Page 51 of Return to Whitmore
Charlotte nodded. “It is. I’m chasing a story. Nina’s helping me. She’s an anthropologist.”
“Those are my girls,” their grandfather said, shaking their hands from side to side. “My girls are a brilliant team.”
It was miraculous to feel the warmth of her mother's and grandfather’s love. During their brief yet excitable breakfast, Charlotte ate her fill and watched the tracker on her phone to make sure it didn’t move. As her grandfather and mother pestered Nina for details about her children, Fiona and Will, and about her past until this point, Charlotte scarfed down eggs, toast, and bacon, then smiled at Nina to say she was ready to go.
“A documentarian’s life is never easy,” their grandfather said as they popped up. “I’ve followed your career for many years, my darling. I knew you’d be back at it soon. I knew you’d leap when the time was right.”
Charlotte blushed. In what he said was a blessing for her future career, for many years of chasing and failing and pulling herself back together again. As she kissed him on the cheek to say goodbye, he went on to say, “I took a few years off back in my day. I must have been forty-seven or forty-eight. I got depressed and agitated. I couldn’t make sense of filmmaking any longer. Everyone said I was washed up. But I refused to believe them.I just kept working.” He smiled. “You’re like me, Charlotte. You just keep working till you prove them wrong.”
Charlotte, who’d suffered tremendously over the past few years, felt his words like the fire she’d so needed. She thanked him, blinking back tears. “I love you,” she said to both her mother and her grandfather, eager to get to Florence.
She couldn’t believe that, in her mind, she’d demonized her mother so much over the years. Now, Francesca was almost soft and endlessly loving. She was dramatic, sure. But she’d always been. That was just Francesca’s way.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nina drove the rental from the Tuscan villa to the bustling center of Florence. En route, Charlotte kept tabs on the tracker tag, which hadn’t moved once since the private investigator had parked. The radio was on, spilling Italo-disco from fifty years ago, and the Italian breeze flowed through the cracked windows, sweeping through their dark Italian curls. For it was true, now—regardless of her genetic makeup, Nina was Italian. She should have been raised here. Francesca’s joy at seeing Nina was a testament to how messy 1998 had been.
“Can you really forgive her like that? So soon?” Charlotte saidas they snaked their way into the city.
Nina tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “If she wants to mend things, I’m open to it. She’s the only mother I ever had. She was cruel to me, at times. But she was there every single day of my childhood. She used to sing in the kitchen and make us gorgeous dinners and watch my handstands and kiss me on the forehead before I went to sleep at night. She performed so many of the rituals of motherhood… Until she couldn’t, I guess.”
Charlotte closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she could find it in herself to forgive their mother if she were in Nina’s position. But she supposed that Nina could either forgive and let go ofthe past, or not forgive and carry her anger forever. Maybe forgiveness was always better.
“Grandpa looks incredible,” Nina said. “What do you think he meant by all that stuff about his career?”
Charlotte hadn’t fully let Nina in on the failures of her most recent era. Slowly, she brought her up to speed, explaining that she’d gone to the house on Madequecham Beach to hide from herself, from her sorrows, from her regrets. “But I want to make this documentary,” she whispered. “I want to focus on a project that will rip open the truths about the Fourth of July 1998. I want so many things.”
Nina reached over and squeezed her hand. “I really want to help you.”
When they reached the hotel where the private investigator parked his car, Nina waved hello to the parking attendant, and Charlotte spoke to him in rapid Italian. “We’re meeting a friend for brunch,” she explained. The attendant explained that because they weren’t guests, they’d have to pay twenty euros per hour, which felt steep but necessary. He printed out a ticket and put it on the dash.
Nina turned the corner in the shadowy parking garage, and Charlotte recognized the investigator’s car immediately. “There!” Charlotte’s heart pumped. Nina parked a few spots away from him, and even before the engine cut, Charlotte sprang out and went over to it, hoping for a clue.
Miraculously, the parking ticket that hung on his rearview mirror listed his hotel room number as 231. Charlotte couldn’t believe it. Maybe they could go up to his room, knock on the door, and demand answers. Or perhaps that was dangerous? Charlotte’s palms were sweaty. She was beginning to think her mother was right, that she was in over her head. But wasn’t getting “in over her head” a part of the documentary game?
Charlotte and Nina entered the hotel lobby and went directly to the front desk, where a glossy-looking twenty-something Italian woman asked them in perfect English, “How may I help you?”
To speed things along, Charlotte switched to Italian and asked about the man who was staying in room 231. Was he in? The woman’s eyes were shadowed with alarm. She knew to protect her guests. She picked up the phone beside her and said, “May I please know who’s calling?”
Charlotte glanced to her right, hoping that Nina would answer for her. That was when she realized that Nina wasn’t there. Charlotte’s heart leaped. Had Nina snuck past the desk and gone upstairs to find the private investigator on her own? But if she had, Charlotte needed to distract the woman at the desk.
“You can tell him it’s Francesca Whitmore,” she said, using her mother’s married name rather than her maiden one. There was no telling what her mother went by these days. But he’d know who that was.
“Of course,” the woman said, dialing the investigator’s room. Someone answered right away. “I have Francesca Whitmore at the desk. Would you like to speak with her?” she asked in English.
Charlotte gripped the phone and wavered on her feet. She waited to speak.
“Madame?” the private investigator asked, practically sniveling with excitement. “Did you have a change of heart? Did you remember something you wanted to tell me?”
Charlotte heard a knock on the door of his room and braced herself. It was Nina, there to corner him. There was the sound of muffled words in an exchange. Someone else was in the room. Was it the investigator’s client? Was it Tio Angelo?
Charlotte knew better than to speak, not yet. She didn’t want to give herself away.
“I’m sorry about that, Madame Francesca,” the investigator said, returning to the phone.
But suddenly, there was a cry of alarm. It was Nina’s voice. Was Nina in trouble? Oh, why was she so reckless? They had a plan! Sort of. Charlotte threw the phone on the front desk and scrambled up the staircase. The receptionist called her name, demanding that she come back immediately. But Charlotte was petrified for Nina. When she reached the first landing, Nina tore down the staircase and nearly fell into her. Nina grabbed her hand and hauled her downstairs with her. Her face was pale, her eyes buggy.
“Nina!” Charlotte cried as they ran. “Nina, what did you see?”
