Gia and the Forgotten Island (Gia Santella Crime Thriller Book 2) Read online

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  I had no idea what I had agreed to. I was concentrating too hard on stifling my yawns and sitting up straight.

  Dante frowned.

  I opened my eyes wide, blinking, and did a few jaw exercises. Focus, Santella.

  As I tuned in to the droning voices I recognized some words and shot a look at Dante. Bloody hell. They were talking about the proposal I’d emailed this morning. Then one grumpy guy stood and cleared his throat. “Mr. Chairman. In my opinion, this proposal is not in the purview of the board. We don’t approve or reject individual projects, such as the one Miss Santella has proposed. That is not our role. With that said, I move to reject as it is not something that seems to be in line with the objectives and goals of this company.”

  Dante gave me a sharp elbow to my ribs.

  I jumped. I was on.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen.” I pushed back my chair and stood. It made me feel like an adult again.

  “You are out of order!” I didn’t hear who said it and I didn’t care.

  I had thought hard about what to say. After my parents’ deaths, when my godfather ran the company, he developed a mixed-use facility in the Sunset called Bay View. The whole project was paid for with blood money. Before my godfather died, he drove a dying woman out of her home and probably took part in some other nefarious deeds to clear the way for the development. I later learned that when my father was alive, he’d tried to stop the project.

  Now that they were both dead, I was in charge. My initial instinct had been to raze the whole damn thing, but the building was now almost finished. When my attorney, Sal, told me I was now CEO and had to make a decision on the development, I’d stayed awake nights for weeks trying to figure out what to do with it.

  Then, after a bit too much tequila, the boy I was dating, Bobby, showed up at my door with a dozen roses. At three in the morning. He’d driven all the way from his home in Santa Cruz because he missed me, he said.

  I saw the roses and burst into tears, which, of course, utterly confused him, as it should have.

  It reminded me of Ethel, I said. Bobby listened as I explained. When I was done, he did things to me that made me forget all about Ethel for quite a few hours.

  But that’s when I decided, in honor of Ethel, I was turning Bay View into housing for the homeless. A special innovative development that would not only house the residents but also employ them. The Tenderloin had no shortage of programs to help house the homeless, such as housing them in SROs—single resident occupancies, but I wanted to take it one step further.

  In my development, the upper floors would be adorable studio apartments with galley kitchens and the street level businesses would remain the same as my godfather had planned: a restaurant, hair salon, flower shop, and a market with fresh fruit and vegetables. The rooftop would contain a full garden with fruit and vegetables that were used in the restaurant and sold in the market. However, in my plan, the residents had first dibs on jobs in the building.

  Of course, I thought it was the greatest idea ever.

  Apparently, the board thought differently.

  Luckily, I didn’t give a rat’s ass what they thought.

  Still standing, I placed my palms on the desk. “I’m sorry that you disagree with my proposal gentlemen, but as the CEO, I’m going to have to say ...” I looked at Dante. “Well, too bad.”

  Hey, it was a step up from what I wanted to say, which was “Sorry, Charlie.”

  One man couldn’t contain himself. He’d been spluttering with rage since I spoke.

  “But ... but ... the views. The views alone are million-dollar views.”

  “I know!” I said excitedly. “Isn’t that great?”

  “But they are homeless,” one man spit the word out as if it were the most distasteful word he’d ever said.

  “And?” I raised an eyebrow. Nobody spoke a word. “I guess what I’m hearing is that you don’t think that homeless people appreciate a good view same as the rest of us?”

  Silence.

  “Would you go so far as to say that only rich, white old dudes like you can appreciate a great view?”

  Not a peep.

  “What about, let’s say ... gay people? Do they appreciate a great view? How about black people? Native Americans? Mexicans?” I snapped my fingers. “I know ... how about Italian-Americans? Do you think they appreciate a view the same as you?”

  Looking at all their faces, I could tell that each and every one of them wanted to punch me in the face. That was okay because I wanted to kick them in the family jewels.

  “This meeting is adjourned.” I pushed back my chair, stood and stalked toward the door.

  At the door, I turned and said, “By the way, the name of the development is Swanson Place.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sweat dripped off my temple, splashing onto the smooth wooden floor of the dojo.

  “Had enough?” Kato laughed, tightening the belt of his karategi.

  “Hell, yes.” I panted and wiped more sweat off my neck with a small white towel. “You mad at me or something?”

  “Trying to prove my point.” He watched me over the large water bottle he was guzzling.

  I took a big sip of my water, eyeing him back. He looked like he’d just woken up from the most refreshing nap ever and was ready to tackle his day. He wasn’t even breathing hard. Kato was in his forties and kept his sleek hair longer in the back. His eyes always sparkled with life, as if he were on the verge of telling you some marvelous secret about the world and its wonders.

  But today those eyes saw right through me. And his words cut to the chase.

  “Fine,” I said with a huff. “I’ll go on the wagon. Tomorrow.”

  “Today.”

  “Maybe.”

  A small part of me worried that even if I wanted to quit drinking for good I wouldn’t be able to. It was how I’d dealt with my grief since my parents’ deaths. I never said it was healthy. Or effective. It was what it was.

  Other students starting pouring into the cavernous dojo for the next class. To the west, the setting sun cast a reddish glow on the city. The dojo was on the fourth floor of an old warehouse in Chinatown and had floor-to-ceiling windows in all but one direction. The wide-open space was calming, but it was the work I did there that kept me sane.

  My new apartment would have a space for me to train, but I intended to keep coming to the dojo a few times a week. I needed Kato to motivate me. He had no mercy. My excuses were a joke to him. And rightly so.

  He knew drugs and drinking made me weak. Not just physically, either. I stuffed my towel into my bag and turned to say goodbye. Kato was talking to a student, his forehead furrowed. He crooked a finger at me. I slipped over to listen.

  “Are you sure?” Kato said to the young man.

  “Haven’t seen him for at least three days. You told me to let you know.”

  The student walked away.

  I took another swig of my water and waited for Kato to speak.

  “Wyatt—the homeless man who Matt sees on the way to work every day for the past fifteen years—is gone. That makes three.”

  “There’s something going on.”

  “I agree,” he said. His eyebrows scrunched together. “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “Me, either.”

  A streak of dread ran down my back.

  It was as if I could sense evil heading my way.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Darling’s shop was in the heart of the T.L. It catered to everyone from the absurdly rich women living on Nob Hill to the accountant slogging away in the financial district to the homeless woman begging for food on the street corner.

  Because the Tenderloin took care of its own. On the first Tuesday of each month, the salon’s stylists dedicated their time to give free services to the neighborhood’s down and out. They could afford to be generous. Darling owned the busiest hair salon in San Francisco. It stretched for nearly a block and some thirty stylis
ts worked there.

  After showering, I headed over there to bitch about the board, get my butt kicked in cribbage, and catch up on the neighborhood gossip. I walked so I could bring my dog Django and check on construction of my new home. My old building in the Tenderloin had burned down. A crazy Italian man—who’d killed my parents and thought I was his daughter—had paid someone to torch it. He was dead now. The new building was going up in the same space, in an area known as the Panhandle because of its homeless population.

  The Panhandle was surrounded by other T.L. neighborhoods, including the Forgotten Island, the Nipple, Pill Hill, the Whoa-Man, Fecal Fountain, and Foxy Heights—where Darling’s salon was located.

  The salon was like an exotic land to me.

  Tonight, the silver chairs in the salon were filled and half a dozen women waited their turn, lounging in pink velvet armchairs in the lobby. Laughter and small talk greeted me when I walked in. The smell of hair product and heady perfumes filled the air. High-heeled Jimmy Choo’s peeked out from underneath black plastic smocks. Eyes and lips were made up to perfection. It was a typical Friday night at the salon: These women were getting their hair done and then heading out on the town, to sushi and theater and clubs with live music.

  I was born missing the hair fixing gene, but worse than that, I was born missing the desire to have cute hair at all. My long dark hair was layered and sleek only because Dante had made me a standing appointment with his friend. Phillipe showed up at my apartment early every second Monday morning when I was sleeping and couldn’t escape.

  Although Darling’s shop was lucrative, her main business took place in the back room. It was outfitted like a cozy living room in a mansion with a TV that took up one entire wall and a grouping of white leather couches. The back room was where her “other” business was conducted, the one that earned her enough money to buy her a house on Nob Hill and in the Oakland Hills. It involved the procurement of paperwork, the expensive and hard to get kind: fake IDs, passports, anything someone would want to disappear.

  Sitting at a table in the back room, we did shots of Jack Daniels and played cribbage on a wooden board that was shaped like the state of Louisiana for some reason. We were one quarter of the way into the bottle and nearing the end of our first game.

  “How’s your place coming along, baby girl?” Darling asked, expertly dealing six cards, her long, gold-painted fingernails catching the light. The cards slid across the sleek table and piled up in a neat stack before me. Her lioness mane of dark curls bobbed as she dealt, along with her ample bosom.

  “Still not fast enough for me,” I said. “Maybe two more weeks?”

  I scooped up my cards. Darling flipped the cut card and I froze. I had a twenty-four hand. Nearly the best hand you could get. I tried to plaster on my poker face. I was not lucky. I was far from lucky. And yet, there it was—a goddamn twenty-four hand. Three threes and a nine and the cut card was a three. Mother fucker.

  I glanced at Darling from under my eyelashes and caught her watching me with her golden cat eyes, lined thickly with kohl like the Egyptian goddess she was probably re-incarnated from.

  “Good. You need to get back to the hood. We miss you. Well, mainly miss seeing that mutt around.” When we’d lived in the Tenderloin before, I’d tried to swing by the salon at least once a day with Django because he was crazy about Darling. And she was bonkers about him. Django, a pit bull-lab mix, was like a best friend, lie detector, and bodyguard rolled into one. He could spot trouble from a block away. If you were bad news, you’d trigger Django’s low guttural growl and raise his hackles, even if you were a four-foot-eleven, ninety-pounder who seemed harmless. Hulking, muscled six-foot-tall men like Darling’s bouncer, George, only garnered whole body wiggles and licks from Django if they were good people.

  I was jealous of the dog’s ability to sniff out the riffraff. If our society had Django’s ability to look past physical appearances and see the real person underneath, the world would be a whole lot better place.

  “You miss that rangy mutt?” I looked over at Django. He lay with his head on his paws on a cushion in the corner. He whined and wagged his tail as if he knew we were talking about him. “What about me?”

  “You all right, I guess.” Darling burst into laughter that turned into a coughing fit. I gave her a look. She had a heart condition, was overweight, and had only stopped smoking two years ago. She was a lot older than me, but with her unlined face, she could be anywhere between thirty and seventy. I swear, black people didn’t age. Her health was a constant concern of mine. Once I tried to get her to lose weight and brought her a kale smoothie. When I put it in front of her, the look she shot me would have slayed a more sensitive person.

  She tossed it in the trash, mumbling about how she wasn’t going to eat “nasty ass grass juice,” and how she’d lose all her “suitors” if she lost even one pound. I didn’t care about any of that. All I cared about was her living a long life. When everyone you cared about died, you were finely tuned into every little possible danger sign.

  “I miss you, too, D.” I turned my attention back to my cards and tried to play it cool. With this hand, I could actually win. I only needed fifteen points. But Darling only needed thirteen. And she counted first. If I could hold her to twelve points I’d win. It would piss her off and ruin her night. I didn’t feel a twinge of guilt. I laid down a three. There was no way she could score on that. I tried to distract her.

  It is good if a warrior’s enemy underestimates him during battle. A warrior must not reveal all at once if he is to prevail in war. The ability to distract one’s enemy will help a warrior draw closer to victory and outmaneuver his enemy.

  “What’s new in the ‘hood?’” I said.

  Darling slapped down a five. “Eight.”

  She didn’t answer. I looked up and locked eyes with her Pharaoh ones.

  “Some deep dark shit going on.”

  I froze.

  “People are scared,” she said.

  “More homeless people going missing?”

  I looked at my hand. I only had one play.

  “Not just homeless,” Darling said. “Roscoe didn’t pay rent this month. His room is empty, like he just went out the store. Left is favorite black hat. Sally lives in one of those SRO. She’s up and gone. Same deal. All her stuff left behind.”

  “How many is that now?”

  Darling leaned back, thinking. “Well, there’s DannyBoy. Mr. Ed. Roscoe. Now Sally.” She looked over. “That’s four.”

  “Kato says he knows of three.”

  She jutted her chin at my cards.

  I played my nine. “Seventeen.”

  She put down a seven. “Twenty-four.”

  “Plus, Ethel.” I said.

  “She was murdered, not missing.”

  I didn’t argue. “Anyway, you look at it, it’s a problem.”

  “Mmmm Hmmm.” Darling said, taking another slug of Jack Daniels.

  “What do the police say?”

  Darling practically spit out her drink. “PO-lice? The police said everything is just fine, little Miss Black Woman, you run on home and don’t worry your pretty little head.” She shook her head. “The PO-lice. They don’t care about homeless or poor people and they especially don’t care about black homeless or poor people.”

  I threw down a three. “Twenty-seven.”

  “Go.” She frowned I put down my other three and took my three points. Only twelve points for me to win. “Still lot of game left,” I said to console her. She glowered.

  “Are all those people you mentioned black?”

  “Yep.”

  I sighed. “Kato’s three missing are black, too.

  “There’s something evil afoot,” Darling said, nodding, looking down at her cards.

  “That’s a fact.”

  “Everyone on edge. Not just because of that, either.”

  “I know.”

  The hatred in the country was growing in fervor. It didn’t even seem
like the country I grew up in. People were comfortable spewing vitriol and hatred like never before. Sides were being drawn in rallies and protests: self-proclaimed white nationalist groups against those seeking equality for all and many conflicts ended in bloodshed.

  Last week, a protest in Oakland ended with a police car set on fire and four people beaten so bad they had to be hospitalized.

  “All that stuff is heading over here,” Darling said. “Today. Or tomorrow. Soon. They say them racists have some surprise planned for us here in the city. Sasha came by earlier. Said she got a tip they were holding a rally here tonight. In the plaza. She wants to write about it for the paper. I told her over my dead body. But that girl’s stubborn like her mama, God rest her soul. I told her if she has to go, to take George with her.”

  Darling’s nineteen-year-old granddaughter, Sasha, attended U.C. Berkeley and worked for the campus newspaper. George was the salon’s doorman-slash-bouncer. I’d also heard the rumors. A hate group has made threats about running people of color out of the city and burning buildings down.

  I scowled. “What the hell is wrong with those people?”

  Darling shook her head. “No explanation for that kind of hate. It’s the devil’s work.”

  I nodded.

  She flicked down a five.

  I was out of cards so it was her turn to go again.

  With a flourish, she smiled and dropped another five. “Ten for three.”

  “Go.” I said, trying not to sound annoyed.

  She scooped up her cards and then flipped them over as she counted them. “Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen-six, fifteen-eight and six are fourteen.” She moved her peg across the finish line.

  She looked at my hand laid out: four threes and a nine—and whistled.

  “Damn, girl, that’s a good hand,” she said. “Too bad you can’t count it.”

  “Yeah, too bad,” I said, dryly. “Pretty crappy when a twenty-four hand isn’t good enough.” I stood and stretched. I’d never been lucky.

  Django growled, lifting his head, right before the knock on the door came. Darling looked at her security camera screen and then leaned over to push a small button. The door swung open. George gestured for a small woman with a tidy black bun to come in. When Django saw it was George, he lazily wagged his tail and then put his head back on his paws. They’d already gone over all the ritualistic wiggling and face licking earlier when we arrived. Even the dog knew that with George around nobody had to worry—he could relax and go back to sleep.