With a tissue, he dabbed her face, wiping away the traces. He stuffed the tissue into the wastebasket, and then stood beside her and took her hand again. He wanted to kiss her forehead one last time, but couldn’t take the risk coming in contact with any residue, so he pressed a gentle kiss to the back of her hand, gave her one final look, and left the room.
Brittany was on her way in, but Sergei stopped her. “She’s asleep. She seemed really tired when I came in—might want to let her rest for a while.”
“Oh.” She glanced at the door, then back at him, and shrugged. “Well, her physical therapy’s not for another hour. No reason she can’t rest for a little bit first.”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
She smiled back, and they continued in separate directions.
All the way out to the parking lot, he thumbed the edge of the spray bottle in his pocket. They wouldn’t suspect a thing. Not unless the medical examiner did more than a cursory autopsy, which he probably wouldn’t. He was already overrun with work, and thanks to Dom and Sergei, he’d be busy for a while anyway.
When they found her, they wouldn’t call the police. They wouldn’t try to resuscitate her because it would be obvious by then that she was too far gone. Really, it didn’t make a difference for him if they went in now or if they waited.
He wanted them to let her be, though. Just for a little while. Not for his sake—he’d be long gone before it occurred to anyone that it might’ve been him. He just wanted her to have a little bit of peace.
There’d be a burial. A tasteful plot and a headstone that didn’t tell the whole story. The home had promised him time and again that if anything happened to him before she died, they’d make sure that when the time came, she had a service and a respectful burial, and he believed them. He didn’t need to attend himself. There was no more peace to be made. Her soul was hopefully resting now, and her body was in the hands of people who’d sworn she’d be properly laid to rest.
His only hope was that he’d given her, in death, the peace she should’ve had in life.
When he reached the parking lot, he got in the car and drove away, and he didn’t look in the rearview as he left the home for the last time.
Chapter 32
The heat of the day weighed down on Dom’s neck and shoulders as he walked up the path. He could still see his car from here, and sweat was already beading on his forehead and beneath his hair.
The path was mostly overgrown now, but Dom had memorized it. He wasn’t supposed to know the way through here. The first time he’d walked this path, following the narrow, winding strip of barely-trampled dirt, his only thoughts had been to keep up with his uncle’s long strides. On the way back down to the car in the darkness, he’d focused intently on memorizing everything. He’d counted his steps, counted the bends and switchbacks, made damn sure he committed those numbers to memory. Although Corrado had forbidden him from coming here again, and had probably convinced himself that a twelve year-old would never find his way back to that spot anyway, Dom had been determined to return. Countless times over the years, he’d done exactly that.
As he stepped into the clearing this time, a chill prickled his sweat-dampened skin.
There was no sign that the dirt had ever been disturbed. Hardy coastal desert plants had taken over, climbing one on top of each other like creeping ivy. Between the wind, the vines, and the occasional rainfall over the last twenty-three years, there was no trace of the indentations Dom’s bony knees had made in the dirt that night. The smooth, flat spots where shovels had tamped down on freshly overturned soil—long gone.
It was silent out here, perfectly still. In the distances, seagulls cried and the surf lapped at the shoreline, but here in this tiny, shaded place, everything was quiet. All these years later, Dom couldn’t step into this clearing without his ears ringing.
When his uncle had brought him here the first time, Dom had been surprised to see Papa there in the clearing. He wasn’t alone. There was a priest lurking in the background. Dom didn’t recognize him, but the man had on the distinctive white collar and clutched what must’ve been a Bible to his chest.
Also in the shadows were two of Uncle Corrado’s lieutenants—huge burly men, both from the Old Country—standing behind the priest. The ground had been dug up. A big hole. As Dom and Corrado entered the clearing, Papa had faced them, sweat pouring off his face, dirt on his trousers and blood on his shirt, and his eyes had grown huge.
He’d dropped the shovel in his hand and pointed at Dom. “Why is he here?”
Why are you here, Papa? He’d told the whole family goodbye. Why was he upset that Dom had come here? Did he want to leave him and Mama?
“This is between you and me, Corrado,” Dom’s father had growled, but there’d been a note of desperation in his voice. A plea that Dom now understood—do what you must, but not in front of him.