A Villa in Sicily: Orange Groves and Vengeance
A VILLA IN SICILY:
ORANGE GROVES AND VENGEANCE
(A Cats and Dogs Cozy Mystery—Book Five)
FIONA GRACE
Fiona Grace
Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books; of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising seven books; of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books; of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books; and of the CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books.
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Copyright © 2021 by Fiona Grace. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Pigprox, used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE
LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY
MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)
DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)
CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)
VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)
KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)
PERISHED BY A PAINTING (Book #6)
SILENCED BY A SPELL (Book #7)
FRAMED BY A FORGERY (Book #8)
CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER (Book #9)
TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY
AGED FOR MURDER (Book #1)
AGED FOR DEATH (Book #2)
AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book #3)
AGED FOR SEDUCTION (Book #4)
AGED FOR VENGEANCE (Book #5)
AGED FOR ACRIMONY (Book #6)
AGED FOR MALICE (Book #7)
DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (Book #1)
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF CRIME (Book #2)
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF DEATH (Book #3)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (Book #1)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A MURDEROUS MACARON (Book #2)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A PERILOUS CAKE POP (Book #3)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A DEADLY DANISH (Book #4)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A TREACHEROUS TART (Book #5)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A CALAMITOUS COOKIE (Book #6)
CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY
A VILLA IN SICILY: OLIVE OIL AND MURDER (Book #1)
A VILLA IN SICILY: FIGS AND A CADAVER (Book #2)
A VILLA IN SICILY: VINO AND DEATH (Book #3)
A VILLA IN SICILY: CAPERS AND CALAMITY (Book #4)
A VILLA IN SICILY: ORANGE GROVES AND VENGEANCE (Book #5)
A VILLA IN SICILY: CANNOLI AND A CASUALTY (Book #6)
A VILLA IN SICILY: SPAGHETTI AND SUSPICION (Book #7)
A VILLA IN SICILY: LEMONS AND A PREDICAMENT (Book #8)
A VILLA IN SICILY: GELATO AND A VENDETTA (Book #9)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER ONE
Audrey Smart dug her fingernails into the armrest as the tiny prop plane she was in touched down, bump-bump-bumping its way down the crude gravel runway in the midst of a watery haze. When she looked out the window, all she saw was barren landscape, stretching to black mountains in the distance that disappeared among the clouds.
Montagna.
She was finally here. And maybe, just maybe, so was her long-lost father.
That’s why she’d come all this way, after all. To locate the father she’d idolized but hadn’t seen since she was thirteen. The epic reunion of a lifetime, the stuff of Hallmark movies, with plenty of tears and tissues involved.
But it’s not the only reason, a little voice inside her head screamed as she crawled to the front of the plane and the pilot helped her out onto the tarmac. The other three passengers—all locals, it seemed— were heading to a small white building that said, Montagna Aeroporto, so she followed along, dragging her overnight bag with her.
She really didn’t want to think about the other reasons.
But the reasons—Reason Number One and Reason Number Two-- seemed to want to be thought about. Every time they’d threatened to swarm her head during the half-hour flight, she’d thumped the side of her head, nudging them out. It hadn’t helped.
When she turned her phone off airplane mode, she saw a text from Reason Number One: Hope you’re having a good time. Miss you.
She growled a little under her breath. Mason Legare, her hot expat neighbor who lived a block away from her home in Mussomeli, Sicily, where she ran her veterinarian practice, was handsome, sweet, helpful, and . . . had the worst possible timing.
When she reached the shade of the airport, she hesitated and considered responding. In the end, she didn’t. It was Mason who’d forced her out here, on what was probably a wild goose chase, before she’d really researched it fully. Mason and . . .
Her phone buzzed. A text from G, owner of La Mela Verde, the most popular café in Mussomeli. Looking forward to our date, Principessa.
“Ugh,” she said aloud, wanting to wring both their necks. The last thing she wanted to think about was going on a date. The word “date” had actually made her break out in a case of hives.
And yet, she had two coming up this weekend, one with Mason, and one with G. The two of them, with their terrible timing. Terrible timing was the story of her life. After beating around the bush from the second she arrived in Mussomeli, over four months ago, they’d each finally confessed they wanted to date her . . . for real.
To say it’d made her head spin was an understatement. And she liked both of them, for entirely different reasons, so she couldn’t say no. For a while there, she’d thought it was Mason, the American who understood all her challenges living in a foreign country. But then, when she saw G, she couldn’t deny that she liked him, too. He was the welcoming face she’d first met in Mussomeli, and one of the main reasons why she was happy to call the place home. He’d made her feel so welcome and had always been there for her with a nice bowl of ciambotta and some friendly conversation.
It was enough to drive her insane.
The only thing she could thi
nk was to escape, even though she’d just arrived back in town after a stint cleaning up a stray cat problem in Lipari, an island off the northern coast of Sicily.
Luckily, she’d had Concetta, her assistant, who, after learning of her “man problems,” suggested she take a day off to mull it over and decide what to do. She’d seen the big welts popping out on Audrey’s skin and ordered her to take a rest to clear her mind.
Man problems? Since when had Audrey ever, in her thirty-five years, had man problems? The biggest problem she’d ever had was with them staying far away from her.
And now that she had two men, she also had hives.
But when she’d thought about escape, the first thing she’d thought about, of course, was the source of her First Man problems, the one from which all of her problems seemed to somehow stem from . . .Montagna. Her father.
Audrey almost laughed about it as she made her way to the curb and stepped into a smelly taxi, the only one at the curb. She looked at the notes she’d scribbled, an address of a man named Smart, the only one in the Montagna phone directory. Instead of speaking in her fractured Italian, she showed the driver the crumpled paper. He nodded, and they were off.
The town of Montagna, in Northern Italy, was even more remote than the island of Lipari. Lipari had its share of tourists, but this place was completely off the map. When they left the airport behind them, they drove through a town consisting only of dirt roads. As it puffed up around them in a thick, choking haze, Audrey squinted to see the sights. Children playing barefoot in the street. A woman in what looked like a pioneer dress and headscarf, carrying a basket full of laundry. Houses that were barely more than one-room shacks, slapped together with random pieces of discarded wood.
Sure, Dad. I can see the allure of this place. You left us for THIS?
Growing up, Audrey’s father had been her favorite person on Earth. Everything she’d done so far to fix up the one-dollar house she’d bought in Sicily, she’d learned from him. Though she remembered little of their time together, since it was so long ago, those lessons had stayed with her. Those lessons, and the memory of a postcard he used to keep in his breast pocket.
A picture of this place, Montagna.
She wrinkled her nose as she remembered the old photograph. It had been beautiful. Peaceful. Restful, the picture of the sun setting over the black mountains as the sunset dissolved into the sea. Two seagulls danced in the pink-orange skies. It hadn’t looked like this. Had it?
Of course, it might have. The picture had been taken just during sunset. The darkness could’ve hidden a wealth of problems.
More power to you, Dad, but if I’d dreamed all my life of this place and arrived here, she thought as she watched a child in a too-small shirt that bared his belly, wheeling an old, bald tire down the street, I’d probably be on the next flight out.
But even though she’d last seen him over twenty years ago, she’d never forgotten that postcard. Never given up hope that one day, she’d reunite with him. And now, he was so close. So when Concetta told her she should take a day off to decompress, she decided to grab it. She already had the ticket. Now, it was time to satisfy her burning curiosity, once and for all.
Who knew? Maybe her father would invite her in, be so happy to see her, make her a big bowl of pasta, and insist she stay with him for the next week? She could just see her calling both of her beaus, saying, something came up, and cancelling both dates. Maybe for good. Right now, she didn’t want to think about letting either of them down. She couldn’t.
But she had to go back. Her clinic was waiting for her.
Tonight. She’d go back and make her decision about which date to keep, tonight.
Right now, it was time to meet her father.
The taxi pulled onto a road of sand, by the beach. Here, there were little bungalows with thatched roofs, just steps from the sea. Though they were nothing more than hovels, one couldn’t beat the view of the aqua Tyrrhenian Sea, speckled with small, green islands. Men and women sat on the front steps to their houses, watching her carefully, as the taxi went by. Children picked through the sand, their laughter ringing out in the warm air. A fisherman who was about to cast out a line turned to eye her, too. Audrey got the feeling they didn’t get much traffic around here.
Well, if my father wanted peace and quiet from the hustle and bustle of Back Bay Boston, this sounds like the place to go.
The taxi pulled up at a small blue home that was choked by seagrass. Of all the homes, it was the prettiest and least rundown, except for perhaps the house next to it. Some of the others looked like Three Little Pig homes, constructed of slapped-together materials that might blow over in a stiff breeze. This house, though, while small, looked like it had been constructed by a master carpenter. Just like . . .
Dad?
A garden of wildflowers was dotted with broken seashells, full of sand. Olive trees hung low over the path to the door, creating a canopy. Audrey stared at it, hand on the taxi’s door handle, unable to move.
The driver cleared his throat. “Sedici al mare,” he said, pointing to the slip of paper she’d given him. He also motioned to the door, as if to say, Go on.
“Oh. This is it?”
He nodded.
“Grazie mille,” she said, handing him the fare.
She stepped outside and shivered despite the near eighty-degree temperature. The cab sped off the second she closed the door, effectively quashing any hopes she had of retreat. Pushing aside tree branches, she peered into the open windows, hoping to get a glimpse of the home’s inhabitants, but the inside was dark. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, worried that they’d fail her or send her running away, after the cab.
He’d been gone from her life over twenty years. Twenty years, he could’ve come back. And yet he’d never even written, never told her where he was going. He hadn’t even said goodbye, and her mother had refused to speak of him, as if his mere name was a dirty word. Whenever Audrey asked her mother if she still had contact with him, the answer was always the same, “It doesn’t matter. He’s out of our life for good, and good riddance.”
She should’ve been angry, but she wasn’t . . . just curious. She’d made her way in life without him, without his help. She wanted nothing from him. She just wanted to know the man who’d given her life. She didn’t care if he’d be unhappy to see her, or if he sent her away . . . she just wanted to know who he was, now. And, most importantly, why he’d gone.
That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?
Squaring her shoulders, she quickly took the last few steps and stood in front of the battered screen door. Not finding a doorbell, she rapped on the frame. “Hello?”
There was movement inside that, at first, she attributed to the breeze, blowing things inside the house. But then she noticed a tall, substantial silhouette rising from deeper in the house, slowly making its way toward her.
Her breath hitched.
The features slowly came into view. So much was different, but as the characteristics materialized in front of her, yes, she could see the resemblance to the man she once knew. A strong chin, now gray and grizzled. A once slightly balding head, now with just a few renegade wisps of hair reaching for the sky. Perpetually tanned skin from framing homes outdoors, now leathered from the sun. Eyes that were deep blue and somewhat sad, as if filled with regret. Regret for leaving one’s family?
He stopped, fingers on the door handle, a question on his face.
She swallowed. “Dad?”
CHAPTER TWO
The curiosity on the man’s face turned to something like horror. The eyes narrowed to slits. The wrinkles on his weathered face grew more pronounced. He gritted his teeth for a long moment, before erupting in a string of Italian that didn’t seem to have an end.
It was in that long moment that Audrey realized a few things. Her father had had a tattoo on his forearm of a four-leaf clover. He’d had a Roman nose, not the flat, broad nose of this man. And this man had a
purplish birthmark on his cheek.
So . . . not her father. Had she really been that blind?
No . . . no, somehow, she knew she wouldn’t meet her father, here. But somewhere, deep inside, she’d harbored a childish hope. The hope of a twelve-year-old girl who’d lost her hero, forever.
She took a step backwards. “Um, I’m sorry. Do you speak English? Lei parla inglese? I’m looking for my father. Do you know a Miles Smart?”
His eyes narrowed. “Smart?”
She felt anything but smart, at that moment. “Yes. I thought there was someone by that name living here?” She fumbled for her phone. Maybe she could bring it up and show him. “At least, in the records I looked up online, it said--”
He shook his head. “No. No Smart.”
Audrey’s spirits plummeted. Well, so much for that.
“Oh. Grazie. I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, stepping away. She turned around and realized she had no ride back to the airport. In fact, the next flight wouldn’t leave until later that afternoon, according to the schedule she’d taken from the Messina airport, which offered flights to the several small towns on the mainland for a dear price. She reached for her phone and gazed at the display. No service.
Well, the airport wasn’t that far away. I could probably walk it.
She took a step and heard a loud bang, somewhere nearby. For a moment, she thought it had to be a car backfiring. That’s what it had to be, right? This wasn’t America, after all. It couldn’t be a gunshot, right? Not in this idyllic little town in Italy that her father had longed to live in.
But then, a couple of slouchy-looking teenagers went running down the street like a bolt of lightning, looking over their shoulders, as if they knew someone would be in pursuit. One of them was clutching something black . . . which definitely could’ve been a gun.
Eyes wide, she turned to go back to the house, hoping she could ask to use the phone. If they even had phone lines around here. Or for shelter, in case those teens caught sight of her and decided to mug her. She clutched her bag to her chest, wishing she hadn’t brought so many euros with her. Back then, her thought process had been: What if I love the place as much as my dad and want to by a souvenir t-shirt? Or stay in a hotel for a night? Or . . .