Traffic hadn’t been the issue—Glenda had. She’d struck up a conversation with our tassista, but mainly in body language. Throughout the half-hour ride, she’d waved her glitter flag in the rearview mirror, and he’d pledged allegiance with his eyes. At one point I had to grab the wheel—from the backseat. “I kind of like the chaos.” Unless it had to do with my uninvited travel companion. “I just wish I was here for a better reason.”
The laughter left his upturned brown eyes. “We are very worried about your colleague and his friend. Have you had any news?”
“Nothing.” I sunk onto a black leather couch. “Is this a good time to talk about that?”
“Certo.” He sat in a chair beside me. “But I will have to answer the phone until Silvana returns with Miss O’Brien.”
“Totally fine.” Actually, it was more than fine. Silvana Spaccino, a long-time employee, was giving Glenda a tour of the hotel, which meant she was too busy to unpack those sleuthing suits. “Do you know what time the boys left the hotel on Saturday?”
“Enrico was working the reception, and he said it was eight o’clock. He contacted the police on Sunday morning after a maid brought their breakfast and discovered they had not slept in their room.”
I stirred my coffee with a tiny plastic stick. “Did they tell Enrico where they were going?”
Elio looked at the floor and rested his forearms on his knees. “He feels very sorry about this because he was on the phone with a client.”
So the boys hadn’t asked him to call them a cab, which meant they’d taken the bus or metro to their destination. “Did they ask you or anyone for sight-seeing suggestions?”
He shook his head. “I think maybe they had a list of ancient Roman sites already prepared.”
I’d suspected as much given David’s penchant for research. “What about their parents? Have they arrived yet?”
“They are staying near the police station, and their fathers came to inspect their room with a commissario this morning.”
“Look what Silvana gave me, sugar.” Glenda strutted into the lobby dressed like a leopard had bred with a bird.
I drained my espresso in a gulp, wishing Elio had made me a caffè corretto with grappa, instead.
She struck a Mae West pose with her cigarette holder in a full-length leopard coat that sprouted fuchsia feathers. “A guest left it.”
My euro was on a pimp or a model from the runways of Milan.
Silvana entered with a basket of cornetti, or croissants. She was an attractive brunette who was always cheerful, and the smile she gave me when she placed the basket on a coffee table spoke volumi.
“Grazie.” I was grateful for more than the pastries, and she knew it. After thanking her, I uttered a mental gratias ago to Jupiter, the Roman god of weather, for the unexpected cold snap.
The office phone rang a muted trill.
“Even the Italian phones speak the language of love.” Glenda blew a smoke heart at Elio and caressed her breastbone. “How alluring.”
“Rispondo io.” He hurried to the office, fuchsia in the face. As a hotel manager he’d met frisky foreigners from all over the globe, but even in the land of amore, Glenda seemed like an oversexed alien.
“Hotel Residence Magnolia.” Elio pronounced the “gn” in magnolia like the letters in lasagna.
I scrutinized his expression, trying to tell if the call was about David and the vassal.
“Sì, signora.” He held up the receiver and looked at me. “It is your nonna.”
Nonna?
My stomach was heavy, like I’d eaten the pastries and the basket. I hadn’t told my family about my Rome trip, and my Sicilian grandma was the reason. Since I’d turned sixteen, she’d been operating a get-Franki-married machine that ran as smooth as a Maserati. And with me in the motherland, Nonna was going to floor it and do donuts in the Piazza Navona.
“Did you hear Elio, Miss Franki?” Glenda preened in a lobby mirror.
I glanced from side to side like a caged leopard-bird. Escape was impossible. In Italy, not taking a call from your nonna was a bigger sin than refusing an audience with the pope.
Rising on legs like spaghetti, I undulated into the office and took the phone. “Hello?”
“You go to Italia, and I have-a to hear it from-a Veronica?”
Not only did I hope the judge threw the gavel at my best friend and cited her for contempt, I wanted him to cart her to jail and give me the key. “Nonna, I came to find David and the vassal. They’ve gone missing.”
“Your husband has-a gone-a missing too. Why don’t you look-a for him while you’re there?”
I sat behind Elio’s desk and put my head in my hand. “I’ve been dating Bradley for two years, and I’m happy with the way things are.”
She was silent, but I heard a click.
A whooping sound started, and my chest tightened. Was it an elder care alarm system?
Before I could speak, a woman began singing.
And my anxiety turned to annoyance.
The whooping was the opening to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”
There was another click, and the music stopped.
“Any questions?” Nonna’s tone was as dry as 00 pizza flour.
Only one. How oversaturated was a singer’s music when an eighty-year-old Sicilian woman who never left the house owned it?
Multiple cracks were audible, probably my nonna’s knuckles.
“Now, you’ve got-a something Italian-a men want. Use-a this trip-a to advertise it.”
Despite my commitment to Bradley, I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Italian men were renowned for their sex appeal and romanticism, and if I was irresistible to them, I wanted to know the reason. For my self-esteem, of course. “What is that, exactly?”
“Citizenship.”
My intrigue turned to irritation. Bunch of self-absorbed mamma’s boys.
“If you like-a, I’ll make-a some calls—”
“I don’t like-a, Nonna.” I had to cut her off, or the Residence would’ve been overrun with Romeos—and not the tragic-hero type from Shakespeare, just the plain tragic kind. “I’m not here to meet a man. I’m here to investigate, so I have to run. Ciao ciao.”
Glenda entered the office.
