Page 35 of Blood Orange Christmas
“Minutes.” He hovers a hand over the wet marks where warmth still holds. “Not more than fifteen.”
“Then we can—” My voice cracks. I fix it. “Then we can catch up.”
He brings the radio alive. “Eyes on greenhouse trail. Two down from the chapel. One to the olive press path. Rocco?”
“North ridge clean,” Rocco answers, wind thin over his words. “I don’t like clean.”
“Camilla?”
“Guests dark. Lines cut. Paolo still off-grid.” Her voice is steady and metallic at once. “I’m watching the gate. A branch took out one camera. We fixed the tree. I can see three angles of your back.”
“Keep talking to me,” Harrison says, and the radio says it back with a click.
We move fast. The path curves behind the press shed and spills us into trees where cold holds longer. The trail tells a small boy’s story—smooth stones (dragon eggs), mud (chocolate), leaves (loud). A low branch lost a leaf to a small hand. It lies in the path like a dropped thought. Biscotti paste smears a rock where a thumb did too much work.
“Marco!” I call, high and clipped the way I teach him to look before he runs. The wind answers, bossy. Vines lift and set their hands down. The house sighs, far away.
“Don’t call again,” Harrison says softly. “We’re not the only ones listening.”
Anger’s easier than fear. He’s counting on that. I let him.
We pass the chapel. Door ajar, a candle guttered and still smoking. Gabriella doesn’t leave wicks to die alone. My chest tightens.
“In here?” I ask.
“Later,” he says. He knows how doorways steal minutes.
At the bend past the olive press, we find proof. A cigarette butt crushed into mud—cheap brand, wrong heel. Not ours. Not our patience. Another red thread on a low stone wall that marks the scrub’s start. Pippo noses it, sneezes, shakes himself like he wants the smell off.
The track toward the ravine isn’t a track so much as a dare. In summer it’s pretty, ferns and bee hum, little paths that make you forget drops. In winter it’s a throat. Water cut it and never apologized. Old stories sit in the dirt, the kind nonnas sip between sips. You don’t take a child here without a hand on a hood unless you don’t love him.
“Why here?” I hate the shake in my voice.
“Because cars can’t come close. Because echoes lie. Because mothers run ugly near a drop.” Harrison isn’t unkind about it. He’s building me a spine.
The leaves show scuffs where someone set a quick foot and rethought. A mitten-shaped print presses into a soft quilt of mud, then ghosts to gravel. Big prints stay steady and close. Whoever has him knows how to move without making a fuss. Or they want us to read the story and split in two before the last page.
Radios crackle up ahead. Not our clean murmur. Cheaper. Clipped. The kind men buy when they want to feel like men. Harrison raises his hand without looking back. We stop. Our breath becomes white.
Voices through brush. Male. One older, smoke in it. One younger, laughter he didn’t earn glued on top.
“—told you Luca’d take the west road,” the younger says, pleased with himself. “Thinks he’s a magician.”
“Shut up,” the older says. “Hold the boy’s hand.”
My blood goes hot enough that my fingers tingle. I move. Harrison’s palm finds my stomach—a bar that might as well be a wall. The look he cuts me has a name.Please. I hate the word. I listen anyway.
Pippo’s ears point like knives. He hums a warning. I bury my hand in his ruff. His heart drums the same tempo as mine.
Harrison signs. Rocco left, flank high. Then to the ground. Low. The radio at his hip ticks. “Heads up,” Camilla whispers. “Chatter on civilian band. Two near the ravine. One said Luca by name.”
“We heard,” Harrison breathes. “Where are you?”
“Library. With Gabriella. Guests inside. Doors sealed. I cut two calls to cousins. They’ll try again.”
“Keep them in,” Harrison answers. He taps his mic once—the code that says shut up and listen now.
Marco laughs. The sound goes into the ravine and comes back bruised. Small. One bubble of water hitting rock. I bite my tongue hard enough to taste metal.
