Blessed are the Peacemakers Read online

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Come on! Tracy’s mom let her read it.”

  “Then no for sure.” Gabriella said lightly and leaned over to pour syrup on her daughter’s partly burned waffle. A tiny drop of syrup dripped onto the table. Gabriella eyed the linen napkin by her plate but decided she didn’t feel like wiping up the spill.

  Grace kept her eyes on her mother as she dipped her finger into the mess, sucking the sweet syrup off, waiting for a scolding about table manners that never came.

  “Mama? Are you listening?”

  Gabriella looked up confused. Had Grace been talking?

  “I asked if Nana was coming over after school today?”

  “I think so.”

  Grace shot her mother a frustrated look. Gabriella took a gulp of her coffee. She had to get it together. She was spacing out more often lately.

  Her grief had turned to numbness. She didn’t cry anymore. At least not weeping that brought any tears. She’d cried herself out the first month.

  “Can I have milk instead of juice?”

  Gabriella stood and headed toward the kitchen. The only thing keeping her in motion was going through the paces. At least the kid was eating her waffle. Nibbling at it, but at least taking a few bites. At first, when Donovan died, Grace refused to eat. That stopped when her therapist took her on a tour of the hospital and showed what happened to kid’s who didn’t eat. One glimpse of a girl with a feeding tube stuck down her nose did the trick. It was harsh, but then again, Grace’s therapist didn’t mess around when it came to kids withering away.

  Gabriella plunked the glass of milk down before her daughter, spilling a little. Again, Gabriella ignored the mess. Before Donovan died, she would have pointed out that Grace was perfectly capable of getting the milk herself and possibly made a sarcastic remark that the Milk Fairy had retired when Grace started second grade. But now, she just wordlessly sat back down but not before clearing her throat and raising her eyebrow meaningfully.

  Grace looked confused for a second and then said, dully. “Oh, thank you.”

  “Hey, drop the attitude missy.”

  “Fine,” Grace pushed back her chair and huffed out of the kitchen without touching the milk.

  “Are you kidding me?” Gabriella said under her breath. At least most of the waffle was gone. As she stood to clear her daughter’s place, she accidentally knocked over the still full glass of milk. It spread, seeping across the table and heading toward the floor. Meanwhile, in Gabriella’s rush to stop the rolling glass from tumbling onto the floor and shattering, she sent a plate skidding off the edge. It fell, breaking into several sticky syrupy pieces on the terra cotta floor.

  Her anger, which was always simmering just below the surface since Donovan’s death, flared.

  “Grace get in here this instant.”

  Nothing.

  “Grace ... get in here right now.” Her voice was hoarse and she could feel her face flush.

  Grace stood with a smirk on her face in the doorway.

  “I know things have been difficult for us, but that’s no excuse. I will not allow you to be disrespectful. You will treat me with respect. You are acting like a spoiled brat.”

  The second the words poured out, Gabriella regretted them. Donovan had once told her that her temper was so ferocious that at times it seemed like lightning bolts were shooting from her eyes. At the time, they both thought it was funny.

  Now, seeing the crushed look on Grace’s face, Gabriella knew she had gone too far.

  A tear slipped down Grace’s cheek. She backed up, putting distance between her and her mother. Gabriella could tell her daughter was fighting back tears, clenching her teeth, blinking.

  Instantly, all Gabriella’s anger deflated. It was replaced with a hard pit of regret in her stomach. She took a step and reached for Grace, who shrunk back against the doorframe, as if her mother was a monster.

  “Grace ... I’m so sorry. You’re not a spoiled brat. I don’t believe in name-calling and I apologize. I don’t always act the way I want to act and I was really out of line. Even when I’m upset that is no excuse for name calling.”

  Gabriella crouched down and reached for Grace’s hand. Her daughter’s skin was silk beneath her touch.

  Grace jerked her arm away. The sadness from a moment ago was replaced by steely resolve. Grace didn’t flinch as she spit the words out at her mother: “I. Hate. You.”

  She turned and ran through the penthouse into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The sun was already warm and soothing on her bare arms and legs even though it was not yet noon. Stretched out poolside at her mother’s Marin County ranch, Gabriella couldn’t relax until she got her answer. She hadn’t slept the night before so she kept her dark sunglasses on to disguise her dark circles. She’d been up all night worrying about Grace. Something needed to change. As dawn had crept over the Oakland Hills to the east, Gabriella got out of bed with determination. She knew what she needed to do to get her life back and be the mother her daughter needed.

  But she was going to need her own mother’s help.

  Her request had been greeted with silence. She snuck a glance at her mother on the lawn chair beside her. Maria was biting her lip, thinking.

  “Mama, please do this for me. I need to go. I need to see where he died. I need to say goodbye. If there is any way I can find him, I need to bring him back home,” Gabriella stretched out her legs, pretending to examine a buckle on her sandals, but really trying to avoid her mother’s eyes, afraid of what she might see there. “I need your help. I need you to stay with Grace while I’m gone. I won’t be gone longer than a week. Two at the most.”

  Gabriella didn’t mention that after yesterday’s argument, her daughter probably wanted her to move to Central America for good.

  She didn’t blame Grace for being so upset. Parents were supposed to remain cool, calm, and collected. She’d blown that. She’d been out of line. Thinking of how she acted and what she said sent another stab of guilt through Gabriella. Everything was fucked up. She was a terrible mother and her husband was dead. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

  She was going to do things differently. She had to. For Grace.

  Today was the last day of Gabriella’s bereavement leave. As the date to return to the newsroom had grown closer, Gabriella began to realize it was difficult to move past Donovan’s death without a funeral, without a body, without some proof that he was gone—without at least an attempt to find him. She needed to go to where he died and say goodbye if she were ever going to move forward. Without doing that, without trying, she wasn’t sure she could go back to work as a reporter. Her love for the crime beat seemed like a different life, a life that another person had lived.

  Gabriella’s mother reached over and squeezed her hand.

  “Ella, if the United States government couldn’t find Donovan what makes you think you can?”

  Behind her dark sunglasses, Gabriella’s eyes flew open. She couldn’t think that way. She had to at least try to find Donovan or she’d never be able to move on. The thought of going back to work tomorrow, not knowing where his final resting place was, made her stomach hurt. She needed to go to Central America. She needed to do something, find something that would help her believe that Donovan truly was dead and that would allow her to find closure.

  Her mother still wore her black hair in a sleek knot at the back of her head, but now it was streaked with striking strands of white at the front and sides. Her lips sported her signature red lipstick and her nails were painted a petal pink. She wore a loose white caftan over her one-piece black bathing suit. Her toned and tanned calves stuck out below, rivaling those of a woman twenty years younger. Her mother embodied la bella figura—the Italian art of always presenting your best face forward—like nobody else.

  A maid appeared, handing them tall glasses of iced tea with fresh mint and red and white striped straws. Maria nodded at the w
oman like a queen, but Gabriella thanked the woman profusely.

  She still hadn’t gotten used to the opulence of her mother’s new home—and new lifestyle. When her mother married Vincenzo Santangelo, “The Saint,” the long-time widow moved out of his penthouse in San Francisco and into his Marin County ranch full time. Then, six months ago, he “retired,” saying he was going to spend the rest of his life making Maria happy.

  He’d loved Maria since he was a teenager, he said. He claimed he wasn’t ever going to let her out of his sight again and would dote on her until the day he died. So far that had involved taking Maria around the world to visit places she’d always dreamed about seeing, cooking her sumptuous meals, and basically making sure she didn’t lift a finger.

  Although Maria had hired a general manager for her flower shop in the East Bay, she’d insisted on working there every Saturday morning to keep tabs on how it was going. Meanwhile, she had acres of flowers, grape vines and vegetables to tend to here at the ranch when she felt like it. When she didn’t, or when they were traveling, a team of gardeners supervised the bounty.

  BOTH WOMEN LOOKED TOWARD the sparkling blue water in the pool, the late morning sunlight reflecting bright streaks of light onto their bare arms and faces.

  The Saint was the best thing that had ever happened to her mother. He truly loved her. And he seemed to genuinely care about her children and grandchildren, treating them no differently than his own.

  When the lease on Gabriella and Donovan’s North Beach condo came up, he insisted they move into his vacant Nob Hill penthouse apartment. He told them it would be a big help. He needed to keep the place as an investment and didn’t trust anyone else to live there. At first Donovan and Gabriella protested, but when he showed them the safe room and CIA-installed security and surveillance measures that included a private garage and elevator and the ability to push a button and have steel walls cover the penthouse windows, they conceded.

  Nobody would ever get to Grace again. At least not when she was home in the penthouse. After they moved into the sky-high fortress, the seven-year-old confessed to her parents it was the first time she’d felt safe enough to sleep through the night since her abduction two years before.

  Right then any guilt Gabriella felt about being “kept” by her mother’s husband disappeared. She would do anything if it meant her daughter felt safe.

  Now, Gabriella squinted at the sunlight reflecting in her face, hoping it was the brilliant light making her eyes tear up. “Mama, there has to be some signs of his plane crashing. It can’t just disappear off the face of the earth without a trace. Not with today’s technology.”

  “Amelia Earhart.” Her mother said, clamping her lips together.

  “It’s different now. They can at least pinpoint where he was when they lost contact with him in Mexico. I’ll start there.”

  “What? You put on your jogging shoes and start hiking through the jungle?” Maria said, tossing her hand up in the air. “That is absurd.”

  Gabriella looked away as she spoke. “I’ll hire a guide. A native.”

  Maria sat up, peering at Gabriella over the top of her sunglasses.

  “You are serious.”

  Gabriella took a long sip of her iced tea and nodded, slowly and emphatically. She kicked off her sandals, sending them tumbling onto the patio, one landed precariously next to the edge of the pool.

  “I need to at least try.”

  Her mother stood up, gathered Gabriella’s sandals, and placed them side-by-side beside the lounge chair.

  Gabriella studied her mother. She looked too thin and suddenly fragile. She reminded herself that her mother was eighty. It wasn’t easy to see her mother age. While she was still sharp, she was slower and seemed to nap a lot lately.

  “Ma? You okay?”

  Maria smiled and nodded without answering.

  “I’m sorry for asking you to care for Grace. I know I sometimes take you for granted.”

  Her mother waved her hand and scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I love nothing more than spending time with my grandchildren. I would be happy to watch Grace for you. That is not what I’m talking about.”

  Gabriella felt water well in the corner of her eyes and she blinked rapidly to stem her tears. But her mother wasn’t done speaking her mind.

  “What if there is nothing? What if there is nothing to bring back home?”

  Gabriella stood, tugged off her crocheted sweater and then slipped off her black shorts, revealing a tiny turquoise bikini. She folded her clothes in a neat pile by her sandals. Sitting on the edge of the lounge chair, she took her mother’s hands in her own.

  “I need to do this.”

  Her mother pressed her lips together tightly and nodded, blinking back tears. She reached over and patted her daughter’s bare, tan leg. “Andare con Dio.” Go with God.

  “Thanks, Mama.” Gabriella leaned in and kissed her mother on the forehead and then leaned back, slipping her dark sunglasses over her eyes.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A few years back, when Gabriella had exposed an elaborate cover-up involving 9/11, she’d made a powerful ally in the state department.

  That’s why Senator Charles Corbin moved aside several appointments to accommodate her visit to D.C. that morning.

  Gabriella strode into his office in a black suit with a calf-length skirt and Louboutin high-heeled black pumps. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and she wore only the lightest makeup. Capitol Hill dress code meant no nonsense.

  “Mrs. Giovanni.” He came out from around his oversize desk to pump her hand.

  “Senator.” Her grip was as firm as his. “Thank you so much for meeting with me on such short notice and thanks for your help last year on the book.”

  “My pleasure. I hope that forward I provided will work.” He sat back down and pushed a folder across the desk to her. He didn’t waste any time. “This folder contains your husband’s itinerary for his trip to Central America, as near as we could figure it. The DEA fought like hell, but I think we were able to trace his movements from San Francisco until the plane disappeared in the jungle—we’ve narrowed it down with satellite images to a ten-mile square radius. I wish we could’ve done more or zeroed in closer, but something with the plane’s nav system went awry. And the jungle canopy really makes it tough to see what’s happening on the ground.”

  He paused and watched her face.

  Gabriella nodded. A ten-mile radius would work. She studied the paperwork in her lap. It would not be an easy journey. Feeling his gaze on her, Gabriella looked up and caught something in the senator’s eyes. Something dangerous, some type of warning. He knew something about the trip he wasn’t telling her.

  “Is there something else?” The hairs on her arm rose as she waited.

  The senator looked as if he was about to say something. His eyes had narrowed just slightly and he opened his mouth. Then the phone rang. He stood. “I’m sorry, that’s my signal that my committee is meeting to vote, but I wanted to make sure you got this information.”

  Again, he paused, examining her. What wasn’t he telling her? Then he was at the door holding it open.

  Gabriella offered her hand before she left. “You’ve been extremely helpful. I won’t forget it.”

  She was halfway down the hallway when he called her name. She turned.

  “Be careful.”

  She nodded and he turned and walked the other way. She watched until he disappeared around a corner, his broad shoulders in his expensive suit exuding a poise, confidence, and authority that on politicians seemed natural.

  In the Town Car driving to the airport, Gabriella clutched the folder on her lap. She didn’t want to let go of it, even to put it in her shoulder bag. The senator had come up with the information overnight and then made room to see her on her whirlwind visit.

  But he knew something, probably something upsetting or dangerous that he wasn’t telling her. He had been about to tell her of something, but instead left it
with a wishy-washy warning to “be careful.”

  Brushing her apprehension aside, Gabriella felt grateful that she had the senator in her corner. This trip wouldn’t be possible without this information he’d provided and the hurdles he had cleared, acting like a tour director to plan every leg of her trip even down to hiring the guide. She appreciated how he referred to Donovan as her husband—in the present tense—and how he didn’t say the plane had crashed. “Disappeared” was the right term. Until she found the wreckage, that is how she viewed it, as well.

  Because in the deep, darkest of night, she clung to the tiniest shred of hope that Donovan wasn’t dead. She didn’t want to believe it completely until she saw the wreckage, found some trace of him. Maybe even found his body. That might be what it would take. Otherwise it was too hard to not believe it was all a mistake.

  Right now, her heart wouldn’t let her believe he was gone. Back home in San Francisco, there were brief moments—just whispered breaths during her day— where it was too easy to believe he was out of the country on business. He’d return home to her and Grace, his quiet, yet powerful personality back home infusing the penthouse with a feeling of safety and warmth that only he could provide.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Gabriella stared out her windshield at the big brick façade of the Bay Herald. Her palms were slick and her heart pounded in her ears. She could feel a headache forming over her right eye.

  For so many years this had been her home away from home. But right now, she was terrified to enter its doors. A series of images flashed through her mind that had nothing to do with the newspaper building in front of her.

  Snapshots of Donovan when they first met. He was the sexy cop at the crime scene. She was the reporter trying to get him to tip her off to the real story.

  She’d cried in this newsroom. She’d been questioned by homicide detectives in this building. She’d even made love to Donovan once down by the mammoth printing presses, her back against a wall, her groans inaudible next to the deafening noise of the Sunday print run in full force.