All Chapters of The Vision She Hid: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

I got up just before ten the next morning and skipped going downstairs for breakfast. I drank three cups of black coffee, calmed down my scraped cheek with ice pack and looked through the morning paper Marta’d left on my tray. There was a first page and a bit about yesterday’s shooting outside the casino, but no mentioning of Jennings. There was nothing about the incident inside. I guessed it was kept under the carpet to keep the roulette spinning. I poured myself a fourth cup of coffee and drank it to get my head going.I put cream silk palazzo trousers and matching shirt on, and ate two boiled eggs on toast and studied my face in the mirror. It looked scraped here and there and had a little dark spot under the right eye. I felt my head being there a little more than usual. I opened the door to go downstairs and look for Jennings when the phone rang.It was Marta. She sounded unimpressed.‘Ms Leo? How you feeling?’‘Yeah. Fine. Thank you for breakfast and the paper,’‘Oh sure,’ she

Elky gulped his large drop of whiskey in ominous silence. Nobody dared to comment on Marconi’s cowardly stunt. I guessed the suitcase of dough had covered it for them, together with the dent to their boss’s honor. Marconi left, and the gang was pressed together like bad ideas at a family reunion, all flashy suits, sharp stares, and wet lips whispered of favors no one could afford to return.I sat where Elky put me—just far enough from the action to look harmless, just close enough to get killed if someone missed their target. My hands were folded in my lap, and my fingers were tense as piano wire. The trick wasn’t acting blind. It was making blindness look delicate. Like I’d definitely break before I noticed too much. Big Elky Jennings was finishing another drink, playing monarch with a crooked crown, flanked by his loyal cutthroats and backstabbers. His older sibling sat opposite us, giving a vibe of a man who could commit murder with a napkin just to boast about it. The air betw

Gianni didn’t smile this time. There was no half-moon smirk, no ‘just joking’ glint in his china-blue eye. Just the cold efficiency of a man who was determined to keep his secrets secret.“May I come in? Silly question, huh?” he had a small ladies gun in his hand, and he was swishing it around like spoiled child a water pistol. This was one of those nights people enjoyed playing with loaded guns, I thought. I nodded, pointed to a chair, or rather where I thought the chair might be.“You should be careful where you step,” he said. His voice sweet and low, silk soaked in kerosene, and he had the lighter handy. “Even blind girls can fall down the narrow staircase now and again”I turned to face him and smiled. I made it sweet like a drop of arsenic in honey. I was done being frightened and pushed around and threatened and shot at for the night. So I gave old Gianni the look of a woman with a powder puff in one hand and a .45 in the other. His mouth parted. I guessed .45 did the trick.“F

Elky walked back in front of me holding my hand. He was wooden-faced and didn’t say a word on the way to my bedroom door. He opened it, kissed my forehead, and went out. The door closed behind him. The room was silent. I smelled the dying scent of sandalwood in his cologne and wished he stayed longer. I was looking around the room like a frightened rabbit. Somebody was too persistent in trying to shoot me down for no particular reason. That somebody was nuts. It drove me nuts too. None of it made sense. Elky Jennings was next to me. True, he had a small army of hitmen, but they wouldn’t miss. Not three times. Elky had no motive for murdering me because that would kill his chances to collect money from Marconi. A steady income stream that was. If his rivals had a motive for murdering his wife, the three lousy shooters didn’t seem like the type of guys they would select for the job. I was in Gianni’s bad books after spotting him pinch a USB from the dead capo but I wasn’t foolish enough

So far I’ve made only four mistakes. The first was sniffing around the south wing, even for my father’s sake. The second was still sniffing around after I’d seen Gianni rummaging through the dead capo’s pockets. The third was letting Gianni see I’ve noticed what he was up to. But drinking from a random bottle of water I picked up in the ballroom was the worst.It felt funny the minute I walked in; as if someone was watching me behind the mirror. Then there was that sudden moment of hallucination-like vision when I had seen her behind the glass. She also had a bottle of water in her hand, exactly like mine.My legs felt weak, and I sat on the floor for a few moments, with the empty bottle in my hand, gathering my strength from the shock of seeing Celeste. I don’t remember when Alexander arrived. His face began to get wobbly, watery, and vague. As if my sight had the worst day ever. A concerned smile appeared under Alexander’s newly grown mustache as he was kneeling next to me.I reache