Page 44 of Wish I Were Here
“I’m glad I found you here, though,” Luca says. “The eagle flies at midnight. Dress like a crow.”
I must be spending way too much time with him, because I think I actually know how to decipher this cryptic message. “Did Uncle Vito call you? Do you have some information?”
He gives me a grin. “Affirmative.”
“What?” My spine stiffens. “What did he find out?”
Luca pushes back away from the door. “Meet me in the lobby at the rendezvous time. I’ll tell you everything then.”
And before I can argue, he turns and heads down the hallway, rounds a corner, and disappears from sight.
At exactly midnight, I’m standing in the lobby wearing a pair of black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black hoodie over top.
Luca, of course, is not here yet.
He arrives two minutes later, hopping off the elevator that stopped on the eleventh floor right before it went straight to the lobby.
Not that I was watching the numbers light up over the door.
“Hey,” he says with a grin when he sees me standing there with my arms crossed over my chest. “Sorry I’m late.”
At this point, I’m not even annoyed about the time. I’m dying to know what Uncle Vito uncovered about my mother. Of course, Luca wasn’t in the lobby all afternoon when I came looking for him. And he hasn’t been answering my text message inquiries.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I blurt out. “What did Uncle Vito find out?”
Luca looks me over. “Good. You wore black.”
“I assumed that’s what ‘dress like a crow’ was supposed to mean.”
“Yep, you nailed the uniform.”
My gaze shifts from his face, and I realize he’s wearing a version of the same outfit as me—black jeans and T-shirt with a black hoodie. I try to close the door on the thought that I prefer him in the white T-shirt with his tattoos showing, but it slips through before I can stop it.
Luca holds up his first and middle fingers, pointing at his eyes and then flipping them in my direction. “I think we’re going to make a good team on this.”
“A good team onwhat, Luca? What are we doing here at midnight dressed like gravediggers?”
Luca takes me by the hand, pulls me into his chest, and then spins me out again, just like Mrs. Goodwin during our impromptu dance rehearsal. “We, my darling Catherine, are dressed this way because it’s the best way to dress when you’re about to do a little light breaking and entering.”
I plant my feet firmly on the floor. “What? You’re joking.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Luca.” I make my voice firm. “Tell me what’s going on right now.”
“Fabrizio did some digging.”
“And?”
“And since the only information we have is your birth date, place of birth, and your mom’s name at the time…”
Her name at the time.I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that she might have changed it since I was born. Maybe she got married. Maybe she even has kids. Kids who got to grow up knowing her. My heart aches at the idea of it. Of all the scenarios I imagined, my mom having an ordinary life with another family wasn’t one of them.
“So, Uncle Vito and the guys thought the best place to start digging was at the hospitals around here. If they could figure out where you were born, they could access your birth records and maybe find some information that we don’t have. Your mom’s date of birth. Her address at the time. Things we can use to track her down.”
Uncle Vito and the guys really thought this through. I’m grateful they’re on my side. “This all makes sense, but none of it explains why I’m dressed like a crow at midnight.”
“Fab managed to shake down some people at Pittsburgh General and University Hospitals.”
