Blue Smoke - Softcover

Roberts, Nora

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593333306 ISBN 13: 9780593333303

Verlag: Berkley, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

Incomparable #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts delivers a tale of gut-level fear, human triumph, and the bonds that carry us through our darkest times…

Reena Hale’s destiny was shaped in the destructive—yet fascinatingly beautiful—fire that leveled her family’s pizzeria when she was young. Now an arson investigator, she finds her strength and wits constantly tested, although sometimes the job seems like a snap compared to her love life. But she can’t always blame the men. After all, a soot-caked woman barking orders and smelling of smoke isn’t the biggest turn-on in the world. Then she meets Bo Goodnight, who seems different. He’s been trying to find Reena for years, and now that she’s close enough to touch, he has no intention of letting go.

Nor does the man who has begun to haunt Reena’s life—with taunting phone calls and a string of horrifying crimes. And as Reena tries desperately to trace the origins—of the calls, the fires, the hatred aimed in her direction—she will step into the worst inferno she has ever faced...

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nora Roberts is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 200 novels. She is also the author of the bestselling In Death series written under the pen name J. D. Robb. There are more than 500 million copies of her books in print.

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1

 

Baltimore, 1985

 

Catarina Hale's childhood ended on a steamy August night a few hours after the Orioles demolished the Rangers at Memorial Stadium, kicking their Texas butts-as her dad said-nine to one. Her parents had taken a rare night off to haul the whole family to the game, which made the win all the sweeter. Most nights one of them, often both, put in long hours at Sirico's, the pizzeria they'd taken over from her mother's father. And the place where, eighteen years before, her parents had met. Her mother, a young, vibrant eighteen-so the story went-when the twenty-year-old Gibson Hale had swaggered in for a slice.

 

Went in for pizza, he liked to say, and got myself an Italian goddess.

 

Her father talked weird that way, a lot. But Reena liked to hear it.

 

Got himself a pizzeria, too, ten years later when Poppi and Nuni decided it was time to put their traveling shoes on. Bianca, the youngest of five and their only daughter, took it over with her Gib, as none of her brothers wanted the place.

 

Sirico's had stood in the same spot in Baltimore's Little Italy for over forty-three years. Which was even older than Reena's father, a fact that amazed her. Now her father-who didn't have even a single drop of Italian blood in his whole body-ran the place, along with her mother-who was Italian all the way through to the bone.

 

Sirico's was almost always busy, and a lot of work, but Reena didn't mind, even when she had to help. Her older sister, Isabella, complained because sometimes she had to work there on Saturday nights instead of going out on a date, or with her friends. But Bella complained almost all the time anyway.

 

She especially complained that their oldest sister, Francesca, had her own bedroom on the third floor while she had to share with Reena. Xander got his own room, too, even though he was the youngest, because he was the only boy.

 

Sharing with Bella had been okay, it had even been fun until Bella got to be a teenager and decided she was too old to do anything but talk about boys or read fashion magazines or play with her hair.

 

Reena was eleven and five-sixths. The five-sixths was an essential addition because it meant she had only fourteen months until she was a teenager. This was currently her most fervent ambition, overtaking previous ambitions such as becoming a nun or marrying Tom Cruise.

 

On this hot and heavy August night when Reena was eleven and five-sixths, she awoke in the dark with hard, cramping pains in her belly. She curled up, trying to make herself into a ball and biting her lip to hold back a moan. Across the room, as far as could be managed now that Bella was fourteen and more interested in having big hair than in being a big sister, Bella snored gently.

 

Reena rubbed at the ache and thought of the hot dogs and popcorn and candy she'd gobbled up at the ball game. Her mother told her she'd be sorry.

 

Couldn't her mother be wrong, even once?

 

She tried to offer it up, like the nuns were always saying, so some poor sinner could benefit from her bellyache. But it just hurt!

 

Maybe it wasn't from the hot dogs. Maybe it was from when Joey Pastorelli hit her in the stomach. He'd gotten in bad trouble for it. For knocking her down and ripping her shirt and calling her a name she didn't understand. Mr. Pastorelli and her father had gotten into a fight when her dad went to his house to "discuss the situation."

 

She'd heard them yelling at each other. Her father never yelled-well, hardly ever yelled. Her mother was the yeller because she was one hundred percent Italian and had a temper.

 

But boy had he yelled at Mr. Pastorelli. And he'd hugged her so hard when he got home.

 

And they'd gone to the ball game.

 

Maybe she was being punished for being glad Joey Pastorelli was going to get punished. And being a little glad he'd knocked her down and torn her shirt because then they'd gone to the game and watched the O's stomp all over the Rangers.

 

Or maybe she had internal injuries.

 

She knew you could get internal injuries and even die because she'd seen it on Emergency!, one of her and Xander's favorite shows.

 

The thought brought on another vicious cramp that had her eyes welling with tears. She started to get out of bed-she wanted her mother-and felt something wet between her thighs.

 

Sniffling, embarrassed she might have wet her pants like a baby, she crept out of the bedroom, down the hall toward the bathroom. She stepped inside the room with its pink tub and tiles and pulled up her Ghostbusters T-shirt.

 

Hot waves of fear rolled through her as she stared at the blood on her thighs. She was dying. Her ears began to ring. When the next cramp seized her belly, she opened her mouth to scream.

 

And understood.

 

Not dying, she thought. Not suffering from internal injuries. She had her period. She was having her first period.

 

Her mother had explained it all, about the eggs, and cycles and about becoming a woman. Both her sisters had periods every month, and so did her mother.

 

There was Kotex in the cabinet under the sink. Mama had shown her how to use it, and she'd locked herself in one day to practice. She cleaned herself up and tried not to be a sissy about it. It wasn't the blood that bothered her so much, but where it came from was pretty gross.

 

But she was grown-up now, grown-up enough to take care of what her mama told her was a natural thing, a female thing.

 

Because she was no longer sleepy, and she was now a woman, she decided to go down to the kitchen and have some ginger ale. It was so hot in the house-dog days, Dad called them. And she had so much to think about now that she'd become. She took her glass outside, to sit and sip and think on the white marble steps.

 

It was quiet enough that she heard the Pastorellis' dog bark in that hard, coughing way he had. And the streetlights were glowing. It made her feel like she was the only one in the world who was awake. For right now, she was the only one in the world who knew what had happened inside her body.

 

She sipped her drink and thought about what it would be like going back to school next month. How many of the girls had gotten their period over the summer.

 

She would start to get breasts now. She looked down at her chest and wondered what that would be like. What it would feel like. You didn't feel your hair grow, or your fingernails, but maybe you could feel breasts growing.

 

Weird, but interesting.

 

If they'd start to grow now, she'd have them by the time she was finally a teenager.

 

She sat on the marble steps, a still flat-chested girl with a tender tummy. Her crop of honey-blond hair going frizzy in the humidity, her long-lidded tawny eyes getting heavy. There was a little mole just above the right corner of her top lip, and braces on her teeth.

 

On that sultry night the present seemed absolutely safe, the future a misty dream.

 

She yawned once, blinked sleepily. As she rose to go back in, her gaze swept down the street toward Sirico's, where it had stood since even before her father was born. At first she thought the flickering light she saw in the big front window was some kind of reflection, and she thought, Pretty.

 

Her lips curved as she continued to study it, then her head cocked in puzzlement. It didn't really look like a reflection, or like someone had...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593333306
• ISBN 13: 9780593333303
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 464
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar