Her Birthday Celebration Was My Exit novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Personal Effects

"That's me," I said.

Ryder's good hand found the small of my back.

The male agent looked at the blood on Ryder's sleeve and the scarf around his hand.

"Bad night?"

"Hydraulics," Ryder said. "She landed it."

"Congratulations." The woman didn't smile. "We need an hour, Ms. Bellini. Now."

The chief pilot unlocked the conference room.

She was in her fifties and gray-haired, and she'd flown in this state since before it had GPS.

She had hired me over the phone.

She pointed at Ryder.

"Hospital. Now."

"I'm staying."

"You're dripping on my carpet. Go get stitched. That's an order, Captain."

He looked at me.

"Go," I said. "I'm fine."

He went. He looked back twice.

The conference room had a long table and a whiteboard nobody had erased since summer.

The agents sat across from me. The chief pilot sat at the end.

The woman did the talking.

"On September twenty-eighth, a safe was opened in a private house in Milan. It belonged to the family of a textile manufacturer. One point one million euros in cash went missing."

She slid a photo across the table.

It was a photo of an empty safe.

"The manufacturer's son had just finalized his divorce. His ex-wife had the combination. She left Italy on October first on a private jet registered to a Chicago company."

She slid another photo.

The Gulfstream, on the ramp at Linate. Me at the bottom of the stairs with my clipboard.

"Italian police sent us a report last week. We've been to Chicago. We've been to Florida. Now we're here."

"I flew her," I said. "I didn't know what she was carrying."

The male agent opened a folder.

"Lisetta Castiglione gave us a statement through her attorney four days ago." He read from it. "The pilot loaded and handled my luggage from Milan to Chicago. She arranged the customs stop. She filled out the paperwork. She knew what was in the cases. She told me she'd done this kind of thing for the Salerno family before."

The room went very still.

The chief pilot's face did not move at all.

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