What She Didn't See Read online

  What She Didn’t See

  A Grace Colby Novella Book One

  Heather Wynter

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2020 by Heather Wynter

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published by Willowlake Media

  www.willowlakemedia.com

  ISBN: 978-1-952217-00-5

  For my Mom

  Without you none of this would be possible.

  I love you,

  H

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Enjoy This Book?

  About the Author

  Also by Heather Wynter

  Chapter One

  “Hey, here he comes again, that man from last night,” said Lena Boyd as she bumped Grace Costa’s shoulder.

  Grace flipped her long, dark curls away from her mocha eyes and dared a glance behind her. Men in black suits escorted the gray-haired man through the Piazza della Rotonda. She and Lena had passed him last night while they were out getting dinner and drinks at Lungo il Tevere, where the banks of the Tiber River transform into an electric combination of bars, restaurants, and vendors. As the sun set, the nightlife picked up, and the riverbank filled with a younger, livelier crowd. They had made stopping there a nightly ritual while in Rome.

  Finding herself a little smitten with Luke, one of the men they’d met last night, Grace was deep in thought, replaying how they’d met.

  “Let’s go to the Colosseum tomorrow,” Lena had said while they were waiting for the spritzes they ordered. “We haven’t been there yet, and it’s one of the most famous places in Rome.”

  “For sure,” Grace responded. “The Forum, it’s—”

  “Hey, we’re going to the Colosseum tomorrow too. We should go together,” said the handsome man next to them at the bar. “Hi, I’m Gabe, and this is Luke,” he said, motioning to his friend.

  “Well hello, Gabe and Luke,” Lena said. “I’m Lena, and this is Grace.”

  She’s a natural flirt, Grace thought as she watched her friend in action.

  “Hello, earth to Grace! What are you so deep in thought about?” Lena asked.

  “Shut it,” Grace said, Lena’s voice bringing her mind back to the present. She tried to hide the coy smile that had formed on her lips.

  They sipped their cappuccinos on the balcony of their Airbnb, watched the morning crowds, and joked about who the gray-haired man might be. He had enough security to be the President of the United States.

  “Doesn’t he have anything better to do than stand there waving at everybody?” Grace asked, giving up the pretense she wasn’t interested. She started recording the chaos his presence created in the tourist-filled square. “Google him. Let’s see who he is.”

  “He’s an American,” Lena said as she brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes to get a better look at her phone. She wasn’t shy about her curiosity and had looked it up before Grace even asked. “A congressman.”

  “Boring,” Grace said, turning away from the square. “I’ve seen enough. This is way more interesting—check it out. If this keeps up, they’ll be throwing fists any second.”

  Lena peeked over Grace’s shoulder. Far below their balcony, a group of small boys yelled in Italian. They kicked a battered soccer ball down the stone alley between the buildings just off the square. They slammed their toes into each other’s shins and shrieked curses. Even in Italian, it sounded profane.

  Grace giggled as she recorded the scene with her phone, far more interested in real people than the fake world of politics. She’d spent a few years training and working as an EMT, which gave her an opportunity to learn about people and appreciate their triumphs and tragedies. When she failed to help save a woman and her child, however, she felt like she didn’t have the heart to watch innocent people die. Grace gave up that pursuit for a more scientific approach to helping and studying people. Yet her interest in the real and struggling hadn’t subsided.

  Lena didn’t share her sentiments. She turned back to watch the congressman disappear into a café. “Where do you want to go after Rome?” she asked.

  “I’m over the heat,” Grace said. “I’m ready to move on to Sorrento. Maybe we should cut it short and scoot on over to the Amalfi Coast and float in the Tyrrhenian Sea. I’m ready for something different.”

  “That sounds like a good plan, but I’m not sure I’m ready to leave Rome just yet,” said Lena, looking at Grace with a smirk.

  Grace pursed her lips. “You’ll never be ready to leave Rome. Why don’t you just quit procrastinating and move here?”

  “Maybe I will,” Lena said, longing lacing her words. Lena had had Italy on the brain since years ago when the pair were still in middle school. She’d been on Grace’s case ever since to accompany her on this trip backpacking around the dusty corners of the Old World. After they graduated from college and Grace was out of reasons to put it off, her best friend arm-wrestled her into it.

  And it wasn’t like she hadn’t enjoyed it. She wasn’t one to leave her comfort zone, but flying to Italy with Lena had been a fun adventure that she was grateful for. Lena was so happy and in her element here. She glowed in a way that she never did back home. Grace knew she ought to put her phone down and enjoy this time with her, reassure her friend that they could stay in Italy as long as she wanted, but her rebellious spirit kicked against that.

  Though she had enjoyed the trip, one week in Rome was enough. She was getting a little homesick after four months of backpacking from one end of Italy to the other. She wasn’t as adventurous as Lena was, and she had plans. Plans that had more roots than those of her free-flying friend. She wanted to go home to Florida and get on with the rest of her life.

  Grace decided that being a supportive friend to Lena on this trip was more important than rushing home. They had set the date to return to the United States for August 31, and that was two weeks away. Those two weeks would fly by, she thought.

  She focused her attention back on the soccer game. Panning her phone as she followed the boys’ antics, Grace noticed the longer the game continued, the more vicious they became. They shook their fists at each other every time someone stole the ball. Then one of them lost his temper just as Grace had predicted. He launched himself at one of his friends and tackled the other player to the ground.

  In seconds, the ball game descended into a full-blown street brawl. All the other boys piled in, flailing their fists, kicking, snarling, spitting, and rolling in the gutter. Grace cracked a grin. This was priceless. The action she liked, and the drama that didn’t involve a sacrifice from her.

  A woman craned out of a nearby window and started hollering in Italian at the boys. She gesticulated with her forefinger, haranguing the boys with invective. Grace swept her phone up to record that too. This was how she preferred to view the world—through the lens of a camera, the page of a book.

  Another woman hung colorful laundry on a clothesline strung up between the neighboring balcony and a building across the alley. She pinned a seafoam-green dress onto the line,
drew in the cord, and then added a pale blouse. The clothes flapped in the subtle breeze. The second woman added her comments to the first one’s reprimand.

  Some of the boys stopped fighting and yelled back at their elders, shaking their fists up at the balcony. Others ignored the women. One boy kicked his shoe at the paving stones and walked away. Grace didn’t understand what any of them were saying, which made the scene even more comical. She laughed as she recorded the women’s responses.

  Lena gave one of her deep, heartfelt sighs. Grace knew that sound only too well. Lena looked at her, her expression full of drama. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. We’re wasting our last day in Rome.”

  Grace got ready to switch off her phone when the unmistakable sound of a rifle shot cracked the air, echoed across the Piazza della Rotonda, and ricocheted off the buildings. Grace looked up, but she couldn’t tell where the sound had come from amid all the chaos.

  Lena straightened up as Grace stopped recording and slipped the device into her back pocket, fully immersed in the world as it unfolded. A scuffle was going on at the café, but she couldn’t see what was happening. The carabinieri were swarming in, trying to gain control of the square as panicked tourists scattered everywhere.

  She followed Lena off the iron balcony, down the stairs, and to the street. They set off toward the commotion, trying to get a better view, but the carabinieri stopped them halfway across the square. Unable to go any further that way, they continued to the street to make their way around the block to get to the obelisk, the meeting spot they had arranged last night with Luke and Gabe. Grace was excited to see Luke, although she was not about to admit that to Lena. While Lena and Gabe danced the night away, Grace and Luke had sat and talked for hours. She felt like she’d known him for years.

  “I don’t think we’ll get answers anytime soon about what happened,” Lena said as she gazed at the sights she never tired of. Her eyes stopped on the columns of the Pantheon. “We might as well go on with our day. It’s not like I can convince you to stay any longer …”

  Grace refused to play into Lena’s passive-aggressive comments. She felt like she had seen every inch of Italy. She could go home and one day tell her grandkids she’d backpacked the entire country in the good old days. She had a career, friends, a family, and a dog waiting for her back in Clearwater.

  She decided, the way she had a dozen times before, that once they finished with Sicily, she would sit Lena down and have a serious talk with her. They couldn’t keep adding more and more time to their trip. Neither one of them had an unlimited supply of money, and the summer was almost over. Either Lena had to stay in Europe and get a job, or they both had to pack up and go home.

  Grace didn’t love traveling the way Lena did. She knew that for certain now. It just didn’t interest her the way it fascinated Lena, and she had so many other hobbies and plans back in Florida that excited her.

  They turned a corner just a few blocks from the Colosseum. They needed to get back to the obelisk where they planned to meet Luke and Gabe.

  Lena slapped her knuckles against Grace’s shoulder. “Hey, I want to stop off over there. I need some gelato after all that crazy.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. She wasn’t surprised. Any excuse for a gelato. Gelato had become a way of life for them the last four months. It was the thing she’d miss most once she returned to the states. They dipped inside a cute pastry shop and perused the colorful flavors laid out in front of them. Grace stuck to the same flavors, so it didn’t take long for her to decide. She walked up to the clerk to order strawberries and cream, but he didn’t even glance over at her. His eyes were fixed on a TV behind the counter. The image on the screen depicted the congressman they had seen in the square.

  Lena took her time while she decided on a flavor. Being the free spirit she was, it was nothing short of a miracle she didn’t need to try fifteen flavors before she picked one. The man in line behind them was clearly getting annoyed by Lena’s process of flavor elimination and stormed out before they could finish ordering. Lena joined Grace at the counter, tapping on it, trying to get the clerk’s attention. The clerk didn’t turn around. Grace and Lena exchanged glances, silently debating if they should wait or just go somewhere else. But when they looked back at the clerk, everything but the TV was forgotten.

  Right there on the screen, the congressman’s body whipped back and toppled onto a table in front of a café. That eerie sound of a gunshot echoed again, striking cold dread into Grace’s guts.

  Men in black suits and sunglasses rushed to the fallen congressman and surrounded him. Others aimed their drawn sidearms in all directions as the carabinieri surged in. After a week in Rome, Grace could recognize some of them were pointing their guns at the building where she’d filmed the boys fighting.

  The next image showed an ambulance and the Hummer-like vehicles of the carabinieri flooding in from every alley. The screen flicked over to a guy in a blue suit rattling Italian into a microphone. Grace couldn’t understand what he was saying, but she didn’t have to. When she looked at Lena, she read the same horror printed on her face. Someone had just assassinated a United States congressman.

  The clerk rotated around to face them with tears streaming down his cheeks. He sniffed and ran his shirt cuff across his eyes, scooping their gelato with his lips clamped shut. Grace didn’t understand why he was so upset, but she knew it’d be inappropriate to ask. They were all shaken.

  Lena paid the clerk without a word. She and Grace let themselves out of the shop and halted on the sidewalk outside. They stared in all directions, not knowing in which direction to go. Grace couldn’t think. It was a lot to comprehend, being so close to such a high-profile crime.

  Grace pushed the dead congressman out of her mind and tried to concentrate on what they had planned for the day. They had only one day left. News of this crime would follow them home to America. They could think about it then.

  She turned back to head to the obelisk in the square where Luke and Gabe would be waiting for them, but before she could move, she and Lena caught sight of a man standing across the street. His ice-blue eyes seemed frozen on them. It was the same man who had been in line behind them at the gelato place. He didn’t look Italian. His white-blond hair and pale skin—Scandinavian, she guessed, as if that mattered—black leather jacket, and black leather pants gave him a kind of tough appearance. It was unsettling, considering what had just happened.

  And maybe it was just that. Just the fear that followed an assassination occurring so close to them. But Grace couldn’t imagine why he was there, staring at two American tourists like they were the most enthralling thing in Rome. Especially after just seeing him in the gelato shop, his steadfast attention unnerved her.

  “It’s nothing,” Lena said, her hippie-like attitude showing through, knowing what Grace was feeling even though Grace hadn’t mentioned what concerned her. “Let’s go. Luke and Gabe must be—”

  Her words were stolen as the man flung open his jacket and swung up a short, snub-nosed automatic weapon. Grace could only stand there, gaping in utter shock. It felt like she’d woken up into some twisted nightmare her homesick mind had made up to convince her to go home.

  This couldn’t be happening. Why would some stranger in Rome point a gun at her and Lena, of all people? This was why she preferred to stay at home. Away from adventure. Her brain didn’t work under this kind of pressure. She couldn’t even bring herself to budge when he pressed the trigger.

  Bullets sprayed across the street and smashed into the concrete brick of the building behind Grace’s head. Someone screamed, but she didn’t register where it was coming from. Everything was moving in slow motion.

  Then something hit her. Hard. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lena’s elbow shoving her out of the way. “Run, Grace!” Lena yelled.

  Grace didn’t have time to react with her brain barely functioning. The force of Lena’s push bowled her off her feet. She fell flat on her face behind a car parked at
the curb. Rapid drumming gunfire erupted beyond the fender closest to the curb. Something popped against the metal body. More screams blasted all around Grace’s ears. They came from everywhere. They stabbed into her brain and wiped out every rational thought.

  Her eyes darted in all directions, trying to compel her addled mind to think of something. The dreadful sound of gunfire pounded her eardrums. She scrambled onto all fours. Somehow, she got behind a tire where the bullets couldn’t hit her. What the living fuck just happened? she thought as she tried to decide what to do next.

  She flipped around and plastered her back against the rubber tire, pulling her knees to her chest. Moving her hair from her eyes, she looked around for Lena. Bullets smashing through the shop window shattered her view. Broken glass sprayed everywhere.

  She could only sit there in unblinking horror as her best friend since grade school staggered a few steps back and dropped to the ground across the shop doorway, a red stain spreading across her white shirt.

  “Shit! No no no no no no, this is not happening,” she cried out loud.

  Lena had saved her. And if Grace hadn’t frozen, maybe she wouldn’t have had to. Maybe she’d be safe. Maybe Lena wouldn’t have been standing there and …

  The next minute, deadly silence descended over the street. Grace couldn’t make her eyelids blink. She couldn’t swallow to relieve the painful dryness in her throat. She couldn’t make a sound. A storm of maybes and what-ifs roared in her ears, accusing her of the worst betrayal.

  Someone out of sight shouted. Sirens shrieked, coming closer every second. She had to get to Lena. Maybe there was still a chance.

  Stealing a glance over the car, she saw that the sidewalk that had just moments ago been crowded with tourists was now deserted. She ducked down and crawled on her hands and knees, clawing her way through broken glass, to where Lena’s body lay across the threshold, but Grace already knew what she would find.