Fatal Pursuit

ventinove

We were completely silent on the ride to Dante's apartment.

I couldn't figure out what it was that I was feeling. It wasn't exactly sadness, it was hardly even shock.

I kept my eyes closed and my head leaned up against the window and all I could think about was Ignacio's cold body laying there, lifeless. Prepped and prepared as if he was an ingredient to be used for a recipe. Laying in waiting on a kitchen counter.

I just sat there, re-playing the many ways of how he might've died in my head over and over.

This isn't normal.

I'm supposed to be bawling my eyes out. I'm supposed to be an inconsolable mess. I was supposed to throw myself on top of Ignacio's body and wail wretchedly. My throat should be hoarse and my voice should be gone.

Dante would have had to pry me off of him and carry me out of the room, kicking and screaming.

But nothing even close to that happened and it perplexed me as much as it worried me.

The car rolled to a stop and I finally opened my eyes to take in my new surroundings. Two sand-colored stone pillars with a grand wrought iron gate in between them stood before us.

Dante pulled a key card out from his sun visor and showed the gate man. He nodded and clicked a button inside of the gatehouse and the doors of the gates spread open.

We drove past beautiful stone buildings with Spanish tile roofs, all of which were nearly identical except for a golden plate with the house number on it.

Suddenly, Dante pulls into the driveway of one of them. The car's engine falls hush, "We're here."

He wastes no time getting my things out of his car and rolling them to the door.

He fumbled through his clump of keys for the right one and I could only stare into the wooden door that in my mind seemed more suitable for a wine cellar in someone's Tuscan villa.

When he twisted the lock open and pushed open the door, a cold rush of earthiness and eucalyptus hit me.

"Sorry that it's so chilly in here, I turn the heater off whenever I stay at your place."

"It's fine, it's refreshing actually."

He smiled and gave me a kiss that tasted like pity.

I didn't want to talk about what had happened because I didn't want to get him worked up again, besides there's nothing more to say.

Ignacio's dead. End of story. No point dwelling on a known fact.

He had already taken a large portion out of his day, driving me to the police, sitting in waiting rooms for hours and then to see Ignacio's body just to find out that he had been right all along.

I followed Dante as he rolled my suitcase into his room.

Bluish grey walls, tastefully decorated with framed pictures of him and his nonna, his friends, and another woman who I can only assume is his mother. Floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves filled with an odd array of books in several different languages.