast hillside to make love each day. That afternoon was no exception. Imani lay staring up at an impossibly blue sky, content while she studied the luminous snow white clouds that trekked before her eyes with mesmerizing grace. She smiled, delighting in the weight of Roman’s head on her thigh. The limb was bare beneath the hem of the orange silk robe she’d managed to grab when he tugged her from bed that morning.
She raked through the abundant ebony strands that caressed her skin like a mink glove. She couldn’t imagine things possibly getting any better than they were in that moment and then Roman moved, barely nudging her with his head at first. Imani realized, as the nudges became more insistent, that her husband was done resting. Before she could ask if he was ready to go back inside, he’d rolled to his stomach, captured her thighs in his potent grip and used his mouth on her.
Her back bowed, lips parting in sync with her eyes closing on a flutter. Her grip tightened in his hair and her hips rocked gently, rhythmically to each invasive slide of his tongue. Without breaking the oral contact, Roman drew her legs across his shoulders. The position allowed him to settle in at a more comfortable angle.
His thrusts began to slow inside her body, rotating with a thoroughness that made her breath hitch more than once. Roman groaned when her intimate muscles squeezed his tongue and he savored the taste of her need streaming as a sudden orgasm had her convulsing in his hands.
