In Search of a Memory (Truly Yours Digital Editions) Read Online Free PDF

Piccoli, please do not hesitate to ask.”
     
    “Bring the lady a sandwich as well. I’m sure she must be hungry.”
     
    The shock of hearing his name struck Angel like an unexpected dousing of icy water; she couldn’t think to respond or refuse. A kaleidoscope of startling facts twisted inside her mind, making her dizzy.
     
    Roland Piccoli! Grandson of the notorious gangster Vittorio Piccoli… who dispensed with his enemies as casually as she dispensed with a pair of damaged stockings. No wonder he seemed familiar when she saw him at her aunt’s! His face had been plastered in the society pages a month ago, a blushing debutante on his arm, who the article had said was his fiancée. And Angel had run across his path, not once but twice….
     
    Walking twice into the path of a killer.
     
    He seemed not to notice her horror as he spoke with the waiter.
     
    The curiosity she had shoved aside earlier raced to the forefront of her memory in a blaze of enlightenment: the cars, all of them crowded, full of smoke. The car she shared with him, empty of passengers, no smoke. Even decorated, she realized now, and differently than the others! She didn’t know much about trains or fares or the cars in which passengers rode, but with sudden and certain knowledge, she knew she’d found her way into his private car.
     
    Of all the foolish, dangerous moves she could make, this was the worst!
     
    The Piccoli family owned gambling houses and nightclubs in all of New York City. At the soda fountain, she occasionally overheard the men she served talk with each other in awed, fear-filled conversation about the Piccolis’ latest manner of doing “business” or “collecting” a debt. Those owing money suddenly disappeared or were found washed up by the river.
     
    She couldn’t imagine that this grandson of one of the worst crime bosses in the Big Apple, seated across from her and now staring at her with narrowed eyes, would lower himself to sit in a crowded, public dining car. The steward and all his entourage would probably fall over themselves in their readiness to please him by serving him dinner in his private car.
     
    So why was he here?
     
    The answer was obvious.
     
    And now she, too, owed him a debt.
     
    The car felt suddenly close, smothering her, and she desperately sucked in air. Hurriedly she stood, knocking into the table and spilling her coffee on the pristine cloth. Her chair almost flew backward, hitting the wall. The thought of the lifeblood his family just as easily spilled with horrifying regularity and without remorse made her scramble a step backward in retreat. Perhaps it wasn’t her blood he would seek in payment for the favor of his silence, if she should refuse his wishes, or even her money as the reimbursement. But it didn’t take her two guesses to figure out what he did want, despite his claim to the contrary. His gentle, sympathetic manner was all a seduction; once again in her life she’d been easy to deceive.
     
    “Angel, what’s wrong?”
     
    “Nothing.” Except that her voice sounded too high-pitched to convince him of that. “I… need to find the lavatory.”
     
    “I can’t help you. I don’t leave my family’s private car often.”
     
    Of course he didn’t.
     
    “But I felt like company tonight and decided to eat at my table. Little did I know I’d entertain such charming company.”
     
    His table. Of course! Now she understood his earlier words.
     
    Managing a flip response, though she had no idea what she said, she pretended nonchalance and walked away from his table, toward her luggage, toward the exit, toward freedom….
     
    She wanted to scream bloody murder and run.
     

three
     
    Angel darted a look over her shoulder. The immediate threat to her life still sat with his back to her. She grabbed her luggage and hurried out. At last, finding the lavatory, she managed to get both herself and the luggage inside the cramped area. She doused her face with water,