“That’s me,” the woman said. “You hungry, hon? There’s some pasta fagioli left from the dinner special. And maybe a glass of wine to warm you up?”
Her stomach rumbled at the mention of food. She looked around the café. A towering Christmas tree with red, white, and green twinkle lights filled the front window. The tables had fresh white linen cloths and drippy wax candles stuck into straw-wrapped chianti bottles. Lombardi’s was the classic old-school red-sauce kind of place you didn’t find in small Southern towns like Tarburton. “I wouldn’t want to keep you…”
“You’re not,” Claudia said. “I’ve still got to count out the cash register and finish up my side work. Sit over there at the bar and tell Danny what you’re drinking. I’ll run back to the kitchen for your soup.”
* * *
She was savoring a generous pour of Valpolicella when Claudia slipped a bowl of steaming soup in front of her, along with a napkin-wrapped basket of breadsticks and a tiny bowl of butter.
“Thank you so much,” Kerry said, dipping her spoon into the thick meatball-studded broth. “Mmm. This smells divine.”
“My grandmother’s recipe,” Claudia said. She helped herself to a breadstick and nibbled on it. “So you’re Murph’s sister.”
Danny the bartender leaned over and stared at Kerry. “Yeah, I guess I see some family resemblance.”
“It’s these doggone thick eyebrows,” Kerry said, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “The curse of the Tollivers.”
“I didn’t even know Murph had a sister,” Danny volunteered. “I thought he was like, raised by wolves down there in those North Carolina mountains.”
Kerry laughed and took another sip of wine. “That’s partly true. Our parents split up when I was seven, and Murphy stayed on the farm with our dad. I guess he really took that mountain man image to heart.”
“Ya think?” Claudia said. “Speaking of, when is Jock coming?”
“Murphy didn’t tell you? Daddy had a heart attack, followed by quadruple bypass surgery. That’s why I came this year.”
“Your brother’s not exactly forthcoming about stuff like that. I was wondering why you guys weren’t here right after Thanksgiving. I’m sorry to hear about your dad. He’s a good guy. He always seems so…”
“Indestructible?” Kerry suggested. “He certainly thought so. Maybe now he’ll finally give up smoking.”
“Just as long as he don’t give up drinking,” Danny interjected.
Kerry kept gazing around the room. “This place seems so familiar to me. Has it always been here?”
“Since 1962,” Claudia said. “I’m the third generation to run Lombardi’s.”
“That explains it,” Kerry said. “I have this vague memory of sitting right here, but on a stack of phone books, eating a big bowl of spaghetti. There was a white-haired lady who showed me how to twirl the noodles around my fork.”
“That would be my grandma, Anna,” Claudia said. “So you used to come to the city too?”
“Yeah. Me and Murphy and my parents. But I stopped coming after the divorce.”
“Four of you, including two little kids? Living in that thing?” Claudia laughed. “That’s taking togetherness to an extreme, if you ask me.”
“Can you see the two of us living together in a camper?” Danny asked, poking Claudia’s arm.
“Bad enough we have to work together,” she said.
“You two are family?”
“First cousins, technically,” Danny said.
Kerry scraped the bottom of her bowl to scoop up the last bit of soup. She dabbed her lips with her napkin and reached in the pocket of her jacket to retrieve her billfold.
“No charge,” Claudia said quickly. “On the house.”
“But…”
“We got a deal with your family,” Danny explained. “We get the biggest, best Tolliver Christmas tree every year, and you guys get the Lombardi meal plan.”
“At least let me pay for the wine,” Kerry said.
“No way,” Claudia said firmly. “And listen, in the morning, if you need coffee and a bathroom, come over to Anna’s, that’s our bakery next door. Danny’s daughter Lidia will take care of you.”
“Really? That would be great,” Kerry said, suppressing a yawn.
Claudia walked to the café’s front door, unlocked it, and held it open. “I’m not actually kicking you out, but I kinda am. We know how early your brother gets going in the morning.”
“Thanks again,” Kerry told her. “I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a long day.”
chapter 4
Kerry tiptoed into the trailer. To her shock, while she was gone, Murphy had made up her bunk. The mattress was thin, the blankets smelled like mildew, and the pillow was rock hard. Still, she was dead asleep within minutes.
In her dream, Murphy hefted his chain saw from his shoulder, yanked the pull-cord, and an ear-splitting buzz filled the morning air. He held the saw against the base of a massive tree’s trunk, and the roar grew louder.
Kerry could feel the earth shaking beneath her feet, smell the sharp tang of fresh-cut pine.
She wanted to scream, to stop her brother from felling the tree. She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged.
The saw roared and the ground shook. She sat straight up in bed, gasping, her eyes wide. It was pitch black and her heart was beating a mile a minute. She was awake now, but the rumble did not abate, and in fact, the tiny trailer actually was vibrating.
Kerry reached beneath her pillow, pulled out her phone, and thumbed it to life, passing the flashlight beam around the trailer, pausing when it reached the bunk only a few feet away.
Murphy was asleep on his back, mouth agape, snoring so loudly it surely would have drowned out the sound of any self-respecting chain saw.
According to her phone, it was two o’clock in the morning. She sank back down onto the bunk, pulling the sleeping bag over her head, but nothing could mute her brother’s snores. Finally, she tiptoed over to his bunk and with effort, managed to roll him over on his side.
Tomorrow, she promised herself, she’d find a drugstore and some earplugs.
* * *
On Sunday morning, armed with a cup of coffee and a still-warm cheese Danish from Anna’s, Kerry returned to the pickup, but not before plucking a parking ticket from the truck’s windshield.
She winced when she saw the amount of the fine. Then, as per Murphy’s instructions, she sat in the cab of the pickup truck, waiting, her eyes trained on the charcoal Mercedes parked in front of the Christmas tree stand.
“The owner’s sure to come move it this morning,” Murphy said. “As soon as he does, I’ll put out the traffic cones to block it off, but you need to be ready to move the trailer over here.”
Despite her grumbling, she knew his plan was sound. Every hour, she let the truck idle for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth blasting from the heater before cutting the engine again. Once, around ten o’clock, she saw a tall man dressed in a black puffer jacket approach the Mercedes.
She turned the key in the ignition. But instead of leaving, he opened the trunk, retrieved a small duffel bag, closed the trunk, and walked away, his cell phone pressed to his ear.