Genesis (6 page)

Alice was waiting, a smile on her face. She wore an elegant light-brown, ankle-length leather coat with a high collar made of some kind of fleece. Late fall in Raccoon City meant temperatures in the forties. Lisa herself was wearing her battered old winter coat over a turtleneck sweater. She had gotten it at a street fair for only twenty bucks the weekend after she left Nick. With her salary she could have easily afforded a coat as nice as Alice's, if not more so. But the coat gave her comfort in more ways than just the physical.

“Ready for the meal of a lifetime?” Alice asked as Lisa stepped off the train along with a few other employees looking forward to a day breathing air that hadn't gone through the Hive's filtration system.

“In this town?” Lisa couldn't help but laugh. “The only thing that qualifies as the meal of a lifetime around here is the last meal they give to people on death row.”

Alice smiled. “That's what
you
think.” Then she led
Lisa through the lavishly appointed halls of the mansion to the front door.

Not for the first time, Lisa marveled at the beauty of the place, particularly after being stuck in the sterile confines of the Hive for so long. Umbrella didn't encourage personalization of the workplace, nor did Lisa's own tiny working environment provide much opportunity for it in any event. As for her apartment, she worked enough overtime that she spent most of her time in it either decompressing from work, worrying over what she was truly doing there, or sleeping.

The latter, the last few days, had not been much fun. Nightmares full of images of that creature mixed in with Fadwa crying . . .

Waiting for them at the front door was a Lincoln Town Car owned by the car service Umbrella used. The driver, an old man with pronounced jowls and bright blue eyes, held the door open for them both.

Once the driver got into his own seat, he asked, “Where to, ladies?”

“Che Buono.”

The old man grinned.

Lisa frowned. “I've never heard of that place.”

“Good. If too many people hear about it, it might become famous, and then we'd never get a seat at lunch hour.”

As expected, the drive to Raccoon from the remote mansion took an hour, even though the distance as the crow flew was the same as that of the twenty-minute train ride Lisa had just taken. However, the train didn't
have to deal with red lights, winding roads, and, once they reached the city limits, traffic. Not to mention a driver who actually came to a full stop at stop signs. To Lisa, weaned on New York cab drivers, the latter was especially befuddling.

Still and all, they finally arrived at an out-of-the-way street not too far from the middle of downtown Raccoon. The building they pulled in front of had a ten-step stoop that led to a single entryway with three doors. Two led to storefronts that took up the ground floor—a newsstand and a flooring place. The third led to an apartment-building lobby.

It took Lisa a moment to realize that their destination was in the basement. Another staircase lay adjacent to the stoop, leading down to a door with a modest sign:
CHE BUONO.

“That's it?” Lisa asked.

“Don't judge a book by its cover.” Alice's smile had turned mischievous. “First rule of Security Division.”

The first thing she noticed when Alice opened the door was the smell: olive oil, garlic, tomato sauce, fish. It reminded her of Da Vittorio's or Carmine's in New York. Then she realized it was better than that: it reminded her of the trip to Venice she and Nick had taken—the last vacation they'd take together before his mother got sick.

The last vacation they'd take together, period.

“Alice! So good to see you!”

Lisa had to look down to see the round face on the tiny body that had greeted them. The woman stood at
only five feet tall—if that—and her face was covered in wrinkles, none more pronounced than the smile lines around her mouth. She looked up at them with the happiest brown eyes Lisa had ever seen.

“And who is this?”

“This is my coworker Lisa,” Alice said. “She's from New York.”

“Bene, bene.
Welcome to Che Buono, Lisa. Come, come, sit, sit,” the old woman said, waving her hand as she led the way into the small restaurant.

There were only about half a dozen tables, covered in red-and-white checked tablecloths straight out of every pizza joint in the world.

The little old lady seated them at one of the tables, Lisa taking the side with her back to the wall, Alice facing her. Lisa noticed pictures of Italy all around the place—Milan, Venice, Rome, all looking fairly recent—as well as one large painting over the door to the kitchen of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.

“This is lovely,” Lisa said, a broad grin on her face. “Where'd you find this place?”

“By accident, honestly. I was walking around downtown one Valentine's Day feeling sorry for myself because I was alone. I got hungry, but there wasn't room anywhere—if you didn't have a reservation, you were out of luck.”

“Except this place?”

Alice nodded. “They don't take reservations, and only about three-quarters of the tables were filled. I wound up having the best meal of my life. It's run by a
single family, and it's like eating at your aunt's house.”

Lisa fixed her companion with a dubious look. “Your last name is Abernathy.”

“My mother's maiden name is Ferrara.”

“Ah.”

A young woman with black hair, and a face that was a younger version of the old woman who led them in, came over and handed them menus. “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked.

Before Lisa could say anything, Alice said, “A bottle of the Chianti Classico.” Then she looked at Lisa with those penetrating pale eyes of hers. “You
do
like Chianti, yes?”

“It's been so long since I had a decent glass of wine, I honestly don't remember what I like.”

The server nodded, and went off.

Lisa glanced at the menu. “So are you still alone? Or is married life treating you well?”

Half-smirking while looking at her menu, Alice said, “Hardly a marriage.”

“Yes, but you're both living in that huge house—”

“Which makes it very easy for us to avoid each other.”

“And you're working together.”

Alice's half smirk spread into a full smirk. “Among other things.”

Lisa hit her hand on the table. “I
knew
it! I want details!”

“Forget it.”

Fixing her with a look, Lisa asked, “So why tell me in the first place, except to torture me?”

“Maybe I think you've earned a little torture.”

“For what?”

“I'll tell you later.”

That brought Lisa up short. Up until now they had engaged in harmless girl talk. But there was something in Alice's tone, a seriousness that had been wholly absent from their conversation since the train first pulled in.

Before she could pursue it, however, the young woman with the black hair came back with a bottle of wine. She poured a bit of it into Alice's glass. After Alice sipped it and gave her approval, she poured full glasses for both of them, then listed the specials.

Lisa, however, had made up her mind as soon as she spied one particular item on the menu.

“So, can I take your order or do you need a few minutes?”

Alice closed her menu. “That mushroom risotto special sounds wonderful.”

“I want the veal parmigiano.”

The server nodded, not bothering to write either order down. Lisa hoped that didn't mean she'd wind up with lasagne or something.

After the server took the menus and moved off, Alice gave Lisa a dubious look. “Veal parmigiano? This is a restaurant run by an Italian family. They came over here from Italy and opened this place. The food is cooked by a husband-and-wife team that made food for their family every Sunday back in Chieti. They've got salmon in mustard sauce. They've got risotto to die for. The penne in vodka sauce melts in your mouth.
And you're ordering veal parmigiano? You can get that anywhere!”

Letting out a long sigh, Lisa said, “You don't understand.”

“No, I don't.” She fixed her with another look. “So explain it to me.”

“When I was a kid growing up, we used to go to this place in the Bronx. I don't even remember the name of it—it closed down when I was nine or ten or so. They had the absolute best veal parmigiano I've ever had. We'd go there every Friday night and I'd always have it. I haven't had a decent veal parmigiano since. I keep trying, and I never ever find it. But you said that this place was really good, so I'm going to try it.” She grinned. “I guess I'm trying to recapture my youth.”

“We should all be so lucky.”

Again, Lisa heard it—the odd tone. Something was up with Alice, but she wasn't sure what it was.

She didn't get any clues about it for the rest of the meal. They talked about everything and nothing. Alice, a midwestern native, had a ton of questions about living in New York, which Lisa answered as best she could. She even went so far as to talk about her marriage to Nick and its disastrous end.

The one subject she did not broach was Fadwa.

The initial bite of the veal parmigiano when it arrived exploded magnificently in Lisa's mouth. The breading had just the right blend of spice and dovetailed perfectly with the tenderness of the meat and the heat of the sauce.

For a brief moment, Lisa was nine years old again.
Matt was punching her in the arm for whatever arcane reasons brothers hit their sisters. Mom and Dad would talk about their day at work, interrupting periodically to unenthusiastically tell their children to stop fighting, fully aware that nothing would stop the endless dance between siblings.

Even as she swallowed, Matt suddenly got older. He was telling her all about the Umbrella Corporation and the things they did.

And she thought about Fadwa.

The rest of the veal didn't taste as good.

“Something wrong?” Alice asked.

“No,” Lisa lied. More truthfully, she said, “This is
great.
Best I've had—”

“Since the Bronx?”

“Yes,
since the Bronx. Something wrong with that, Ohio girl?”

“Not at all.”

By the time they got to dessert—Lisa ordered tiramisù, Alice ordered tartufo—Lisa knew something was going on. This wasn't just a social visit. It had taken Lisa until dessert to realize that she had been sharing all kinds of stories about her life with Alice, but she hadn't learned a damn thing about Alice that she didn't already know.

Hell, Alice hadn't even confirmed whether or not she and Spence were sleeping together.

This, Lisa knew, was an interrogation.

Now she was getting nervous. Did Alice know what she was doing?

No, that was ridiculous. If she knew, she'd do something a bit more demonstrative than take her out to lunch.

But maybe she suspected. Suspicions wouldn't be enough for her to act on.

Or would it? Alice didn't work for the cops, after all, she just worked for the corporation that gleefully let Mahmoud die. Cops would need things like probable cause. Alice Abernathy didn't need anything. If Matt's suspicions were right—and what Lisa had seen over the past two months made her think those suspicions were dead on—they would find a way to get rid of her if they thought she was any kind of risk.

When they were done, Alice paid for the meal with her corporate credit card. The old woman at the front asked how the meal was.

“It's the best I've ever had.” Lisa was only slightly exaggerating.

“Bene, bene.
You should come back.”

“I hope I have the chance to,” she said with a look at Alice.

Alice, tellingly, said nothing.

The same Lincoln Town Car with the same jowled driver was parked in front of the restaurant, parked right under a
NO STANDING
sign. Lisa wondered if it had been there all along, and whether or not anyone from the Raccoon Police Department had come by.

Probably the driver looked at the cop with his bright blue eyes and said that he worked for Umbrella, and then the cop moved along.

Lisa pulled her battered old coat tightly around
herself. She suddenly felt much colder than warranted even by the fall temperatures.

The ride back to the mansion was unusually quiet. Although the lunch had been full of gossip, the tension level had risen steadily as it progressed. Lisa knew that something was going on, but she for damn sure didn't know what, and this sudden silent treatment from Alice wasn't helping matters.

As the Town Car pulled onto the road that led to the mansion, Alice suddenly leaned forward. “This is fine, we'll walk the rest of the way.”

“We will?”

Alice nodded, opening the door. “Charge it to my account.”

“Sure,” the driver said nonchalantly.

For the first time since she paid the check, Alice smiled. It was that odd half-smile of hers again.

The wind chose the moment that Lisa exited the Town Car to whip up, sending the autumn leaves whirling around her feet. The driver closed the door after holding it open for both of them, favored each woman with a smile, then got back into the vehicle and departed, leaving more whirling leaves in his wake, making a noise like paper being crumpled.

They stood in a wooded area with the giant mansion in sight, maybe twenty minutes' walk. Without preamble, Alice started walking toward it, not bothering to look to see if Lisa would follow.

Still wondering what the other woman was playing at, Lisa followed.

“I know what you're doing,” Alice said. “It took a while, but it wasn't too hard to figure out once I knew what I was looking for.”

“Huh?” Lisa said, a hand of ice closing around her heart. She hoped that her genuine confusion about what was suddenly happening was enough to make it sound like she really didn't know what Alice was talking about.