Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

Angelo

This is the last time I will come here.

I'll never set foot on this soil again.

I swear it to myself as I stand on the hill above the campsite in front of the wooden cross, holding Sophie's hand on one side and Guillaume's on the other.

I look down at my niece and nephew. Sophie's expression is serene. She stares at the cross as if she's seen thousands of them in her short life. Guillaume drills the tip of his shoe into the mud. To the side, étienne sits on his haunches, inspecting a dung beetle that rolls a ball of manure up the hill. A distance away, perched on a rock, Johan throws stones into the water. They hit the stream with a glob and sink to the shallow bottom with circles rippling over the surface.

"Ready to go?" I ask the kids.

Sophie nods.

Guillaume shrugs.

We climb down to the spot where the camp used to be. There's not much left of the crude settlement. Patches of earth where nothing grows mark where the tents stood. The soil was sanitized and the shack burned to the ground. It was the easiest way to prevent the spread of bacteria and disease.

I bought the small plot of land and got a permit from the municipality to have a grave dug. A funeral service company took care of the rest. I don't want to give my grandfather more of my time than necessary, but I want the kids to get their closure. I'm not rushing them to say goodbye. Like I promised myself, once we leave here, I'm never coming back.

I lead the two youngest kids to Johan, leaving étienne to study the beetle. "Shall we head back?"

Johan throws another stone, staring at the ripples in the water with a sullen expression.

I'm not good with words, but I try to remember what the psychiatrist said, that I should encourage them to talk about their feelings. "Do you miss him?"

He swings back his arm and launches a pebble through the air. His tone is curt. "No."

"Then why the long face?"

He jumps to his feet. "I never want to see this fucking place again."

"Language, Johan," I say, making my voice stern, but he's already charging down the hill toward the stream.

I let Sophie and Guillaume go with a pat on their backs. "Wait here. I'll be right back."

I go after Johan who's facing the mountain with his arms pinned at his sides. His narrow back tenses as my footsteps crunch on the soil behind him.

"The money I got for selling the goats and the chickens will be divided between you and your brothers and sister. I already put it in the bank."

He kicks at a rock. "I don't care about the fucking money."

"Watch your language," I say again.

He spins around. "I know what you are."

"Yeah?" I cross my arms and say with a chuckle, "Human?"

My attempted humor is lost on him. He sneers. "I know you're in the business."

I raise a brow. "Is that so?"

"Everyone in town knows."

"Good. Then they'll know to mind their own damn business."

He pulls himself to his full height. "I want to work with you."

I smile. "You want to work with me?"

"Yes." He holds my gaze squarely. "I know how to handle a gun."

That makes me grin. "I'll give you this, kid. You've got balls."

He clenches his hands. "Then give me a gun."

"How about this? You finish school and get a proper education, and then we can talk about you joining any business."

"Why?" His cheeks grow red. "Is it because of this? Because of where I come from? Is that why you don't want me to be a part of the business?"

"No." I shove my hands in my pockets, considering him with an unwavering smile.

"Why then?"

"It's what my father would've done."

He eyes me, squinting into the sun. "He made you study?"

"Yep. Until he got sick. I dropped out of school to take over the business."

"Then you'll let me?"

"You're still a kid. You're going to grow up way too fast. Believe me. I know. Just focus on being a kid for now, and when you're an adult, we'll do what needs to be done."

"You mean that?"

"I never go back on my word."

He nods solemnly. "'Kay." His expression hardens, his jaw setting in a determined line. "I'm not going to end up here."

"No." I place a hand on his shoulder. "You won't. Of that, I'll make sure."

The tension flows from his body as he relaxes in my grip.

He throws a thumb over his shoulder toward the cross on the hill. "I'm gonna go over there. I've got some shit to say."

"Go ahead. Take your time."

I watch him clamber up the hill, recalling the boy with the dirty face I first saw, the one who tried to sell me weed and stole my wheel caps. Little shit. He's got more of my own blood flowing in his veins than any of my cousins. Even at ten, he's already more of a man than Toma and Gianni put together. I guess we got that from my mother.

A small hand wraps around mine. I look down. Sophie smiles at me. Her hair grew a little longer, making wisps around her face. With her big, brown eyes and her delicate features, she's going to be looker. I'll have to keep a shotgun on site when she turns of age.

She hasn't brought Beatrice, which is a leap in progress. Her scarf has come loose, hanging in a big loop around her neck.

I adjust the scarf to make sure she's covered. "Are you cold? You can wait in the car."

She pulls on my hand. "I want to show you something."

She leads me over the barren earth and across the stream, using a few big rocks as steppingstones. On the other side, we climb up a hill and down a slope. A small gorge lies at the foot of the mountain. We follow the dry riverbed until it disappears in a thicket of thorny bushes. On the bend, she stops.

I pause, looking around, but there's nothing but the yellow limestone walls of the cliffs and the reddish dust of the soil under the canopies of the trees.

"There," she says, pointing at a fissure that sits like a gaping wound in the rock face.

I go over for a better look. Sophie scoots past me and slithers through the crack like an agile little lizard.

"Sophie," I call, my gut tightening. "Come out of there. You don't know what's inside. There can be wild animals."

Her giggle echoes from inside. "Come, Angelo. It's bigger here."

I shine my phone light through the narrow opening. Sophie stands in the middle of large cave.

"Come," she says, waving me inside.

The gap is just wide enough for me to squeeze through. I hold my phone between my teeth and turn sideways to push myself through the crack.

"What is this?" I ask when I'm inside, pointing the phone's torchlight in front of me as I turn in a circle.

The light bounces off the blueish rock walls, illuminating a high ceiling.

"Here." She runs to the back. "This is where Grandpa kept the gold."

Her words transport me back to my first visit when she said something similar. Her small body disappears in the darkness. The opening lets in some light, but the cave is deeper than I thought.

Aiming the light at the direction into which she ran, I go after her. I inhale the musty scent of the damp earth. There must be an underground water source or holes in the ceiling where rain leaks through. Indeed, a few spots of daylight fall on the ground not far from where Sophie kneels in front of a big wooden crate.

When I stop next to her, she sits back on her heels. The crate is roughly nailed together. It looks as if it was built on the spot. I test the lid. It's not locked or nailed closed.

I lean the phone against the crate and wiggle the lid loose. It comes off with little effort, kicking up a cloud of dust when it drops to the ground.

I peer over the side.

Fuck me.

A heap of jewelry fills half of the crate. There's everything from necklaces and bracelets to rings and brooches, all of them with gemstones set in gold. I lift the closest ring from the heap and examine it in the light of my phone. The hallmark is engraved on the inside. Twenty-four carats. Pure gold. The diamond must be at least two carats.

"How did you find this?" I ask, dropping the ring back into the crate.

"I followed Grandpa once in the night."

Fuck. I shudder when I think what could've happened to her. She could've tripped and broken a leg or cracked her head open. She could've stepped over a cliff and fallen down the gorge.

"Does anyone else know about this?"

She shakes her head. "I don't think so. Grandpa never told anybody."

"Right," I say, scrubbing a hand over my mouth. At least now I know what the old fool did with the money we paid him. God only knows why he spent it all on gold and gemstones. Perhaps because their value makes them a concrete, incontestable investment.

"What are you going to do with the treasure now that Grandpa is dead?"

"It belongs to you and your brothers." I take her hand and pull her up. "It'll have to be valuated and certified, and then I'll have to sell it."

Proving ownership is going to be tricky, especially if he didn't keep the receipts or the original valuation certificates. For all I know, he stole the stuff. It's best to keep this discovery off the grid.

"Let's keep this between us for now," I say. "People do stupid things when they get greedy. Do you understand?"

She gives a solemn nod. "Yes, Angelo."

"Good." I check my watch. "We better get back to your brothers."

"Do you want to take a ring for Sabella? I bet she'll like it."

Over my dead body. Nothing that passed through that filthy old man's hands will touch my wife. "Sabella has her own ring."

Sophie swings her body from side to side. "You gave it to her when you asked her to marry you, right?"

It didn't exactly happen like that, but I only smile and let her think what her little girl heart wants to believe. Now that she's discovered books, her latest fixation is on fairy tales, which always involve a princess and a knight in shining armor.

She skips out ahead of me, humming a familiar tune.

I bend to pick up the phone when I notice something that sticks out of the soil a few paces away. Caught in the light, it throws a long, thin shadow over the ground. I go over for a better look. The soil is less sandy here than in the mouth of the cave. I kick at a lump of earth. The ground isn't hard like around the crate. It's been disturbed.

Going down on my haunches, I tilt my head and lean closer to study the object. It's a bone, perhaps from a dead animal. It's small enough to belong to the skeleton of a bird. Curious, I dig with my hands around the bone, uncovering more of the protrusion. Three more bones. And another. The hair in my nape stands on end as the skeleton starts to take shape. The bones buried in the sand aren't the remains of a bird.

The long, narrow hand belonged to a human.