Isabel Wroth [Wroth - Portrait of Death: Uncovered

Portrait of Death

UNCOVERED

By Isabel Wroth

Copyright 2019 Isabel Wroth

All rights reserved.

This book was formatted using Kindle Create, and the gorgeous cover art was made by Maria Spada.

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The Etheric Travelers Series

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Portrait of Death

Unforgotten

Uncovered

PROLOGUE

I stood in front of the granite gravestone with a pair of white roses in one hand and a Transformer in the other.

Thanks to John Grahams dogged determination, a pair of names had finally been etched into the stone in front of me.

My sketch of the vehicle license plate had been off by two numbers, but after eight years, Victoria Minardo, age thirty-four, and her son, Frankie Minardo, age seven, had been found still buckled into their seatbelts when State Troopers pulled the old station wagon out of a deep pond in Saratoga Springs.

John had taken the gas station receiptthe one Id picked up and preserved in a sleeve of plastic in the cryptto Jimmy the Print Guy at the crime lab. Three sets of fingerprints were pulled from the wrinkled paper.

Mine, the gas station attendants, and Victoria Minardos. Victoria had taken her husbands credit card to pay for gas and groceries, which was how Tony Minardo had been able to follow his wife.

Tony had a rap sheet half a mile long. All violationsincluding DUIs, domestic disturbances, assault and batteryhad been dismissed when his wife refused to press charges.

Basically, the guy was an asshole who liked to beat up his wife, and John said it was probable Tony beat on his son, too.

Armed with the information his father uncovered, Callum arrested Tony Minardo and charged him with the murder of his wife and son. John told me later that Tony cracked like an egg within ten minutes of Callums relentless questioning.

Tired of the beatings and unwilling to allow her husband to put his hands on their son one more time, Victoria had taken little Frankie to go move in with her mother, who still lives in Glen Falls.

Not a man to be scorned, Tony went after his family. In his tearful confession, Tony told Callum he only meant to run his wife off the road so he could take his son back, but drunk and enraged, the nudge of his bumper did more than run Victoria off the road.

It flipped her car twice, then a third time down the embankment before it sunk into the pond.

Tony claimed hed tried to do something but couldnt swim. He just stood there like a fool, blubbering while he watched the car sink.

Tony knew if he called it in, with his record and being drunk, hed be imprisoned for the rest of his life. After Victorias car was completely submerged and he sobered up, he got in his car and drove off.

A few days later, he called the police to report Victoria and his son missing.

No one would have found them had Victoria not filled up her tank at the gas station and thrown the receipt on the ground. Had I not picked it up, intending to throw it away, I wouldve never absentmindedly put it in my pocket, nor would I have ended up at home, hours later, standing in front of a newly finished portrait.

It was unclear exactly how much time passed between Tony gassing up and running his wife off the road, but the put the time of death at two days after the date on the receipt.

Callum got the credit for solving the eight-year-old missing person case, or rather the re-designated homicide case. His father was so pissed, John went out and got his PI license, which in turn pissed Marcy off.

She still wasnt speaking to her husband, which is why Id done my best to sound pathetic when I called Marcy yesterday and asked if she wouldnt mind coming with me to Glen Falls.

Callum hadnt been able to get the time off work, and he tried to hide it, but it was obvious he didnt completely understand why I wanted to attend the funeral of the victims in my POD.

Id tried to explain, but my explanation turned into an argument, which ended in me shouting at him at the top of my lungs. The mostly one-sided argument turned into a passionate non-verbal activity that led to me screaming his name in ecstasy, instead of extreme frustration.

The guy just knew how to push my damn buttonsall of them.

Two months had gone by since the weekend in the Hamptons where Id held Callums hand while his parents spread Mias ashes.

It didnt seem like very long at all, and yet, a lifetime had passed.

It was a nice service, Marcy told me, drawing me out of my inappropriately sexual daydream.

I cleared my throat, hoping my smile wasnt of the goofy, Im-so-in-love-with-your-son variety.

It was. Im glad Mrs. Carlotta finally has closure. You and I both know how hard it is not knowing what happened to the people we love.

I stepped forward on the freshly laid grass to prop the Transformer up beside Frankies name on the headstone, and then put the roses down for his mother.

Your husband was a piece of shit, Victoria. I hope you and Frankie can rest easy now.

Marcy sniffled and huffed in annoyance behind me; the expression on her face when I stood back up, one of angry indecision.

You dragged me up here on purpose, didnt you?

I did my best to feign innocence. Well, yes. I didnt want to come by myself, and since both our men were being major jerks, I thought you were the perfect person to accompany me.

After a minute or two of scowling at me, Marcy rolled her eyes and hooked her arm through mine as we walked away from the gravesite.