My thoughts were diverted by an explosion of curse words from the driver. We were all thrown forward as he braked hard and the car slowed down to a crawl. I held my breath.
Suddenly, our driver started yelling and I heard the loud click of gun safety catches being released.
“Heads down,” Aldo told us.
As I curled up next to Claire, keeping as low as possible, the windscreen cracked loudly. The driver groaned and Aldo swore. A few seconds passed before someone banged insistently on the window above our heads. The door locks clicked open and then someone shouted at us to get up.
I eased into a sitting position, only to be yanked out of my seat. A man in jeans and a leather jacket peeled off my blindfold and then did the same for Claire.
“Walk to the Mercedes and get in.” Our new captor had a gun in his hand, so we began walking. I heard shouts behind us and turned to peer through the fog. The second man, a massive brute with no neck, was fastening zip ties around Aldo’s wrists and yelling at our driver, who was leaning on the car, holding his head. There was blood on his hand, but he was conscious and upright. I watched as the neckless man gestured to them both to follow him into the trees that bordered the road.
“Is he going to kill them?” Claire asked.
“I don’t think so. Neither of them had auras.”
The man in the leather jacket pointed his gun at the Alfa Romeo and shot out the tires, one by one. The sound of the shots startled a flock of crows that flew up, cawing, their black wings flailing in the swirling grey mist.
“Get in the Mercedes,” he told us again.
There really wasn’t any choice, so we climbed into the back seat.
“Who are these people? What are they going to do with us?” Claire looked terrified when the two men got into the car, the man in the leather jacket in the driver’s seat. The bigger thug sat on the passenger side, his shoulders wider than the seat back. The fabric of his suit jacket strained over his upper arms.
So quietly I hadn’t even noticed the engine start, the car pulled away.
“Who are you?” Claire asked, but neither of the men responded. I looked out to see that we were joining the A1, heading north, back towards Florence. My mind raced. These men couldn’t be working for the cardinal. But, apart from Santini, no one knew where we were.
23
We left the autostrada at the Impruneta exit, moving through slow commuter traffic. After passing the Porta Romana, we headed towards the city center, and soon entered the zona a traffico limitato, where most cars were prohibited. Obviously this car had a resident pass or they just didn’t care about paying the penalties.
As we turned on to Via dei Pescioni, close to the Palazzo Strozzi, Claire nudged me and leaned over to whisper. “This is the road Dante lives on.”
We stopped outside a four-story villa with pedimented windows and a massive arched front door in the center. The wall of the ground floor was rusticated, covered with heavy stone blocks that gave the impression of a solid, indestructible foundation, while the walls of the upper floors were finished in smooth rose-colored stucco. A beautifully sculpted cornice crowned the building. It was a breathtakingly perfect piece of architecture. I looked at my watch. It was nine, an hour ahead of London. Laura would be at work, preparing for the big meeting with the Randall Group tomorrow. And waiting for me to show up.
While I was musing about architecture and my job, Claire had visibly perked up. She sat up straight and checked that the buttons on her shirt were all fastened. I noticed her biting her lips to bring the blood to them as she patted her hair into place.
“This is Dante’s place?” I hazarded a guess. She nodded.
“So he’s kidnapped us? Taken us away from Santini?”
“Of course not. He saved us. It was a rescue.”
I wasn’t sure about that, but there was no time to argue. The men disembarked and opened the back doors for Claire and me. They’d hidden their guns under their jackets, but they still had a menacing look about them as they led us into a large entry hall, softly lit by crystal chandeliers, with several oil paintings in heavy gilt frames hung on the walls. A porter sat at a walnut desk reading a newspaper. He jumped to his feet when he saw our merry crew.
To one side of the lobby, a creamy marble staircase with a wrought iron banister curved upwards, but the porter led us to a small elevator and ushered us in. I shivered, my claustrophobia rearing its head. A sign indicated that the maximum capacity was six people, but it was crowded with the four of us. Mirrors lined the tiny cubicle, creating reflections of us all. The two men were multiplied, producing a small army. Were they assassins? Kidnappers? They certainly weren’t very friendly.
When the elevator slid smoothly to a stop, the doors opened into a spacious living room. It was opulently decorated with thick rugs in deep red and green hues that softened the burnished wooden floor. A fire crackled in the fireplace under a carved limestone mantel. Dark wood paneling glowed in the light of the blaze, a rosy backdrop for works of art in heavy golden frames. “Please wait here,” the big man said in Italian before he left, closing the door behind him.
A couple of minutes later, another man entered. Tall, handsome, with thick black hair that waved away from his face, he wore a dark grey suit and a pristine white shirt. I had no doubt this was Dante. At once, he held his arms out to Claire, and she moved into his embrace. They made a good-looking couple.
“Did you organize that rescue?” she asked as she pulled away from him.
He smiled. “I did. Rocco must have done a good job.”
My head was spinning. “I’m Kate. Thank you for saving us.” I said. “Is Rocco the big guy?”
Dante laughed. “Yes. He looks a lot meaner than he really is.” He shook my hand. “It’s good to meet you,” he said. “I want you both to tell me everything that’s happened, but first please sit down and rest. Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” I sank into a luxuriously soft sofa and felt my back relax for the first time that morning. Claire and Dante sat together on the sofa facing me.
“So?” Claire said, looking at Dante. “How did you know that the cardinal had captured us? How did your men know where we were?”
Dante held up a hand. “I’ll tell you everything. First, are you all right? Did Santini or his men hurt you?”
“No, we’re both fine,” Claire said. “We tried to escape and got shot at.” Her skin blanched. “Is that Santini’s villa we were held in? Have you been there?”
“My family has owned the place for a long time, but I haven’t been in it for years. My brother and I don’t get along well.” He echoed what Santini had told us the night before.
He paused as a middle-aged woman in a tailored blue dress came into the room. She and Claire greeted each other politely and Dante introduced her to me as Patrizia, his assistant. She set down a tray of gold-rimmed porcelain espresso cups and a plate of tiny fruit tartlets. I wolfed down a couple, thinking wistfully of a full English breakfast.
When she’d gone, Dante answered Claire’s questions. “When I stopped hearing from you, I was concerned. I had people out looking for you, but they lost you after you got off the train at Bologna. I keep an eye on Santini, and we eventually realized that he’d kidnapped you. Fortunately, we were able to work out where he’d taken you in time to arrange that interception this morning.”
Dante had people out looking for us? Men to watch his brother? Was he paranoid or was it just the result of a life spent conducting secretive business with discreet customers? Claire must have felt the same. “Why do you have people watching your brother?” she asked. “And why do you even have someone like Rocco working for you?”
“It’s a little complicated. Rocco’s on staff because of the nature of my business. I deal with very wealthy people, and I need to protect the artworks, and sometimes myself, too. There are times when a buyer or seller is using a piece of art to launder money or for some other illicit purpose. I’ve worked with the police to preve
nt a few crimes, and made some enemies along the way. As for Santini, well, he’s not to be trusted.”
“Definitely not,” Claire said. “He threatened to kill us.”
Dante sipped his coffee. “What did he want from you?”
“A key,” Claire answered.
He nodded. “Of course. The key to the vault.”
“You know about the vault?” I asked.
“It is an obsession of my brother’s. Personally, I doubt the vault still exists. He, however, is convinced it holds priceless artworks.”
He put his cup and saucer down on a beautiful inlaid end table.
“So you know about the Custodians and their art collection?” I asked.
He nodded. “It has been part of our family lore for generations. We grew up hearing stories of the fabulous treasures the Custodians once curated. But it was old history, a romantic notion of a bygone era. My brother just chose to believe it all.”
Perhaps noticing the expression of disappointment on Claire’s face, he smiled at her. “It is true that the Custodians existed in the fifteenth century and probably for several hundred years after that. But the group struggled through Italy’s invasion by Napoleon, and its interminable civil wars. Any surviving members were either killed or exiled during the early years of Mussolini’s Fascist movement, as were hundreds of officials and city elders who found themselves on the wrong side of the political divide. That was the end of the Custodians.”
I thought about what Gardi had told us about the man with the ring who’d come to the sanatorium in Florence, looking for the lost artworks. But Gardi was old. He said himself he’d given no thought to the key or Custodians for more than sixty years and he too had said that the 1930s and the war had inflicted serious damage on the group. Perhaps they were indeed all gone.
“So Santini is a Custodian?” Claire asked, her brows drawn together in a frown.
Dante shrugged. “He thinks he is. But with no key, and no access to the vault, if it even exists, he’s really the Custodian of nothing.”
“He seems convinced the vault exists. Convinced enough to commit a string of crimes.”
“Yes.” Dante sighed. “Did you give him the key?” he asked.
“We had no choice. He’s holding my brother. He said he’d release him if we gave him what he wanted and I was naive enough to believe him. Then, as soon as he had everything, he told us he intended to kill us.”
“Did he tell you where Ethan is?”
“No. And I’m scared that it’s too late now. You saved us, but I’m sure Santini has already given orders for Ethan to be killed, too.” Her voice caught and she gave a little sob. “We need to find him. Can you help us?”
“Of course, cara.” He patted her hand gently. “But tell me, if Santini intended to kill you, why didn’t he?”
Claire was crying too hard to speak, so I answered. “He told us he was waiting until this morning so that he could get to Rome to establish an alibi. Breakfast with the pope, if you can believe it. And I suspect he had some doubts that the key would work. He said something about using us to negotiate if he had any problems, but he seemed very confident.”
“Negotiate with whom?”
“I don’t know. But he didn’t seem to believe we’d told him everything we know, so maybe he just planned on trying to get more out of us.”
“And do you know something he doesn’t?”
“Well, there’s a diagram. But it’s not very helpful.”
“A diagram?”
I nodded. “It’s just a basic line drawing of irregular-shaped rectangles. If you squint, it looks sort of like a stone wall.”
Letting go of Claire’s hand, Dante got up and stood with his back to the fire. “And Santini doesn’t have that diagram?”
“No, it’s in the house in the country where he was holding us,” I said. “I hid it in the umbrella urn by the front door.”
Dante smiled. “Very enterprising of you. Is there anything else? Are there any other documents?”
Claire wiped her cheeks while she told him about the list of the artworks. “We call it the provenance list,” she said. “But there really wasn’t much information, other than the names of artists and some dates, which we think were buy and sell dates. Santini took it when he took the key.”
Dante glanced at his watch. “Give me a few minutes, please. I need to get an update on my brother’s whereabouts. Why don’t you two get cleaned up? Patrizia will come to help you, and Rocco is going to stay with you. Until I find out what Santini is up to, I want you under constant protection.”
After he’d gone, Rocco stood at the door and gazed into the middle distance. Although Claire had stopped crying, she looked washed-out, bruised and pensive. “I’m so glad I was wrong about Dante,” she said.
“Me too,” I said. “I’m happy for you. For both of us, really.”
“It was a horrible feeling, when I thought that he’d betrayed me.” She laughed. “I need to have more faith in people.” But then her expression changed. Her lips trembled. “Santini still has Ethan, though,” she said. “I can’t be happy about Dante until I know what’s happened to Ethan.”
More to the point, Claire still had her aura. I couldn’t make sense of it. We were safe now. There was no way Santini’s men could get anywhere near us. So what was the danger to her?
My brain wasn’t working too well, fogged up by lack of sleep, limited food and the stress of the last few hours. I got to my feet and wandered through the spacious room. Glass cases arranged along one wall held an impressive collection of artifacts, including a number of small bronze statuettes, a Bible open to show the signature of the Medici Pope Clement, and several vases that I guessed were Etruscan. Dante had certainly made plenty of money as an art dealer.
A window in between two of the glass cases framed a view of the great dome of the cathedral. The sun had won its battle with the early morning fog, and the russet dome cast a shadow over the streets below, creating grey corridors along which cars and people moved as iridescent spots of color.
A few minutes later, the woman in the blue dress came in. She invited us to follow her, leading us along a wide hallway hung with old paintings to a large suite with a four-poster bed, a small living room and a spacious marble-tiled bathroom. Rocco followed close behind and stood outside the bedroom door.
“Have you met her before?” I asked Claire, after Patrizia had shown us how to use the rainfall shower and left us with a stack of fluffy white towels.
Claire nodded. “Yes, a few times. She’s Dante’s personal assistant. She’s rather formal with me, a little standoffish even. And she reminds me of the Cheshire Cat, the way she smiles all the time.” She picked up a towel and hurried into the bathroom. Not long afterwards, she came out to blow-dry her hair while I showered. By the time I’d dressed, she was anxious to get back to Dante, so I left my hair to dry by itself, but took ten seconds to put on some mascara and lip balm. A little make-up and washed hair did wonders for my morale, although I was dreaming of fresh knickers and clean clothes.
When we returned to the living room, Dante was waiting for us. “I have an idea on how to stop Santini,” he said at once.
“Stop him from opening the vault?” Claire asked. “It’s too late for that, I think.”
Dante smiled. “No, it’s not. My men reported that Santini cancelled his appointment with the pope. Only one thing could come between him and a chance to fawn at the feet of his master. The vault. He must have failed to open it, which would explain why he was bringing you to Florence this morning. So we are going to help him.”
“We’re going to help Santini?” Claire looked shocked.
“Yes. I have something I think he needs, something we can use to negotiate Ethan’s release.”
That sounded promising. Claire’s face lit up. “What do you have?”
“I’ll show you.” He stood up. “We will need to make a short trip.”
“Can I make a couple of phone calls
first?” I asked, checking the gilt clock on the mantelpiece. It was almost eleven, which was ten in England. “Santini stole our mobiles, but there’s a detective in London who expected to see us an hour ago.”
Dante glanced at the clock. “You can make your calls from that phone.” He pointed to an old-fashioned porcelain phone on a table near the fireplace. “It’s an antique, but it works. And I’ll get Patrizia to secure some new mobile phones for you while we’re out.” He smiled at Claire. “I know how much you rely on yours.”
I dug in my bag for Lake’s card. His phone rang through to the duty desk and I left a message, asking Lake to call me back on Dante’s landline.
Claire was standing, fidgeting. “We should go,” she said. “Finding Ethan is the biggest priority.”
“I know. Just one more minute.” I wanted to talk to Leo and to Laura.
“No. Let’s go.”
Dante walked to the door as soon I put the receiver back in its cradle. “Follow me, please,” he said.
We did, with Rocco, the neckless brute, bringing up the rear. Dante led us downstairs, out through the lobby to the Mercedes. Claire and I sat together in the back for the short drive. After just a couple of minutes, we stopped on a side street, where the driver let us out and Dante led the way into a pedestrian alleyway. It had started to drizzle again, water dripping from the gutters of small workshops that lined both sides of the alley. Most of them were locked up, with heavy padlocks securing the shutters, but two of the buildings were open. A sprinkling of pale marble dust frosted the cobbles outside a sculptor’s workshop and the pungent smell of white spirit lingered in the air where a furniture restorer was working. We could have been in Florence at the time of the Renaissance.
At the end of the alleyway, we stopped in front of the last workshop on the right. It too was secured with several gleaming brass padlocks. Dante unlocked each of them and pushed the door open. Inside, the small space was crowded with items of antique furniture and empty gilt frames.
The Complete Kate Benedict Cozy British Mysteries Page 74
