Suicide Italian Style (Crime Made in Italy Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

cup on the counter. I studied the paper and made a few more notes. Suicide. No way out. Everything you ever cared about means nothing to you now. So you call it a day, call it a life. Next question: how? You’re afraid of heights, so you can’t step sideways off a bridge. You could jump in front of a subway train or stick your head in a plastic bag. Or get yourself a gun. Fast and painless. I had run through the options myself, one long night after Eva died. In the end I decided it wasn’t my job to step on the brakes. I was on the bus until somebody else drove the bus off a cliff.
    And Gigi? What drove the poor man over the edge? 
    I dug for the earrings—silver, engraved—and played the scene back in my head, saw Gigi press them into my hand. The voice came back. Something about a safe. Did I remember where it was. 
    Sure. It was up on the roof at the Villa Sofia. Yes. I slipped a hand back into the pocket, felt for it. There. The key—for the Villa. And the safe was up on the roof terrace.
    Smells like a winner , Gigi said. I jumped, spooked, slipped the earrings in a pocket and slid off the stool.

Four
    The Shark took me up a rain-slick road that led to the Villa Sofia. I hadn’t been back since Eva died, but the image was burned in my brain. A grand old place that sat at the end of a long, sweeping drive, it had two stone stories converted to offices, Art Nouveau windows and mottled terracotta tiles on the roof. A terrace up on the second floor offered views of the lake and the gray-green mountains on the other side. Slender palms in the garden, roses, oleander and a fountain in the shade of a chestnut tree.
    As I rounded the curve the palms came into view, soaring up over the tall iron fence. On the gravel just outside the gates sat a glossy black BMW. I shot a glance at the driver as I drove on by. Dark glasses, wispy goatee, pale, thin face. A clone, skinnier, sat next to him, smoking. White shirts and black ties. I made them for cops and kept going, on around the curve to a hairpin switchback, up the hill and out of sight. I pulled over, climbed out and walked back down the road.
    The Villa Sofia sat below me on an acre of prime Swiss real estate, framed by the hill and a high stone wall and a steep slope rising up to the road. The garden was dead, the fountain dry, the grass gone to ratty weeds and gravel.
    Beyond the iron fence sat the BMW. Nothing happening there. I let my gaze drift back to the villa. Scrap ivy crawled up the walls from the granite foundation to terracotta tiles still glistening from the rain. Set into the roof at the back of the villa was a tiny, boxed-in terrace. That’s where the safe was, hidden under the tiles at the base of the chimney.
    There. What—? There on the roof, in a suit and tie, big belly sliding over the tiles, legs dangling over the edge to the terrace, a black case hanging at the end of one arm. I squinted down at him, at— holy moly! —it was Billy Bob, the man himself, no doubt about it. He dropped from the roof tiles to the terrace below, rounded on himself and disappeared down the hatch, pulling the cover into place above him.
    A car door slammed. Another. The BMW. Two men at the gates, one climbing up and over. 
    I scrambled down the slope to the old stone wall, dropped to the gravel and took a few quick steps to the basement stairs. I slipped Gigi’s key in the lock and pushed in, took two flights of stairs double-time and padded down the hall. At the door I pulled up short and pushed it open. He stood with his back to me, brushing moss and dirt from a stained Armani. On the desk in front of him lay a flat black box. A briefcase, leather. Shiny brass snaps and a leather grip.
    “Freeze!” I said. His hands shot up and he edged his head around, his eyes wide open and his face gone white and blotchy. He did a cinematic double-take, dropped his arms to his sides and roared, “Pete! Man, you scared the bejesus out of me.”
    “Long time no see,