WANTED: Love of my Life

Epilogue

My pieces of evidence lay strewn out before me: drawings of the rude message, of Giacomo's tattoo, and everything else I had been able to gather. I had looked at them before, and thought about them before. Now, after having almost been shot a few days ago, I thought harder, and did more.

I was sitting in my dad's room, in front of his computer, which was running. It hadn't been hard to guess the password – the model number of the latest General Motors car spelled backwards. He should really have chosen my mom's birthday or something like that, but that was my Dad all over.

Opening the web browser, I went straight to a search engine and...

And now what?

What made me suddenly think that I could solve a mystery I hadn't been able to solve for ages? What did I know now that I hadn't known before?

Well, that it was a dangerous kind of mystery. Wincing, I rubbed the bruises on my neck from Neil's rough handling of a few days ago, which still hadn't completely faded. It had been hard to explain those bruises to my mother. My first explanation, that my math teacher had tried to strangle me for my bad marks, hadn't gone over well.

But back to present. My eyes skimmed the pages of my notebook which lay beside me on the desk, and finally fastened on the sketch of Giacomo's tattoo: the handkerchief, being held by three hands. I was sure that this was my most important clue of all. I remembered all too well what Miss Ellis had told me about the unfortunate man who had had a similar tattoo, and had disappeared off the face of the earth.

But she hadn't been able to tell me more. Could I find out more myself?

Hmm...

I typed in 'handkerchief'. All I got was loads of advertisements of companies selling handkerchiefs. Bravo. Stellar first research effort, Ange.

Maybe I had to look at this in a more abstract way. What did the tattoo represent? Several people holding one thing, sharing one thing. It was theirs. Might that be what the tattoo expressed?

I typed in 'our thing'. This led me to a Jazz album of that name. Great.

Thoughtfully, I pulled at my lower lip. I obviously needed to type in more info. I had given Miss Ellis all the information I could without disclosing Giacomo's existence or identity. What information had I not given her?

That he was hot. Insanely hot.

I doubted that had anything to do with the matter, but still I typed in 'our thing hot'.

The search-engine suggested that maybe I should type 'not' instead of 'hot', because otherwise there were only crazy results. Okay, what else hadn't I told her about Giacomo?

That he was Italian.

I typed in 'our thing Italian'.

This time, the search yielded over eighty million results – and they all looked pretty similar. In bold, blue letters they spelled out the meaning out two Italian words, again and again:

Cosa Nostra

A shiver went down my back. Where had I heard those words before? A book? A movie?

The pointer moved to hover over the first link. My finger hesitated over the mouse. Did I really want to know?

No.

And yes.

I clicked. The site I landed on was a dictionary. It explained the meaning of 'Cosa Nostra' in English. Explained it very clearly.

Cosa Nostra - Italian for either "This thing of ours" or "Our Thing", depending on the translation. Used as a euphemism for the Italian Mafia.

Oh... my... God...

NOT THE END YET

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Hi!

So, Giacomo's secret is finally lifted! Originally, this was the end of my story, but now I've written an improved ending: An Epi-Epilogue. I hope you enjoy it.

Cheers

Rob