Vicki Pettersson - The Given

“Because you’re nosy?” Kit said, sniffing.

“Yes,” Marin admitted with a small laugh. “And because knowing the minutiae of people’s lives makes me feel alive. Even the obits are comforting.”

“That’s . . .” Kit thought about that for a moment. “Really disturbing, Auntie.”

“Why? Laying it down in black and white strips a story of its emotion so that anybody can face it. That’s why newshounds like you and me and loony Al Zicaro try to capture it so precisely. It’s why people read the news, even if it’s bad.”

Especially if it’s bad, thought Kit.

“We attempt to tame life on the page so that we can understand it, learn from it, and try not to repeat others’ mistakes. Story is memory and memory is story, do you see?”

“Sure.” A story was a transcript of a memory. What you remembered of an event or a person became true for you . . . whether it was true or not. That’s why Kit had trouble remembering a father who loved brutally. And it was why Grif had trouble forgetting Evie at all.

“And so that’s why I never told you about your father’s letter,” Marin finally said. “I thought I could keep you safe if you just forgot.”

But you never really forgot love. No matter how it left you.

“So.” Marin sighed, then, with a shrug, gestured to the box. “Open it.”

Layered with dust and weakened by time, the masking tape gave easily. An image flashed through Kit’s mind: a doll lying there, blinking up at her with precious, winking eyes.

But there was no doll . . . and no diamonds, either. Just half-used notepads and a handful of pens, along with a photo of Kit and her mother, and another of the three of them together. Kit gingerly set those aside for herself before lifting a yellowed envelope from atop what remained. She read it, then gaped in surprise.

“Do you remember this?” Kit asked, holding up the unsealed envelope stamped with Albert Zicaro’s return address.

“I must have just tossed it in there.” Marin shook her head. “I told you. I just wanted to forget.”

But Kit needed her to remember. Opening it, she began to read aloud:

Dear Ms. Wilson,

My name is Al Zicaro. You may recognize it because I was one of the most prolific and illustrious reporters to ever grace the pages of your family newspaper. I remember you from the newsroom (though you likely can’t say the same) working like a grunt in the pen and chasing down stories like you were really hungry, even though everyone knew you were heir to the throne.

“Bitter much?” Marin retorted now. Kit kept reading.

If you’re anything like your old man, you’re running that ship like the Titanic— thinking it’s both grand and unsinkable. If you treat your present employees anything like Dean Wilson II treated me, then you’re also a jerk.

As for me, I did good work for the Trib from the years of 1957–1988, and I’m doing it still. The enclosed map was sent to me by your brother-in-law, who was instructed to mail this to me by a woman named Gina Alessi. His note, which I’ll show to you if you deign to respond, gives further instruction that both Gina and this map need to be kept safe. He was supposed to take care of Gina, I got the map. Apparently, you received something as well.

So why’d he send this to me? Because I’m the finest damned reporter this side of the Mississippi, that’s why. But why not send it all directly to you, or wait and hand it to you over Sunday dinner? That is a mystery. All I know is his name popped up today in the obits, and something smells fishy.

Of course, I have my own theories, which is why I’ll be coming in next week to discuss the matter further with you. But I’m gonna want something in return, namely to return to the Trib with full benefits, and exonerated of all charges levied against me when I left. (The protest out at the Test Site wasn’t my fault, I don’t care what the military says.) I do hope that at that time you will remember this great favor.

Most sincerely,

Albert Edward Zicaro

Kit looked back up at Marin, who was nodding slowly. “Yeah, it’s vague, but I remember now. I figured he just wanted his old job back.”

Kit pulled out the map that Zicaro’s letter had referenced. There was no way to date the map, it only held a cartographer’s code in the lower left corner, but it was obviously old. Kit could tell from the way the streets she knew either ended in abrupt corners or lacked representation altogether. She was willing to bet the streets listed were a good match for those in existence in 1960.

Frowning, Kit worked back and forth between that timeline and the day this map had been sent, fourteen years ago. Her dad had obviously seen Gina Alessi someplace safe, then mailed this to Zicaro right before he was killed.

“So what’s Zicaro talking about?” Kit said, looking up. “What did Dad send you?”

And, heaving a great sigh, Marin finally pointed to the far wall. “That.”

Kit glanced at her aunt’s bulletin board, a giant swath of cork that was so crowded with papers and note cards and sticky notes that many had dropped to the floor beneath it. But Marin was pointing to the top right corner, where one sole slip of tracing paper was pinned . . . and had been for as long as Kit could remember. So long that I stopped seeing it, she thought, drawing nearer. She guessed that after fourteen years, Marin had stopped seeing it as well.

“I didn’t know what it was,” Marin said, reaching up to carefully unpin it. “But it was the last thing your father ever did . . . that was clear. It arrived in my mailbox the day after he died. A total mystery, and one that died with him. I thought that if I pinned it up here, I would never forget. But time goes on, and well . . . sometimes it’s better to just forget the past.”

She handed the paper to Kit. Age had added to its fragility, and lightened the lines scribbled randomly along the middle. Some had end points that were joined in sharp circles, but most were scattered and lacking any sort of pattern.

Kit lifted the tracing paper to peer through it at eye-level, and caught sight of Marin on the other side. Then she let her aunt’s concerned face fade into the background, and keyed in on the darkest, largest circle. “Give me the map,” she whispered to her aunt.

Marin grabbed the map that Zicaro had sent her fourteen years earlier, and Kit lined the tracing paper atop it, just as she’d seen Sal DiMartino do in Gina Alessi’s smoky memory.

“What is it?” Marin said, closing in.

“A treasure map,” Kit said, as the Las Vegas Valley took on new meaning and form.

One leading to a buried doll with diamond eyes.

The center mark on the newly recovered treasure map was the DiMartino family home, the exact place where Gina Alessi sent a little girl with a doll out to be abducted in 1960. Located in the Las Vegas Country Club at the height of kingpin Sal DiMartino’s power, it’d also been the safest neighborhood in town. And it made sense that the boys would keep some sort of record of where they’d buried the bodies . . . DiMartino could use the knowledge as leverage with his victims’ loved ones and enemies alike.

Of course, the city had grown exponentially since the drawing was made, and was now dense with tract homes in places that were once no more than a giant litter box. But some things couldn’t be moved or changed, and by tracing ever-widening circles from the axis of Sal DiMartino’s home, they tried to guesstimate where exactly the farthest end point now lay.

“The city is a bowl, hemmed in on all sides by mountain ranges. There’s no direction key on this thing, but my guess is that this is the Red Rock mountain range,” Marin said, pointing at the uppermost corner. “Blue Diamond veers east of that.”