by Nora Roberts
“I’m all right. I’m all right.”
“Sure you are.” Hoping to ease the queasiness in his own stomach, he tipped back the bottle and took a healthy gulp himself. “Now the clothes.” He set the bottle aside and went to work on the buttons of her shirt.
“Don’t—”
“Miranda.” Realizing his legs weren’t completely steady, he sat beside her. “Does it look like I’m going to cop a feel here? You’re in shock. You need to get warm and dry. So do I.”
“I can do it. I can.” She got shakily to her feet and stumbled into the bath.
When the door clicked shut, he resisted the urge to open it again to be certain she wasn’t in a heap on the floor.
For a moment he lowered his head into his hands, ordered himself to breathe, just breathe. It was his first up-close and personal experience with violent death. Fresh, violent, and real, he thought, and took one more shot of brandy from the bottle.
It wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.
“I’m going to order up some food. Something hot.” He peeled out of his wet jacket as he spoke. Keeping an eye on the door, he stripped, tossed his wet clothes aside, and pulled on slacks and a shirt.
“Miranda?” With his hands in his pockets, he frowned at the door. Modesty be damned, he decided, and pushed it open.
She’d put on a robe, but her hair was still streaming with wet as she stood in the center of the room, her arms wrapped tight around her body as she rocked herself. She sent Ryan one look of unspeakable misery. “Giovanni.”
“Okay, all right.” He put his arms around her, cradled her head on his shoulder. “You did good, you did fine. It’s okay to fall apart now.”
She only clenched and unclenched her hands against his back. “Who could have done that to him? He’s never hurt anyone. Who could have done that?”
“We’ll figure it out. We will. We’re going to talk about it, step by step.” He cuddled her closer, stroking a hand down her wet hair as much to soothe himself as her. “But your mind has to be clear. I need your brain. I need your logic.”
“I can’t think. I keep seeing him, lying there. All the blood. He was my friend. He came when I asked him to. He. . .”
And the full horror of it struck her, a brutal slice to the heart that cleared her head to shocking, vicious clarity. “Oh God, Ryan. I killed him.”
“No.” He pulled her back so that their eyes were level again. “Whoever bashed in the back of his head killed him. You get over that, Miranda, because it’s not going to help.”
“He was only in there tonight because of me. If I hadn’t asked him, he’d have been at home, or out on a date, or sitting in some trattoria drinking wine with friends.”
She pressed her fisted hands to her mouth, the eyes over them swimming with horror. “He’s dead because I asked him to help me, because I didn’t trust you and because my reputation is so important, so vital, I had to have it done my way.” She shook her head. “I’m never going to get over that.”
However miserable her eyes, her color was back and her voice was stronger. Guilt could energize as well as paralyze. “Okay, then use it. Dry your hair while I order some food. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
She dried her hair, and slipped into white cotton pajamas, then wrapped the robe over them. She would eat, she told herself, because she would be ill if she didn’t. She needed to be well, strong, and clearheaded if she was going to avenge Giovanni.
Avenge? she thought with a shudder. She’d never believed in vengeance. Now it seemed perfectly sane, perfectly logical. The term “an eye for an eye” circled grimly in her head. Whoever killed Giovanni had used her as a weapon as cold-bloodedly as they’d used the bronze.
Whatever it took, however long it took, she would see that they paid for it.
When she came out of the bedroom, she saw that Ryan had ordered the waiter to set up the meal on the terrace. The rain had stopped and the air was fresh. The table sat cheerfully under the bright green-and-white-striped awning and candles flickered over the linen cloth.
She supposed it was designed to make her feel better. Because she was grateful to him, she did her best to pretend it did.
“This looks very nice.” She managed what passed for a smile. “What are we eating?”
“Minestrone to start, then a couple of Florentine steaks. It’ll help. Sit and eat.”
She took a chair, even picked up her spoon and sampled the soup. It stuck like paste in her throat, but she forced herself to swallow. And he was right, the heat of it thawed some of the ice in her belly.
“I need to apologize to you.”
“Okay. I never turn down an apology from a woman.”
“I broke my word to you.” She lifted her gaze, locked on his. “I never meant to keep it. I told myself a promise to a man like you didn’t have to be kept. That was wrong of me, and I’m sorry.”
The simplicity, the quiet tone, touched his heart. He’d have preferred it otherwise. “We’re going at this at cross-purposes. That’s the way it is. Still, we’ve got a mutual goal. We want to find the original bronzes. And now someone’s upped the stakes. It may be smarter for you to back off, let this go. Proving you were right isn’t worth your life.”
“It cost me a friend.” She pressed her lips together, then made herself spoon up more soup. “I won’t back off, Ryan. I couldn’t live with myself if I did. I don’t have many friends. I’m sure that’s my fault. I don’t relate well to people.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. You relate fine when you let your guard down. Like you did with my family.”
“I didn’t let my guard down. They just didn’t pay any attention to it. I envy you what you have with them.” Her voice trembled a little, so she shook her head and forced down more soup. “The unconditional love, the sheer delight all of you have with each other. You can’t buy that kind of gift.” She smiled a little. “And you can’t steal it.”
“You can make it. It just takes the wanting to.”
“Someone has to want the gift you’re making.” She sighed and decided to risk a sip of wine. “If my parents and I had a better relationship, you and I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. It really goes back to that. Dysfunction doesn’t always show itself in raised voices and fists. Sometimes it can be insidiously polite.”
“Have you ever told them how you feel?”
“Not the way I imagine you mean.” She looked past him, over the city where the lights gleamed and the moon was beginning to ride the clearing sky. “I’m not sure I knew how I felt until recently. And it doesn’t matter now. Finding who did this to Giovanni matters.”
He let it rest, and since he’d decided it was his turn to deal with practicalities, he removed the covers from the steaks. “Nobody understands the way a slice of red meat should be treated better than the Florentines. Tell me about Giovanni.”
It was a fist to the heart and the shock of it had her staring at him. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“First tell me what you knew about him and how you came to know it.” It would ease her in, he thought, to the details he wanted most.
“He’s— He was brilliant. A chemist. He was born here in Florence, and joined Standjo about ten years ago. He worked here primarily, but did some time in the lab at the Institute. That’s where I worked with him initially, about six years ago the first time.”
She lifted a hand and rubbed at her temple. “He was a lovely man, sweet and funny. He was single. He enjoyed women, and was very charming and attentive. He noticed details about you. If you wore a new blouse or did your hair a different way.”
“Were you lovers?”
She winced, but shook her head. “No. We were friends. I respected his abilities, very much. I trusted his judgment, and I depended on his loyalty. I used his loyalty,” she said quietly, then pushed away from the table to walk to the parapet.
She needed a moment to adjust, yet again. He was dead. She couldn’t change it
. How many times, she thought, for how many years, would she find herself adjusting to those two single facts?
“It was Giovanni who called me to tell me the bronze had been discredited,” she continued. “He didn’t want me unprepared when my mother contacted me.”
“So, he was in her confidence?”
“He was part of my team here, on the project. And he’d been called on the carpet when my findings were questioned.” Steadier, she walked back to the table, sat again. “I used his loyalty, and our friendship. I knew I could.”
“Today was the first time you talked to him about the bronze being a copy?”
“Yes. I called him when you went downstairs. I asked him to meet me inside Santa Maria Novella. I told him it was urgent.”
“Where did you call him?”
“At the lab. I knew I could catch him before the end of the workday. I took the bronzes, and I went down the stairs, out the back courtyard while you were at the desk. He came right away. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes.”
Enough time, Ryan mused, for him to have told someone of the call. The wrong someone. “What did you tell him?”
“Almost everything. I explained that I had the bronze that Ponti had tested, that it wasn’t the same one we’d worked on. I told him as much as I could about the David. I don’t think he believed me. But he listened.”
She stopped pushing her steak around on her plate. Pretending to eat was too much effort. “I asked him to take the bronzes into the lab, to run tests, to do a comparison. I said I’d contact him tomorrow. I didn’t give him the hotel because I didn’t want him to call or come over. I didn’t want you to know what I’d done with the bronzes.”
Ryan sat back, deciding neither of them was going to do the meal justice. Instead he took out a cigar. “That may very well be why we’re sitting here, enjoying the moonlight.”
“What do you mean?”
“Put your brain to work, Dr. Jones. Your friend had the bronzes, and now he’s dead. The murder weapon and the David were left on the scene. What connects the two? You do.”
He lighted the cigar to give her time to absorb the thought. “If the cops had found those statues on the crime scene, they’d have gone hunting for you. Whoever did it knows you’ve put enough together to look for answers, and that you’re skirting the law enough to prevent you from bringing in the police.”
“Killing Giovanni to implicate me.” It was too cold, too hideous to be contemplated. And too logical to ignore.
“An added benefit. If he was straight, he’d have begun to wonder himself after the tests. He’d take another look at your notes, your results.”
“That’s why the lab was trashed,” she murmured. “We’ll never find my documentation now.”
“Taken or destroyed,” Ryan agreed. “Your friend was in the way. And Miranda, so are you.”
“Yes, I see.” Somehow it was better that way, easier. “It’s more important than ever to find the original. Whoever replaced it killed Giovanni.”
“You know what they say about killing? The first one’s tough. After that, it’s just business.”
She ignored the chill that danced over her skin. “If that means you want to end our deal here and now, I won’t blame you.”
“Wouldn’t you?” He leaned back again, drawing idly on the cigar. He wondered how much the fact that she would think him a coward played into it. And how much the need to protect her weighed on the decision he’d already made. “I finish what I start.”
Relief spread like a river, but she picked up her wineglass, raised it in a half-salute. “So do I.”
eighteen
I t was still shy of midnight when Carlo left the trattoria and began to walk home. He’d promised his wife he wouldn’t be out late. The boundaries of their marriage included one evening a week for him to sit and drink and tell lies with his friends. Sofia had her evening as well, a gossipfest at her sister’s, which he supposed amounted to the same thing.
Habitually he stayed till twelve, or a bit after, drawing the male oasis out, but just lately he’d been cutting it short. He’d been the butt of jokes since the papers had announced his Dark Lady was a hoax.
He didn’t believe it, not for a minute. He’d held the statue in his hands, he’d felt the whisper of breath on his cheeks. An artist recognized art. But whenever he said so, his friends laughed.
The authorities had grilled him like a criminal. Dio mio, he’d done nothing but what was right. Perhaps he’d made a small error of judgment by taking the statue out of the villa.
But he had found her, after all. He had held her in his hands, looked at her face, felt her beauty and her power like wine in his blood. She had transfixed him, he thought now. Bewitched him. And still, in the end he’d done the right thing and given her up.
Now they tried to say she was nothing. A clever scheme to dupe the art world. He knew, in his heart, in his bones, that was a lie.
Sofia said she believed him, but he knew she didn’t. She said it because she was loyal and loving, and because it caused less arguing in front of the children. The reporters he’d talked to had taken down all his statements, and had made him sound like a fool.
He’d tried to talk to the American woman, the one who ran the big laboratory where his lady had been taken. But she wouldn’t listen. He’d lost his temper with her, demanded to speak to the Dr. Miranda Jones who had proven his lady was real.
The direttrice had called security and had him tossed out. It had been humiliating.
He should never have listened to Sofia, he thought now as he made his way down the quiet road outside the city toward home, stumbling a bit as the wine brooded in his head. He should have kept the lady for himself as he’d wanted to. He had found her, he had taken her out of the damp, dark cellar and brought her into the light. She belonged to him.
Now, even though they claimed she was worthless, they wouldn’t give her back to him.
He wanted her back.
He’d called the lab in Rome and demanded the return of his property. He had shouted and raved and called them all liars and cheats. He’d even called America and left a desperate and rambling message on Miranda’s office machine. He believed she was his link to his lady. She would help him, somehow.
He couldn’t rest until he saw the lady again, held her in his hands.
He would hire a lawyer, he decided, inspired by wine and the humiliation of sly laughter. He would call the American woman again, the one in the place called Maine, and convince her it was all a plot, a conspiracy to steal the lady from him.
He remembered her picture from the papers. A strong face, an honest one. Yes, she would help.
Miranda Jones. She would listen to him.
He didn’t glance behind him when he heard the oncoming car. The road was clear, and he was well onto the shoulder. He was concentrating on the face from the papers, on what he would say to this woman scientist.
It was Miranda and The Dark Lady who occupied his mind when the car struck him at full speed.
Standing on the terrace in the strong morning light, Miranda gazed out at the city. Perhaps for the first time she fully appreciated the beauty of it. The end of Giovanni’s life had irrevocably changed hers. Somewhere inside her a dark place would remain, formed of guilt and sorrow. And yet, she sensed more light than she had ever known before. There was an urgency to grab hold, to take time, to savor details.
The quiet kiss of the breeze that fluttered over her cheeks, the flash of sun that shimmered over city and hill, the warm stone under her bare feet.
She wanted to go down, she realized. To get dressed and go out and walk the streets without destination, without some purpose driving every step. Just to look in store windows, to wander along the river. To feel alive.
“Miranda.”
She drew in a breath, glanced over her shoulder and saw Ryan standing in the terrace doorway. “It’s a beautiful morning. Spring, rebirth. I don’t think I really appreciated that
before.”
He crossed the terrace, laid a hand over hers on the parapet. She might have smiled if she hadn’t seen the look in his eye. “Oh God. What now? What happened?”
“The plumber. Carlo Rinaldi. He’s dead. Hit-and-run, last night. I just heard it on the news.” Her hand turned in his, gripped. “He was walking home near midnight. There weren’t many more details.” A cold fury worked through him. “He had three children, and another on the way.”
“It could have been an accident.” She wanted to cling to that, thought she might have been able to if she hadn’t looked into Ryan’s eyes. “But it wasn’t. Why would anyone kill him? He isn’t connected to the lab. He can’t know anything.”
“He’s been making a lot of noise. For all we know, he might have been in on the whole thing from the beginning. Either way, he found it, he had it for several days. He would have studied it. He was a loose end, Miranda, and loose ends get snipped.”
“Like Giovanni.” She moved away from him. She could live with it, she told herself. She had to. “Was there anything in the news about Giovanni?”
“No, but there will be. Get dressed. We’re going out.”
Out, she thought, but not to wander the streets, to stroll along the river, to just be. “All right.”
“No arguments?” He raised an eyebrow. “No where, what, why?”
“Not this time.” She stepped into the bedroom and closed the doors.
Thirty minutes later, they were at a phone booth and Ryan was doing something he’d avoided all of his life. He was calling the cops.
He pitched his voice toward the upper scale, used a nervous whisper and colloquial Italian to report a body in the second-floor lab at Standjo. He hung up on the rapid questions. “That should do it. Let’s get moving in case the Italian police have caller-ID.”
“Are we going back to the hotel?”
“No.” He swung onto the bike. “We’re going to your mother’s. You navigate.”
“My mother’s?” Her vow not to question was swallowed up in shock. “Why? Are you crazy? I can’t take you to my mother’s.”
