Inferno (Page 16)

It was surprisingly difficult to navigate the familiar streets of Cedar Hill, counting the breaths as I heaved them out, trying to make myself look ahead instead of at the pavement.

I clutched the switchblade, trying not to think of my mother who was still at home, tethered to our house. I tried not to replay the watery smiles, the shifting gazes, the way she kept looking past me for the possibility of danger.

At the end of Lockwood Avenue, I stopped walking and peered up at the turrets of the old Priestly house. The driveway was empty and a chain hung around the gates, linking them closed. I pushed them as far apart as they would go and slipped through. I still had time to kill, and even now, after all this time, there was something about the house that called to me. It was time to say goodbye to it for good.

Stray leaves littered the porch. I had to stop myself from brushing them away. They would only gather again. The back garden was as it had been during my last visit. The grass was almost as tall as my knees, and chunks of old fountain and wooden tables were strewn across the lawn. I pressed my nose against the patio doors, studying the kitchen. The last time I was here Valentino was sketching at the table, Felice was pontificating about an Italian murderer and I was hovering in the middle of a lethal family rivalry without knowing it. The family crest was hanging somewhere else now.

I stumbled backwards. My throat had grown tight, and out of habit I clutched at my ribs. I couldn’t tell if my visit was helping or not, but the sudden sense of closure was overwhelming.

I circled the house again. In the driveway I stared up at the old turrets, feeling a stirring sadness in my bones. It felt peculiar, standing alone in the grounds of a place that had brought such great passion and grave danger into my life. Jack’s dealings with the Falcones were forged long ago in the underbelly of Chicago, but my time with the Falcones had taken root here, in the driveway of this lonely old mansion.

I pulled Luca’s switchblade from my pocket and rotated it in my hand. Underneath, the jagged cut in the centre of my palm glowed red. This knife was the last piece of them. I could leave it here with the rest of my memories, but somehow it didn’t seem right. To drop it in a place they would never revisit seemed like cheating. I would return it to Luca, or at least to somewhere he would find it.

I stuffed it back in the pocket of my shorts and turned for the diner, trailing my fingers along the tree bark as I retreated down the driveway.

I saw it then. Outside the black gates, halfway down the other side of the street, was the black Mercedes. I craned my neck and stood on my tiptoes. Black rims! There was no mistaking it; the car was back and it was getting bolder, following me around in broad daylight.

I marched towards the end of the driveway. Down the street the car door was flung open and the girl with purple hair emerged on to the footpath. She was wiry but small, wearing low-rise jeans and a black tank top. A Falcone, I thought. There were definite shades of Elena Genovese-Falcone in her. She had to be one of them, a spy probably, which only added another lie to the pile Nic had built already.

This had gone on long enough.

I squeezed myself through the gap in the chained gates again. It was harder this time because I had an audience, and I was vaguely embarrassed of my squishing cheeks as I slid them against the metal. My attempts at intimidating her wouldn’t exactly thrive after my compacted-chipmunk display. She waited, propped against her car as I surged towards her. I might not have had any official karate training, but I was damn scrappy – if I needed to, I could probably kick her in the face at least once if she tried to come at me.

‘Persephone!’ A shout rang out behind me. I almost stopped but I registered the voice in time. Mrs Bailey, Cedar Hill’s resident gossip merchant, was not about to mess up my showdown with whoever this nosy Mercedes chick was.

Purple Hair actually looked taken aback as I stomped towards her, but still, she made no effort to approach me. She simply waited, and the arrogance of it just made me angrier. Get out of my life, I wanted to yell. It would be easier to say it to her than to Nic, because I couldn’t look at him without remembering the intensity in his kisses, or the way he looked at me. But this girl was just a straight-up pain in my ass and I would have no trouble telling her exactly where to go.

I could hear Mrs Bailey bustling her way up the street behind me.

‘Persephone Gracewell!’ The wail was shriller this time – half car alarm, half dying cat – and somehow, somehow, it stopped me.

I skidded to a halt.

Purple Hair peered around me, at the commotion. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see Mrs Bailey and Mrs Bailey couldn’t see her, and I was stuck in between them both, wondering which was the greater annoyance in my life.

‘Mrs Bailey,’ I laboured, turning around. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something.’

Mrs Bailey was pottering up the street as fast as she could. She was shiny with sweat. Her cropped hair was flopping into her eyes and her dress was bunching around her ankles, threatening to trip her.

She grabbed on to my arm, gasping for air like she was drowning. ‘There. You. Are.’

I mentally ran through the checklist for CPR in my head, just in case. I didn’t particularly like Mrs Bailey, but I wasn’t above trying to revive her if she collapsed at my feet. ‘Is everything OK?’

She removed her grip from me and clutched at her heart. ‘I’ve. Been. Looking. For. You. For weeks!’

I was still acutely aware of the girl behind me. Time was of the essence. I was about to hand out a much-needed lesson in Inappropriate Snoopery. After all, I was the expert. ‘Can you hang on just a sec, Mrs Bailey?’