Her energy was picking up now. She sounded a little less sedated, a lot more determined.
“So what do we do, storm the place?” I asked. “Just the two of us? Get ourselves killed along with Aunt Lindsey and Serena?”
I took my eyes off the road long enough to see that Anna was grinning.
“We don’t need to storm the place,” she said. “For once we can use Vincent’s paranoia against him.”
I was desperate for her to cut to the chase.
“Enough with the riddles,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”
She let her head fall back against the headrest—a sure sign that she was about to take her time.
“Back in the day, Anthony wanted to impress me. He sent flowers to the shitty little bungalow where I still lived with my parents. He took me whale watching in a helicopter. He even cooked for me, if you can picture that. And he let me in on family secrets. I’m talking family with a capital F.
“We’d only been dating a month when he brought me to one of the infamous Costello retreats at Vincent’s backwoods chalet. I was peacock proud. I couldn’t believe it. Anthony Costello wanted to show me off to his family. Like I was a prize. Like he was sure this little bumpkin from Jackson would make their jaws drop—all these career criminals at the top of their game. People who owned baseball teams and yachts and penthouses around the globe.”
I thought, Enough with the rags-to-riches melodrama. But trying to speed her up would only slow her down.
“Anthony and I got there early. He wanted to show me around ‘the grounds.’ By grounds he meant a thousand acres of Florida wilderness. Like I said, I grew up in the sticks, but I’ve never been much of a country girl. Especially not Florida country. Live oak and cypress swamps, alligators and indigo snakes—throw in a broken-down plantation house and you’ve got the set for a slasher movie.
“But now I had my man to protect me. He led me down this windy, overgrown trail for what felt like miles, though I don’t think it could have been—I’m not sure how many acres are in a mile.
“Anyway, we got to a spot where the trail was blocked by an enormous, moss-covered log. I was ready to climb over it, but Anthony held up a hand. He said he wanted to show me something, told me to stand back. I watched him crouch down like a sumo wrestler and set both hands on that log. Then he pushed and heaved and grunted until he turned red in the face and there was spit flying out of his mouth.
“The thing didn’t budge, but he kept on trying like nothing short of a hernia would stop him. I thought, What the hell are you doing? But since we weren’t married yet I only said, ‘Want some help?’ He stepped back. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘give it a try. Maybe a woman’s touch will do the trick.’
“Pushing solo wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but I could tell something was up, so I played along. I crouched down just like he had, laid my hands where he’d laid his, and shoved with all my might.
“Well, the thing rolled right away, and I nearly did a face-plant. It couldn’t have weighed more than a pound or two. Meanwhile, Mafia boy was laughing his tonsils out. I was mad as hell, but I laughed along with him, because that’s what you do when you think you might be in love with someone you barely know. Then he stood up straight, stopped laughing, and pointed.
“There was a square of blue tarp on the ground where the log had been. He pulled it back and revealed a round steel door like the kind you’d see on the top of a submarine. He grabbed the handle, twisted, and pulled.
“‘My uncle had this put in,’ he said. ‘In case the wrong people came visiting.’
“I stepped forward and took a look. There was a shiny metal ladder leading down into the dark. Anthony told me to think of it as a shortcut, then said, ‘After you.’ I damn near had a full-blown panic attack.
“‘Are you crazy?’ I said before I could stop myself. ‘I’m not climbing down into that black spider pit.’
“He told me to relax. ‘My uncle thinks of everything,’ he said. He reached his hand down under the rungs and flipped a switch. The hole lit up like a runway. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Uncle Vince even flees in style.’
“He told me the trail ended at the county road. Vincent had a car hidden in the brush—a BMW, which for him was slumming it.
“‘So shall we?’ he asked.
“We climbed down. The tunnel was made of poured concrete. It had track lighting, and I swear to God the thing was climate-controlled. Not a spider in sight.
“If we hadn’t stopped to have a little fun, we’d have made it back to the house in ten minutes flat. I didn’t understand how that was possible given the epic hike we’d taken aboveground, but there you have it—the Costellos are magical, in their way.
“The tunnel lets you out in the basement. From there you cross the rec room and take the stairs to the kitchen.”
We were coming up on the airport. I gave Anna a sideways glance.
“Lets me out?” I said. “I cross the rec room?”
She flashed a big smile.
“I’ll draw you a map on the plane,” she said.
Chapter 41Anna Costello
SO THERE I was, walking up a patented mile-long Costello driveway toward a place I never thought I’d see again, those spine-chilling live oak trees looming on either side. Apart from what moonlight made it through the branches, the place was pitch-dark. I’d have traded places with Sarah in a heartbeat.
I had a
