The Da Vinci Cook

by Joanne Pence

  Cat eased against the seat, lolling her head back. “Thank God!” she breathed in a sigh of relief.

  “I know,” Angie said, feeling as if she’d been holding her breath until then. “We should have done this a long time ago.”

  “I knew everything would work out,” Cat said smugly.

  “And we’ll be home soon.” Angie cheered, pumping a fist in the air.

  “It’ll be so great to be free.” Cat took off the scarf and fluffed her hair.

  Angie took off hers as well, and started to sing “Freedom, freedom.” Laughing, Cat high-fived her. Daniel remained quiet and thoughtful.

  Angie’s jubilation was short-lived as she noticed car lights bearing down on them at great speed.

  “Who’s that?” she asked, wary.

  Cat and Daniel turned around. In the evening darkness, they could only see the outline of the large car heading right for them. Angie changed into the slow lane. The behemoth did as well.

  She sped up and pulled in front of another car, putting it between her and the pursuer. The little Smart Car had power, but not nearly enough.

  The large car pulled alongside her. It was a gray BMW. The window was rolled down, and a gun pointed at her. Holding the gun was the young archeologist, Stefano.

  Angie screamed as the BMW inched closer, near her fender. She had nowhere to go, and moved toward the shoulder. The archeologist pointed to a highway exit, and the BMW swerved toward her again.

  She took the exit, not knowing what else to do.

  The BMW followed.

  She kept going, driving fast, trying to get away, but it was hopeless. The BMW suddenly sped around and in front of her, cutting her off and forcing her from the road and onto a steep, soft embankment.

  As the Smart Car jostled to a standstill, the BMW driver opened the door, his gun aimed their way the entire time. “Going someplace?” he asked with a malicious smirk. “Get out!”

  “Rocco!” Cat’s voice was a mixture of shock and fury.

  “You finally know it’s me?” His face never lost its smile. “It’s about time you recognized your old playmate, but then you never did pay much attention to me even when we were kids. The police told you, didn’t they?”

  “How could you do this?” she asked. “I trusted you!”

  He grimaced. “You were wrong. Get out of the car now!”

  Cat, Angie, and Daniel scrambled out of the half-listing car.

  “That’s Rocco?” Father Daniel rubbed his head, his legs rubbery. “I’m worse than I thought. That man looks like Marcello Piccoletti.”

  “It’s a long story, Father,” Angie whispered, gripping his arm tight in support.

  “Why are you doing this?” Cat snapped, eyes blazing.

  “Give me the chain!” he said.

  “We don’t have it,” Angie said tersely.

  “I want it. Now!” Rocco roared.

  Daniel looked at Angie, his eyes questioning. She could see he was ready to give up. She wasn’t, and neither was Cat.

  “Why?” Cat asked boldly. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I’ve got plans. I’ve got a buyer.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I’m out of here. Two-point-three million euros isn’t going to allow me to live like a king, but living like a prince is good enough.”

  “We put the chain in a safe deposit box,” Angie announced abruptly. Father Daniel winced. “Only us or the police can get it.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Rocco said. “Stefano, go through their bags. Find the chain.”

  “Stefano,” Angie said to the young man as he pulled their tote bags from the car and dumped everything onto the ground, “how could you be involved in this? Are you doing it to help your father?”

  “My father?” He looked at her with a wry grin. “I’m the one with habits I can’t afford. When my father found out, he did all he could to keep the authorities and the Vatican from knowing.” Stefano’s ruthless gaze slanted toward Father Daniel. “Or so we thought.”

  “Don’t worry about him,” Rocco said. “Father has been working with me to buy the chain for the Vatican, haven’t you, Father? But then they chintzed out. They didn’t want to pay what it’s worth, cheap bastards, they wanted to steal it.” He noticed Angie’s and Cat’s expressions. “Oh my, am I giving away a secret?”

  “They really don’t have the chain,” Daniel pleaded as Stefano searched through the car. “Let them go.”

  Angie let go of the priest’s arm.

  He faced her. “It’s not what you think, Angie.”

  “It’s not here,” Stefano said.

  “Where the hell is it?” Rocco demanded.

  “Bank of Italy, I told you,” Angie said, trying not to think of Father Daniel’s deception, and to come up with a spot with high security and a lot of people. “The branch next door to the St. Regis Hotel.”

  “Very smart.” Rocco gave Cat a toothy smile. “I knew I could trust you two to keep the chain safe. Tomorrow’s Monday. They should open by ten o’clock in the morning.” He addressed Angie. “We’ll pay them a little visit, you and I. You’ll have thirty minutes to get the chain, and then to get back to your sister and the priest. I get the chains,” Rocco said with a malevolent grin, “or Rome will truly be, for all of you, the eternal city.”

  At midnight Rocco and Stefano drove their captives to the Forum. It was empty and eerie with moonlight and shadows. Angie realized where the old expression “Great Caesar’s ghost” must have come from: this place, on a night like this.

  The Mamertine Prison was up ahead. It was basically a cistern, cold, dank, and moldy. As much as Angie dreaded the idea of being put down there, the good part was that tourists often walked all around that area. Surely someone would hear their cries.

  Rocco turned before reaching the prison and entered an area surrounded by a temporary chain-link fence with Keep Out signs all around. Stefano flipped a switch on a generator, then unlocked the door to a large temporary building. It covered and protected a deep pit, an excavation down to the old prison and most likely to where St. Peter’s chain had been found.

  The few excavation sites Angie had seen covered vast areas, with shelflike layers progressing downward, almost like a gigantic staircase, to the deepest point of the pit. Along each of those layers were smaller holes where archeologists had dug. Lots of machinery to move dirt was at those sites as well.

  This site, however, was smaller than most. Although deep, it wasn’t terribly broad. The layers were narrow, each ten or twelve feet down from the prior one. Angie tried to see to the bottom of the pit. It appeared to be about forty or fifty feet below the surface.

  Small holes pockmarked the area, but the heavy machinery that was usually found wasn’t in the area, and Angie wondered if the site had been abandoned for some reason.

  Ropes and pulleys and a couple of ladders dropped down inside the pit, while wooden scaffolding and walls prevented any potential cave-ins.

  “Wait,” Angie said, her head whirling with thoughts of how she could distract Rocco from leaving them there. Time was what she needed—time to come up with a way to escape. “I know, Rocco, how you expect to get out of this mess, but have you ever figured out how you got into it?”

  Hard eyes stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Who set you up, Rocco? Do you know? Or don’t you care? Somebody wants the chain enough to kill for it. Whoever it is killed your own mother.”

  “I know, dammit!” he swore. “I think about it constantly, day and night. My mother died because of Marcello and that goddamned chain! That’s why I have to get it. I have to make sure she didn’t die in vain.”

  “How big of you,” Cat muttered.

  As they spoke, Stefano climbed down to the first layer of the pit. He lifted out some ropes and a long aluminum ladder. Angie forced her attention back to Rocco. “What you have to do, Rocco, is make sure her killers don’t get away with it.”

  �
��I wouldn’t if I knew who they were. I keep replaying everything in my mind, but none of it makes sense.”

  Angie watched Stefano climb out of the pit, look at Rocco and nod. She got a very bad feeling. “My fiancé is looking into it,” she said hurriedly. “He’s a homicide inspector. I’m sure he has information that will help you.”

  “Your fiancé’s a cop?” Rocco’s eyes narrowed.

  “He is, and he’s coming very close to solving this case.”

  “Including who killed Marcello and my mother?”

  Angie had to think fast. She was quite sure Marcello’s murderer was the person talking to her at that very moment. “He thinks the same person who killed your mother also killed Marcello. Probably something went wrong—maybe the two argued—and he ended up dead.”

  “Is that what he thinks?” Rocco’s mouth twisted.

  “That makes sense, doesn’t it? When Cat arrived, Marcello had been murdered and you were running away from the killer.”

  Rocco stared coldly. “That’s it exactly, but no cop would believe it.”

  Angie was sure he was lying, but it didn’t matter. He was distracted, and that was the whole point. She was looking around, trying to come up with something to use as a weapon. Cat was doing the same. Loose material lay around the site, but the tools, like the heavy machinery, had all been removed.

  “Enough of this,” he snarled. “Get down into the pit.”

  “What?” Cat, Angie, and Daniel looked at each other and then the dark hole in the earth.

  Stefano had left one ladder. It led from ground level to the first layer, a ledge about six feet wide, dotted with one- to two-foot-deep holes.

  Brandishing his gun, Rocco forced them down the ladder. As soon as they reached the ledge, he and Stefano pulled the ladder up to the surface.

  Angie immediately looked for a ladder leading down to the next level, knowing the three of them could lift it and use it to climb out. It was gone, and she understood what Stefano had been doing earlier.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” Rocco said, “when we go to the bank to get the chain. I just hope—for your sakes—you aren’t lying to me again. Buona notte.”

  The two left, shutting the door behind them. Almost immediately the lights went out.

  The area was pitch-black.

  Just as it must have been at the time of Peter.

  Chapter 40

  The three sat, stunned, in the unnerving darkness.

  “We’ve got to find a way out of here.” Angie dropped to her hands and knees. The edge wasn’t far from where she stood, and equally treacherous were the smaller holes. A misstep into one of them might lead to an injury that could prevent them from climbing out when and if they came up with a way.

  “There’s got to be something,” Cat agreed. Shuffling in the darkness toward Angie’s voice, her arms waving in front of her, her toe hit an object, and she kicked at it.

  “Ouch!” Angie poked Cat’s leg, stopping her. “That’s me!”

  “Get down, Cat,” Father Daniel said from behind her. “It’s safest.”

  “Do you know what this place is, Father?” Angie held Cat’s hand as she sat.

  “I do,” he said, finding the sisters. The three huddled in a circle like campfire girls. “They’ve been finding some artifacts here, but they’ve dug down as deeply as they dare with machinery. From this point they have to use their hands and brushes. It’s slow, delicate work. They don’t want the site to be destroyed by weather, or worse, by the public climbing down into it, so they put up a cover. This site, however, isn’t being worked at the moment. The Vatican has temporarily suspended it. We heard of several old, valuable finds that the Church was interested in but were never reported to us. The chain of St. Peter was the latest of those, and by far the most potentially valuable.”

  “You know a lot about this for someone in Rome just to study, Father,” Cat said. Even in the dark, they could hear the frown in her voice. “What did Rocco mean about you trying to buy or steal the chain from him? Is that what you’d planned? To steal it?”

  “I actually work for the Curia of Antiquities,” he said. “When we discovered there was something amiss with the dig here, I was sent ‘undercover,’ so to speak. I hung out at Da Vinci’s to watch the archeologists. The son, Stefano, was stealing from the digs and selling valuable pieces to Marcello, or I should say to Rocco, who’d send them to the U.S. in crates along with inexpensive pieces for his furniture store. We were building a case against them when the chain of St. Peter disappeared to the U.S. It was too valuable to allow it to become lost, so I approached Piccoletti with an offer. He wanted millions, and apparently thought he’d get more in the U.S. than from the Vatican. He wouldn’t deal at first. I guess something went wrong because he came back with the chain.

  “I tried to negotiate with him again, but he was still hoping to find a higher bidder. Then I saw the two of you, and soon realized you were after the chain as well. I hoped you’d lead me to it. I never wanted to deceive you.”

  “So the Vatican is sure the chain really once held St. Peter?” Angie asked, intrigued.

  “Not at all. In fact, there’s great doubt. It’ll be studied. If it can be confirmed, then it’ll be displayed.”

  “Right now,” Cat said, bringing them back to the present, “we need to find a way out of here, because when they come back, whether they get the chain or not” —her voice turned tearful—“they’re going to kill us!”

  The three had hoped that as their eyes adjusted to the dark, they’d be able to make out at least a little of their surroundings and find a way out. The darkness remained complete, however, and hope diminished with each passing minute.

  They needed somehow to find a rope, or a forgotten ladder, or another means to climb out of there. Once they reached ground level, they were sure that between the three of them, they could break their way out of the temporary shelter built over the excavation.

  Reaching ground level was the problem.

  Angie stood on Daniel’s shoulders to see if that helped, but she didn’t have the reach or arm strength to pull herself up. Maneuvering on his shoulders in complete darkness was one of the scariest things she had ever attempted.

  Finally, they resorted to holding onto each other and crawling around. Father Daniel was in the lead, Angie held the hem of his pants’ leg, and Cat held the hem of hers. The ground sloped, and those strange holes were all over it. Daniel stayed close to the side wall, but it had rough wood on it, and when he felt around, hoping to find a way to climb up, all he got for his troubles were splinters.

  Cat’s breathing was fast, and Angie knew she was scared. “In case we don’t make it, Cat,” she said softly, “I want you to know you’ve been a good sister. One I could look up to always. You were an inspiration.”

  “Don’t say that, Angie. It’s not true. I’ve made many mistakes—”

  “It’s true! No need to be modest. I just wanted you to know.”

  “I expect Paavo has found out about my mistakes,” Cat said, crawling after Angie. “It’s going to be embarrassing seeing him again . . . if we make it.”

  “You’ve done nothing to worry about.” Angie glanced back over her shoulder, but she couldn’t even see Cat’s outline.

  “I wonder if my clients will think that.” Cat’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  “I suspect your clients have nothing but praise for you.”

  “I don’t think so,” Cat said.

  “Father Dan.” Angie turned toward him, hoping to get him to stop a moment. They were going fairly slowly, but holding onto him meant she could only use one arm to crawl, and it was tiring. “Can you stop?”

  “Sorry,” Daniel said. He rested a moment, as did Angie.

  “Over the years,” Cat whispered, not wanting Father Dan to hear, “I’ve had several clients who really, really wanted some special piece of furniture or art object for their house. Something unique and expensive—something they’d seen in a cat
alogue or some architectural magazine.”

  “I can imagine you get that a lot,” Angie said.

  “I do.” Cat sat back on her heels, her knees aching from crawling. The time had come, she told herself, to make her confession, to tell Angie exactly what terrible, probably illegal thing she’d allowed herself to get involved in with Marcello.

  She kept her voice a soft whisper, hoping Father Daniel wouldn’t overhear. “If I’d try and try and couldn’t find that special something any other way—” She had to wait a moment as her breathing was coming hard and a buzzing sound was in her head at the trauma of admitting, out loud, what she’d done. “—I’d go to Marcello, I mean Rocco, and have him use his foreign contacts to make a copy.”

  She hurried on, not wanting to hear Angie’s chastisement. “Before you say anything, I didn’t sell them as originals. I never told my clients they were the real things. I’d simply say I got exactly what they wanted, the price was low, and they shouldn’t question me. They’d nod knowingly, and were happy. So was Marcello—or should I call him Rocco?—who made a hefty profit.” Angie remained quiet. “Okay, I’ll admit it, so did I. But with all that happiness around me, how could I not do it? Charles doesn’t know. No one knows but Rocco and me. Maybe I’m overreacting. If I don’t say it’s real, it’s not exactly piracy or selling knockoffs, right . . . ? Right, Angie?” She felt all around her, then shouted, “Angie where are you?”

  “Calm down, Cat,” Angie called from what seemed to be a great distance. “I thought you stayed back because you were tired. There’s nothing over this way. We’re turning around.”

  Cat shook her head, stunned. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “No. I thought you must be praying.”

  Cat thought a moment, then said, “How did you ever guess?”

  Time crept by slowly.

  The three had checked out the ledge as best they could. Stefano had left nothing they could use to help themselves. They were stuck. Plus tired. Scared. And irritable.