Chapter 11

Olivia entered Dante's room above Kelly's Diner with her arms full of food and eyes wide with apprehension. She placed the casserole on Dante's desk and, hands to hips, gazed at her boy.

"So, I wasn't sure you'd let me in with this, but I guess the smell of your ma's cooking was too much to resist?"

"Yeah, something like that, I guess," Dante shrugged. He found it difficult to make eye contact with his mother. He started tossing around some clothes, unwittingly straightened up the place.

"Look, Dante, I'm sure there's a lot you want to ask me. A lot I need to tell you. But the one thing you should know unequivocally is that I am your mother and I love you. Whatever I did, I did to protect you. There should be no doubt in your mind over that."

Dante coughed away the lump in this throat and mumbled, "I know, Ma."

He really didn't need to hear more. Of course, his world had been rocked with the revelation of his paternity. The news has set everything on end and made him question everything he had ever believed in. But the one thing he knew in his gut, even when he didn't in his brain, was that his mother would walk through fire for him. She'd done it all these years, raising him alone, providing the best of everything within her means. Sure, he could hate her for lying to him all these years. But where would that get him? It cut a hole in his gut remembering that he actually had thought that he had a father who didn't want him, had known about him, and had left him. But his mother hadn't been the one to put that fantasy in his head. The idea that he had been abandoned was of Dante's own making. All his mother had done for him was to give him a life full of family who loved him, a life free of fear.

"You look… better. Lots better since the hospital. Looks like you've been getting some sun too?"

"Yeah, I took Morgan out the other day to hit a few balls at the batting cage. I'm healing okay, Ma. Keeping up with my appointments."

Olivia nodded and smiled. She reached out carefully to touch her hand to her son's cheek, "That's real good to hear, baby."

She continued, "Look, I know you must be feeling awfully lonely these days. Have you considered going back to Brooklyn for a little while? Be around family and your friends back home, get some perspective?"

"Why, Ma? My cover's already been blown, why should I leave town now? Besides, I can't just leave you here alone. Sonny's in the clear. He's walking the streets a free man. There's no telling what kind of retaliation he has planned."

Frowning and with a strained voice Olivia pleaded, "Dante, Sonny would never hurt you or me. I know it's all confusing right now. I know you wanted to put him away for his crimes. But know, please, whatever kind of man he is, whatever terrible sins he's perpetrated, he would not hurt you, he will never hurt you again. And as for me, well, you don't have to worry. I've been taking care of myself for a long time now."

"Fine, Ma. I guess I'm just going to need some time wrapping my head around it all. That difference between the man who's a criminal and the man who's my father. You seem to see the line distinctly. I'm not so sure."

He thought for a moment and continued, "Besides, wasn't it your fear of him that kept you from telling me that he was my father in the first place?"

Olivia acknowledged the truth in Dante's rhetorical question with a nod. Her mouth trembled and Dante saw that she seemed to realize the lack of logic in her argument. He took her hand and squeezed it softly. "It's okay, Ma. I'm okay."

Dante breathed deeply and peeked under the foil wrapped over the casserole. His stomach growled audibly and he looked up furtively at his mother and half-smiled. With a hand on his stomach to quiet it, Dante started rummaging around for a paper plate and plastic fork. He dished out a helping of the succulent braciole for himself, licked a bit of errant sauce off his finger, and said, "Whatever the case, I'm not leaving town. Besides, I'm not as lonely as I look. I've got these new siblings I want to get to know. I think they want to get to know me too. Also, Ronnie may have some work for me. Nothing as glamorous as taking down the resident crime boss. But it'll be enough to pay the rent." He took a bite of the food and with his mouth full of braciole, he quietly added, "And there's a woman I met."

A smile crept over Olivia's face. With raised eyebrows she said, "Ah, a woman. Anyone I know? Someone new?"

"I don't know, Ma. She's new in town. Used to live here before though." Finishing his mouthful of food, he pulled up a chair in front of the desk, sat down and hunched over his plate to give it more of the attention it deserved. "Don't be planning any calls to the family just yet. She's just someone I think I want to get to know better, that's all."

"She got a name?"

"Brenda. Brenda Barrett."

Sam sat behind her desk at the private investigator office she shared with Spinelli. She tapped furiously and pointlessly at the keys on her laptop and stared at the screen in exasperation.

Spinelli skipped into the office, his head bopping to music emanating from the headphones over his ears. He extricated himself from the messenger bag holding his laptop, opened the bag and set the laptop up on his desk before noticing some movement in this peripheral vision. He flinched and turned quickly to finally notice Sam at her desk.

"Oh, Fair Samantha. What a pleasant surprise to find you at your desk this fine day. To what do we owe this flourish of interest in the workings of this petty investigatory service we share equal ownership of?"

Sam sighed, and, still looking at her computer screen, muttered, "Just working on something Spinelli." She stopped tapping and looked up pleadingly. "Maybe you could help?"

"Why, of course, I am at your service. Speak."

"It's a real stretch. I don't have much to go on. And I really have no clue where to even start. I'm looking for someone. All I have is a first name, a general location and a general time frame."

"That sounds stretchy indeed, but let's have a go. May I ask to what case this is linked?"

"It's not a case, Spinelli. It's personal. I'll spare you the particulars. Just, can I ask you right now before we even start? I don't want Jason to know about this, okay?"

"Well, you are my business partner, not Stone Cold, so my allegiance, at least in this office, is to you. However, I'd be remiss in not asserting that it is a fool's quest indeed to try to keep anything from Stone Cold. He knows all and sees all. Particularly in matters that concern those he is the most fond of such as your fair self."

"Let's just try, okay. We probably won't turn up anything anyway. I promise I'll tell Jason once I know…anything."

"Agreed. Fine then, my machine is booted up and ready to go, let's proceed. What is the name you seek to find?" Spinelli cracked his knuckles and poised his fingers over his keyboard.

"I've got a first name. Ray. Or Rudy. The time frame. Let's see. May, 1980 minus nine months," she scrunched up her eyes and put a hand to her forehead, visibly struggling to do the math.

"September. 1979." Spinelli had already punched the numbers into his computer. Without looking up from his keyboard he asked, "Location?"

"Somewhere around Sacred Heart Academy for Girls in New Hampshire. A college or university around there?" Sam looked up at Spinelli, wide-eyed and anxious.

"That is, indeed, very little to go on. However, my Jackaling skills have been tested and proven victorious with much less in the past, and I remain hopeful." Spinelli tapped at his keyboard and shook his head from side to side. After many keystrokes, he raised his hands in the air, checked his work, and hit the enter key.

Looking up at Sam, he said, "It'll take a minute or two for my query to spider through the ether. Meanwhile, if there are any other particular details you can think of that would allow us to narrow down the multitude of hits we will no doubt be getting from this search? Some distinguishing features of this sought after…Rudy. Any notable remarks on his appearance, perhaps?"

Sam frowned and furrowed her brow in concentration. She shrugged her shoulders and squeezed her arms together in front of her. "He's probably kind of short, dark hair, dark eyes, possibly in his early to mid-50's?"

"Ah-ha," Spinelli muttered as he struck more keys. Both he and Sam tapped their fingers on their respective desks while Spinelli's computer did its magic.

Scanning the screen of results, Spinelli's eyes locked onto something specific and went wide with surprise. He pursed his lips and looked inquisitively at the screen.

"Well, this is curious." He tapped more keys. "Curious, indeed."

Sam rose from her seat and walked over to Spinelli's desk. "What? What is it?"

Spinelli looked at the screen again and began, "Fortuitously, although the Northeast is resplendent, virtually littered, with many institutes of higher learning, Sacred Heart Academy for Girls is nested in such an area that there is only one small liberal arts college nearby. Although, perhaps, come to think of it, not fortuitous at all, but purposefully so, as a girls' boarding school near too many co-ed dorms is a post-pubescent conjugal disaster of epic proportions just waiting to happen."

Sam raised her hand to direct Spinelli's attention back on track. "Let's focus here, Spinelli. What exactly did you find?"

"My query yielded a visitor's log to a college in New Hampshire in the time frame you speak of. Usually colleges do not scan such things to keep for their records, but it being the late seventies and a time of some minor civil unrest, albeit nothing compared to the unrest of the decade prior, and potentially dramatically shifting leadership in this country, perhaps due to the Iran Hostage Crisis, one can only guess, this particular college did indeed scan all of their visitor logs and one such log from September 1979 does indeed display the scrawled name of Rudy." Spinelli paused to scrutinize Sam's face. His voice grew soft and careful as he continued, "The last name is one that, I fear, we will find all too familiar, and one that I can assure you Stone Cold will beg to be apprised of. A name that is shared by our very own resident doyens of the dark, one recently expired and the other avowed to avenge her death."

A dark shadow passed over Sam's face. With a timorous voice, she asked, "What's the last name?"

"Zacchara. The full name is Ray (Rudy) Zacchara."

"I know, Robin. I did get all your texts." Brenda stood on Elm St. Pier, holding her phone to her ear and staring nervously into the distance. "Yes, I'll come in as soon as I can… I know…You know me and decision-making, Robin. Not exactly my forte… Yes, we do need to discuss this in person…Alright, I'm on my way."

Brenda closed the phone and looked down at it, her face twisted with dread. She turned quickly to walk up the stairs and saw Dante looking down at her, poised to walk down to the pier.

"Hey," Dante said softly as he walked down to meet her at water's edge. He perused her face and his eyes went to her hair, a tendril of which was hanging just over her eyes. He found his hand yearning, practically aching, to reach up and move the wisp of hair away from her face. Instead, he licked his lips and smiled awkwardly.

"I'm glad I ran into you." Dante reached inside the pocket of his jeans. "I found something I wanted to give you."

Out of his pocket, he pulled out a flat piece of blue glass. Circular in shape with a rough-hewn exterior, the glass nestled perfectly in Dante's palm as he held it out for Brenda.

"Oh, Roman glass!" Brenda's mouth went wide, her eyes lit up, and she smiled broadly.

Dante gazed at the miraculous openness of her smile and found himself involuntarily beaming back at her. "Yeah, we picked it up on one of our trips to the city," he said. "I think it's from the gift shop at the Met."

"I remember. Your mother used to take you into the city, you said?"

"I know it's kind of strange me giving you something from Rome when you're the one who used to live there. Just thought you might like it. As a reminder or something." Dante drew closer to Brenda. He took her hand, opened the palm and dropped the glass into it.

Brenda rolled the glass around in her hand and caressed it with her fingers. She held it up to the light and let out a slight gasp as she remarked, "Look! You see how it's reflecting both the water and the sun bouncing off of the water?"

She let the weight of the glass settle into her hand and grinned at Dante. "There was a place in Rome, not far from my apartment, that had bits of Roman glass on display and I would sometimes go out of my way to walk by it, particularly on sunny days, just to see all the fantastic colors of the glass play with the sun. Blue-hued white with little speckled black inclusions, and, ones like this one, deep Cerulean blue with bits of plum colored inclusions."

Brenda looked down at the glass and paused. Her smile dropped a bit as she asked, "So I think I ran into your mother earlier. At Kelly's. Her name's Olivia, right? Boy, she must have had you when she was real young."

More than noting how the sun and water bounced off the glass, Dante had been enraptured examining how the light in Brenda's eyes seemed to dance. It was fascinating watching and he found his heart skipping a beat with every change, lift and fall, opening and closing, of Brenda's face. Somewhat disappointed that the dancing had slowed, Dante sighed, "Yeah, she had me when she was 15."

"Wow," Brenda murmured.

Dante nodded, "Yep, she was my hero."

Brenda looked back down at the glass in her hand. "Your mother gave this to you?" She held it away from herself and said, "Then I can't possibly take it."

Dante took the glass but held on to Brenda's hand and gently but urgently pulled her closer. He searched her face for some sign. Something that would tell him she was feeling the same hunger, the same pull, he was. His hand went to her hair and he allowed it to tickle his fingertips. The sensation evoked a soft growl to escape his throat and he leaned in closer to her mouth.

Brenda put a hand to Dante's face and traced the corner of his mouth with the tip of her thumb. With her other hand she grabbed his hand nestled in her hair, squeezed it lightly and pushed it away.

"I'm sorry. I can't," she whispered. "Not now."

A/N Thanks for reading. Comments always appreciated!