LITMIR.BIZ

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      “If you want to wait for your friend, you can have a seat at the bar,” this man said, walking toward the long, polished dark wood counter with padded leather stools. It ran along the entire length of the building, completely dominating the back wall. “We’re a family-owned place,” he added. “No one will bother you.”

      Walking with him toward the bar, Francesca wondered if he was included in that no one. Or if this was just one of the nicer pickup lines she’d heard. Mostly she wondered if any of the girls in the room would turn out to be Autumn. Since she had no idea what to expect, she couldn’t be certain that her sister wasn’t there.

      “You work here?” she asked her companion, sliding onto a stool about halfway down the bar. There were quite a few people milling around, but the stools on either side of her were vacant.

      “My pop owned the place,” he surprised her by saying, meeting her on the opposite side of the bar. “What can I get you?”

      “A diet cola?”

      He grinned. “You sure about that? I make a prickly pear margarita that I’m rather proud of.”

      “In a pizza place?”

      “It’s Vegas.” His smile was contagious. With a white towel he wiped down the space in front of her.

      “Okay, one margarita.” Any more than that and she wouldn’t be able to take her sleeping pill.

      Glancing around, she was pretty sure Autumn wasn’t there. Her sister could disguise a lot of things—like hair color or style—but, even in the town of illusion, she couldn’t make herself shorter than five-five or change her delicate bone structure.

      “By the way.” He set down the glass he’d pulled from a rack above his head, wiped his hand and held it out to her. “I’m Carlo Fucilla. My friends call me Carl.”

      “Carlo,” she repeated. “A good Italian name.” Not that she’d necessarily have known that—or noticed—a year ago.

      His handshake was warm, firm, but no stronger than her own. “My grandparents came to the States to get married,” he said. Glass in hand, he stood directly in front of her, although with the bar between them all she could see was his white, short-sleeved polo shirt from the waist up. “My grandfather had been married before and the Catholic Church wouldn’t sanction his second marriage. Neither would their families. So they came here to start a new family.”

      “And how’d they do?” The voice belonged to Francesca Witting, photojournalist, who’d recently returned from a year spent traveling all over Italy forming a composite of the challenges and strengths of its people. Francesca Witting, who was supposed to have done a follow-up story on Italian families in the United States. The voice was misplaced.

      “They were married for sixty-five years,” he told her as he backed away.

      Exactly the type of family she would’ve been looking for a month ago. If life hadn’t changed the rules so drastically.

      As she sat there today, her shutter finger didn’t itch even a little bit. And she couldn’t care less how Carlo would look on film.

      When her drink appeared Francesca sipped greedily, grateful that the man—who hadn’t oversold himself in the margarita department—hung around in between serving his other customers. Although, it didn’t take her long to figure out that she wasn’t the only one he was friendly with. He seemed to truly like people.

      Enough to remember his customers after they left? To remember Autumn? And how did she find out without raising his suspicions? Without having to explain more than she wanted to?

      “You said your father owned this place, past tense. He doesn’t anymore?” she asked when he was once again standing in front of her. He did seem to be stopping there more often than anywhere else. She’d noticed a while ago that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

      “He died a couple of years ago.”

      Death. Caskets. With lids that slowly closed, choking out any hope that there’d been a mistake. Funerals. Raw earth, freshly shoveled…

      “I’m…sorry.” He didn’t know her, or anything about her. The anonymity was protection.

      “It’s okay.” He shrugged, called out to some other customers, asking if they were ready, and excused himself as he moved down to pour beer into frosted mugs from one of the six or eight taps across from the cash register.

      Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. Thirty. Carl had been right when he’d told her no one would bother her. Besides an occasional smile sent her way, she was left completely alone. People came. And went. And every single time the door opened, Francesca’s heart skipped a beat. And then settled into the familiar plod of disappointment. She was thinking more and more about showing Carl Autumn’s picture.

      But why would she be asking questions about the friend she’d supposedly come there to meet? This was different from a street corner.

      There was no way she was getting this close only to have someone tip off Autumn and have her run again. The setback would be too much. She’d become obsessed with finding Autumn. Her sister’s unexpected phone call to Sacramento had pulled Francesca out of a dark and dangerous place. Autumn had become a reason to live.

      Second margarita in hand, she was glad she’d come. It felt good to be around people. To be no one in no man’s land, with nothing to do but let the alcohol numb what little was left of her ability to feel.

      “So is this bar still in your family?” she asked the only person she knew in Las Vegas, if she didn’t count José at the front desk at the Lucky Seven. Or the head of security at the Bonaparte.

      Carl, filling some bowls with snack mix, nodded. “Technically my brothers and I own it together, but they all had different interests, so I run it.”

      She liked his shrug. And his grin.

      “How many brothers do you have?”

      “Three.”

      “And you all share the profits?”

      “Nah.” He grinned. “There wouldn’t be enough to go around. They’ve got pretty expensive tastes. I take a manager’s salary. The rest goes to Mom for as long as she’s alive.”

      “Does she work here?” It didn’t matter. None of this mattered, Italian family or not.

      He waved toward a side door leading to a back room. “Try taking a step into the kitchen and you’ll find out.”

      A strong woman. Francesca liked that. And thought, for the brief moment before the pain descended, about Sancia. Loving, brokenhearted Sancia. Francesca would never have looked up the elderly woman, introduced herself, if she’d had any idea of the agony she’d bring with her.

      She’d called her once since returning to the States, but neither of them had been able to speak through their tears, and she hadn’t repeated the experience. Later, when she was better, she’d visit Sancia again. Maybe.

      “Looks like your friend’s a no-show,” Carl said after she’d been there for more than an hour.

      “Yeah.”

      It was an opening. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to take it yet. Didn’t want to risk blowing her cover. Not many people handed around pictures of their friends, asking if anyone had seen them or knew anything about them.

      She wanted to be able to come back to Guido’s. Waiting was much more pleasant there.

      “So…” He hesitated, looking a little sheepish. “Is this the first time you’ve been stood up?”

      His assumption was kind of nice. But then, he couldn’t know what life was like for a woman who’d loved a man who was married to someone else.

      “I wasn’t stood up,” she said now. “I was meeting a girlfriend….”

      His

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