Page 55 of Hate Mail

“Luca!” she calls out, startling me. Then, louder, “Luca! You have visitors. Luca!”

My skin goes cold, yet I’m sweating like I’m in a sauna. I was so convinced that Luca wouldn’t be here that I hadn’t stopped to think about what I would do if he was. I can’t imagine what he’ll think when he comes downstairs and finds me in his kitchen with his wife.

We all wait for a long moment. The house is quiet. I find it surprising that even in a house as large as this, he wouldn’t have heard Penelope. I expect her to shout his name again, but she doesn’t. Instead, she turns to face me and Anne with that crazed looking smile back on her face.

“Oh, that’s right. Luca doesn’t live here anymore,” Penelope says. She rolls her eyes again and laughs.

Anne raises an eyebrow. She pulls her glass away from her lips, eyeing it like she’s only now realizing that this woman might be insane enough to poison two complete strangers.

“That cheating bastard only lived here for a month before I kicked him out,” Penelope continues. “Who are you, anyway, and what do you want with him?”

I look at Anne. I regret coming inside. Based on the look on her face, I can tell she feels the same. I turn back to Penelope. I’m trying to think of how to explain who I am and why I’m looking for her ex-husband. Or ex-fiancé. I’m not really sure at what point they broke up. Before I can tell her my name, Anne places her hand on my shoulder, stopping me.

“We’re bounty hunters,” Anne says. “Mr. Pichler committed a crime and then dropped off the grid. We’re trying to trace his steps.”

I’m impressed by how quickly she came up with that. Penelope smiles like she enjoys knowing that Luca is going to be arrested. Then she shrugs. “You’d probably have better luck in San Diego. Last I heard, he was staying with Ben Toole. Or better yet, look for Naomi Light. That’s the bitch he was cheating on me with.”

I freeze. For a moment, I think that she knows who I am, and she’s testing me. But she’s not making eye contact with me, and I realize that she’s genuinely upset by what she thinks Luca did. I manage to maintain my composure.

“Wow,” I say. “He sounds like a real piece of shit.”

“He is,” she agrees. “So, what did he do that you’re after him for? I always knew he would get himself into trouble.”

I’m about to make up a crime when Anne says, “We’re not at liberty to discuss that. It’s our job to catch him, and talking about his crimes could compromise the investigation.”

“Right. Of course,” Penelope says. “I’m sure he’ll get what he deserves.”

She looks me over, and then her gaze wanders to Anne. It feels a little like she’s sizing us up. She raises an eyebrow. “You don’t look like bounty hunters.”

“Bounty hunters come in all shapes and sizes,” Anne replies. “She’s really good at tracking them down, and I’m the muscle.”

I turn to look at Anne. She and I are the same size. I doubt that anyone would look at either of us and think we could take down a grown man. When I look back at Penelope, I can tell that she’s thinking the same thing. Her eyes narrow, moving from me to Anne and back to me again.

“I’ve had my black belt since I was seventeen,” Anne supplies. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“We should probably get going,” I say. I’m itching to get out of this place before Penelope realizes who I am and locks me in her basement. “Thank you for the tea.”

Penelope looks at my full glass. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Sure.”

As we reach the front door, she hands us each a business card. “Call me when you find him,” she says. “He owes my father a hundred grand for the wedding we had to cancel.”

“Will do,” I say, taking the business card.

I don’t know why it’s such a relief to know that they never went through with the wedding. I’m glad that Luca didn’t have to go through a long, drawn-out divorce with this woman. Still, I wonder what he saw in her in the first place and how he came so close to marrying her. I was only with her for a few minutes and I’m already terrified of her.

Anne holds my arm as we hurry back across the lawn to the rental car. Neither of us says a word until we’re safely inside the car.

“Okay. That was crazy,” Anne says.

“You’re telling me. Can you imagine if I had assumed that he was still there and tried sending a letter? She’d probably hunt me down and kill me in my sleep.”

“She thinks that Luca cheated on her with you. Did you guys write sexy letters to each other or something? Is that why you didn’t bring any more letters for me to read?”

“No. Never. We were always mean to each other.”

I think about the letter he wrote when he lived in Georgia before he went to Dallas. I wonder if he was with Penelope at the time, or if Dallas was where he met her. If I tell Anne about it now, she’ll never believe that I left the letters at home by accident. I wonder if Penelope knew that he wanted to meet me. Maybe she had seen some of the letters and just assumed it was me when he came home smelling like another woman. Or maybe he told her about me. I find that hard to imagine.

“We have to find Ben Toole,” I say.

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