Michelangelo's Ghost

by Gigi Pandian

  “You guys,” I said, shivering as another crash of thunder and lightning filled the sky. “I think we’d better find shelter.”

  Ava and I helped Mahilan up.

  Ava held her backpack above a drenched map of the labyrinthine park, while I shone the flashlight between the map and our surroundings.

  “We must have cut through this section,” I said. “We’re not far from the Ogre’s hellmouth.”

  “Can you please, for the love of God, call it something else?” Mahilan said.

  “Here.” Ava pointed at a spot on the map not far away.

  “I see it,” I said. “You can lean on me, Fish.”

  “Lazzaro’s monster?” Mahilan said. “That’s what you two are talking about? I’ll stay here. This is a nice spot.”

  “There’s shelter inside its mouth,” I said. “A full room that’s out of the rain and lightning.”

  In spite of Mahilan’s insistence that he was fine, he was limping. I put my arm around him as we made our way to the stone Ogre, its open mouth waiting for us.

  We climbed the nine steps leading to the black hole of a mouth. The steps were slick with rain. In his discombobulated state, Mahilan slipped. He took both Ava and me down with him. It wasn’t a hard fall, since the steps were shallow, but the backpack ripped and our rope ladder tumbled out.

  “Don’t lose that,” Ava said. “We’d be trapped here all night.”

  “You take Fish. I’ll get the ladder.” I fumbled on the slippery steps until my hands felt the rough weave of the rope. I clutched the coarse material, then scrambled up the steps and into the stone room.

  “Let me look at your ankle,” Ava said, pushing Mahilan down onto the stone picnic bench.

  “It’s fine, really,” he said. But he winced as Ava eased off his mud-caked shoe.

  I stood at the edge of the doorway, underneath the two stone teeth, looking out at the pouring rain.

  “Good,” Ava said. “Let us know if our ‘ghost’ comes back.”

  Now that I was standing still, the chill from the rain was catching up with me.

  “Your ankle isn’t too bad,” Ava said to Mahilan. “It might swell a little though. I’m going to put your shoe back on. You’ll need it to walk out of here.”

  “We’re walking out of here?” Mahilan asked. “Shouldn’t we call for help?”

  “And tell them what?” I said, sitting down next to my brother. “That we broke into a national park, were prodding antique statues to see if they led to a secret hiding place, and caused a landslide by not sticking to the proper paths? Do lawyers get disbarred for transgressions in foreign countries?”

  Mahilan glared at me.

  “You’re the one who wanted to tag along with me,” I pointed out.

  “I thought,” he said through clenched teeth, “that it would be a fun vacation.”

  “Look,” Ava said, nodding her head out the Ogre’s mouth. “The heavy rain seems to be passing. It’s not quite twelve. We can be back in our cozy beds in time to get a good night’s sleep. I’m sure everything will seem less crazy in the morning.”

  She was right that the heavy swath of rain was letting up. The wind was pushing the storm elsewhere. Another burst of lightning illuminated the sky outside, casting an eerie shadow on the floor inside the Ogre’s mouth. But this time, the thunder was a few seconds away.

  “It’s as good an opening as any,” I said. “I can barely hear the rain at all. Shall we?”

  As Ava and I helped Mahilan up, the three of us froze at the same moment. The sound that pierced the air was unlike any I had ever heard before.

  The ghostly, mournful wail of a woman cut through the silence and echoed through the Park of Monsters.

  Chapter 30

  Even ever-elegant Ava looked shaken. I can’t say I was in better shape myself.

  I knew there was no such thing as ghosts, but that sound. I’d never heard such a sorrowful howl in my life.

  “We’re leaving,” Mahilan said. “Now.”

  Nobody objected.

  The three of us half-walked and half-ran hand in hand back to the spot where we’d entered the park. Now that we’d oriented ourselves, had our flashlights on, and didn’t have heavy rain blinding us, we made it out of the park in fifteen minutes and were back at the rental car in another ten. My foot ached as I ran, but I chalked it up to sisterly concern for Mahilan’s fall.

  I took the wheel of the car and locked us inside. Ava sat in the back with Mahilan and checked out his ankle again. I fiddled with the seat of the car, moving it up several inches so I could reach the pedals. Only then did I realize I’d lost one of my boots.

  I’d been running on adrenaline, so I hadn’t noticed that my boot had slipped off. I had no idea where it could be. I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing. There was nothing to be done about it now. It was an indistinct black boot, and I had my heels and sneakers at the villa. I told myself it was fine. But I couldn’t help imagining the Ogre laughing at me.

  “You two are still going to deny that was a ghost?” Mahilan winced as Ava lifted his leg onto her lap.

  “There’s a logical explanation,” Ava said.

  “Which is what, exactly?” Mahilan asked. “I’m all ears.”

  “Just because we haven’t figured it out yet,” I said, “doesn’t mean there isn’t one.” I turned on the heat and put the car into gear.

  We’d parked the bright orange SUV off the road, hidden under a thicket of trees. I was thankful Mahilan had gone for the four-wheel drive model. The engine revved as I eased the Fiat out of the mud.

  We drove in silence for a few minutes as I found my way back to the main road.

  “How you doing, Fish?” I asked.

  “The rental car company is going to charge me for all this mud.”

  “Glad to see you’re back to your old self.”

  “His ankle isn’t swelling much,” Ava said. “And I’m sure we can find a car wash where we can get the car cleaned. It’s only mud.”

  I glanced at them in the rearview mirror. In the blasting heat, the mud on their skin and clothing was drying. Except for their expressions of fear, they looked as if they’d stepped out of a mud bath at the villa’s spa.

  We arrived, bedraggled, at close to one o’clock in the morning. I realized it had been exactly midnight when we heard the ghostly wail.

  The next morning, we were exhausted. Mahilan and I were also starving, so Ava put a pillow over her head while I slipped on my heels and my brother and I went to breakfast.

  “If this is what your research is usually like,” Mahilan said as he piled his plate with an assortment of warm breads and soft cheeses from the bountiful buffet, “I should have Sanjay keep you tied up with his Houdini handcuffs.”

  “The whole idea is that you can get out of them,” I pointed out.

  “Dammit, this isn’t a joke!” A pat of butter molded in the shape of a bouquet of flowers flew off the knife in his hand.

  I led us to an empty corner of the arched stone cellar that housed the smaller of the two restaurants where breakfast was served. Medieval sconces with modern electric lights shaped like candles illuminated the space.

  “It’s not a ghost,” I said.

  “Just because none of us are possessed like that actor—”

  “Fish.” I started laughing and couldn’t stop. “You really think as Americans who heard the ghostly wail that she’s calling us with her siren song?”

  “The evidence—”

  “Tells us that someone wants to scare us. Someone wants us to believe it’s a ghost.”

  “That would mean they’ve known for decades, or even centuries, that we’d be coming for Lazzaro’s hidden paintings in the present day. I don’t buy it, JJ. That hypothesis doesn’t make sense. It only makes sense if it’s an actual ghost. She could be
protecting her cousin’s paintings. Did you think of that?”

  I tried not to roll my eyes as I dipped a chunk of cheese into a bowl of thick European yogurt.

  “Your food habits could be one of the reasons you don’t have a boyfriend, JJ.”

  “Why should anyone care that I like unique combinations of food? And why do I need a boyfriend?”

  “Tell me, is there anything in your fridge at home besides jars of spicy Indian pickle?”

  “As a matter of fact there is. I—” I took another bite of food to stop myself from talking. I was about to say there was food in my fridge because Lane had gone grocery shopping for me.

  Mahilan wasn’t paying attention anyway. He was looking around underneath the table. “Is that your phone?”

  By the time I found it buried at the bottom of my messenger bag, it had stopped ringing. I’d missed a call from Tamarind. Not Lane. And not Stefano Gopal. It was seven o’clock in the morning in Italy, so it would be ten o’clock in San Francisco. I took my coffee with me and went back to the room to call her back, leaving Mahilan to get a second helping. I thought longingly of the succulent bacon and freshly baked croissants I was leaving behind.

  The villa doors used old-fashioned keys, so between the coffee in one hand and the clunky key in the other, it took me a few seconds to unlatch the door.

  When I stepped inside, I saw immediately that something wasn’t right. My suitcase sat askew on my unmade bed. The maid wouldn’t have unzipped the suitcase, nor would she have left the bed unmade.

  My coffee cup clattering to the floor, I ran to Ava and Mahilan’s private room, dreading what I might find. We’d left Ava alone in the suite.

  As I stepped into the room, I heard her singing in the shower through the bathroom door. Relief flooded through me. She was here. Safe.

  “Ava?” I called.

  The singing stopped but the shower kept running. “You two back already? Give me a second.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed to steady my nerves as I waited for Ava. But what I saw next made my relief evaporate: resting on the bed next to me was a calling card. ^V^.

  The thief who’d killed Lane’s old girlfriend Mia.

  He was here.

  This wasn’t a gentleman thief trying to harmlessly scare us off with a ghost. The calling card thief had killed Lilith Vine, followed me to Lazzaro Allegri’s treasure, and—I felt a lump in my throat. Lane was missing. I now had a good sense of why his phone was disconnected.

  ^V^ could have found Lane. The only other time he’d been completely unreachable was when he’d been coerced into helping with a theft in the recent past. Was the calling card thief asking Lane to help with yet another theft?

  Or worse. The thief had killed before. What was to stop him from killing again?

  Chapter 31

  I couldn’t help crying out as I imagined scenarios too horrible to think about. Would I lose Lane like he’d lost Mia?

  I heard the shower stop and the shower curtain pull open. “I’m feeling so much better after getting a little more sleep,” Ava said through the bathroom door.

  A few seconds later, she opened the door. A towel was wrapped around her head and a robe pulled around her body. Ava was smiling—until she saw my face. I’m sure my face was a mask of horror. I was still reeling from the realization that a master thief was here in Italy with us and my conclusion that Lane had been kidnapped—or worse.

  “What’s happened?” she asked. “Is it Mahilan’s ankle? Jaya? Talk to me. Did he fall? Is he hurt?”

  I didn’t know how to explain what I’d found. When I failed to dispute her assumption, Ava rushed toward the closet. “I shouldn’t have let you two go without both of us to support him. Especially not before I looked at his ankle again. Is it bad?”

  I put my arm on her shoulder as she frantically pulled a black camisole from a hanger. “It’s not Mahilan. Look around your room. Are things how you left them?”

  “What are you asking?” She pulled her robe more tightly around her. “Has someone besides the maid been in the suite?”

  “This,” I said, holding up the ^V^ calling card, “is the calling card of a thief. A dangerous one.”

  Ava looked at me incredulously. “Something was stolen? And a calling card was left in its place?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so. Not something. But someone.”

  “Mahil—”

  “My brother is fine. He’s safe and sound, and eating well enough that his ankle should be better in no time.”

  “Then what are you talking about? This thief stole a person—kidnapped them—and dropped off their card to let us know?”

  “I think so.” I closed my eyes and thought about when I’d last spoken with Lane. He didn’t know I was coming to Italy. And nobody knew about the two of us. Had my being here triggered his disappearance? But how—and why? It was too big a coincidence to think it was unrelated.

  “You’re not making any sense.” Ava took the now-wrinkled card from my fingers. “And this is a strange business card. There’s no contact information on it.”

  “I’m not kidding. It’s the calling card of a thief.”

  “How do you know about thief calling cards?”

  I sat on the edge of her bed and put my head in my hands. “It’s a long story. You’d better get dressed. I’ll go get Mahilan.”

  I collected a very confused Mahilan from the breakfast room. He’d moved tables and was now sitting with a young couple who were talking about being on their honeymoon trip. He was telling them about the museums in Florence they absolutely had to visit when they moved on to the city later that week. “Michelangelo’s David is so much more impressive in person,” he said.

  When he saw me gesturing frantically, he said his farewells and followed me outside.

  “It’s not raining today,” he said, looking nervously up at the sky. “But your expression…Did you hear that ghostly voice again?”

  “I’m afraid it’s even worse than that.”

  We found Ava waiting for us impatiently in jeans and a tank top, with bare feet and wet hair. She sat on the couch with her arms crossed, tapping her feet against the plush rug with nervous energy.

  “It’s time,” I said, “for a council of war.”

  I came clean and told Mahilan I was seeing the guy I met while looking into the ruby bracelet from India, and that because of the things we looked into in Scotland, India, and France, we’d encountered some bad people.

  I left out the bit about Lane being an ex-thief. There was no reason for Mahilan and Ava to know how we’d come into contact with that circle, only that we had.

  “And now,” I concluded, “he’s missing.”

  Mahilan’s jaw was set so tightly it was pulsing with tension. I was glad he didn’t seem to be able to open his mouth, or I’m sure he would have yelled at me.

  “Why,” he said finally, “didn’t you tell me you were still seeing him?” I’d never seen my brother’s face this shade of purple.

  “Because I knew you’d worry. Either about the fact that it was a long-distance relationship that would never work, or because of exactly this—that some bad people might come after me.”

  “We don’t keep secrets from each other, JJ. We don’t.”

  “I found a calling card in our suite this morning,” I said, “after I saw that someone had been searching through my bags.”

  Ava handed Mahilan the card. “I believe Jaya when she says he’s a professional,” she said. “It happened while I was taking a shower to wash off the rest of the mud. I didn’t hear a thing.”

  Mahilan’s breath caught and he grabbed her hand protectively.

  “I locked the bathroom door,” she said. “Force of habit, but it looks like it came in handy.”

  I didn’t point out the lock of a hotel’s bathroom door w
ould be no match for ^V^.

  “And you know who this person is?” Mahilan whirled to face me. “He’s someone you and Lane encountered before? God, I can’t believe you kept all of this from me.”

  “I don’t know who it is,” I said. “Not exactly. Lane’s phone is disconnected. With the timing, and this calling card, I’m pretty sure it’s because this thief has him.”

  On my phone, I pulled up newspaper articles that showed photos of the calling card left behind after high profile museum thefts.

  “So,” Mahilan said, finding his voice after spending a few seconds scrolling through the photos, “if I’m understanding you properly, you think this Triangle Man kidnapped your boyfriend and then popped over to Bomarzo to leave his calling card in your room? Why?”

  “Triangle Man?” Ava repeated.

  Mahilan tapped the illustrated marks. “Or Mountain-and-Valley Man. Whatever. These markings look like two-sided triangles or two mountain peaks surrounding a valley. The point is, this is a guy who has a big enough ego to have a graphic artist design him thief calling cards.”

  “Interesting…” Ava said, studying the card.

  “Call him what you will,” Mahilan said, “but your evidence is lacking, JJ. It’s much more likely this Lane fellow wasn’t happy with a long-distance relationship and moved on. Breakups are difficult conversations to have, so he’s not calling you back. I’m sorry to be harsh, but there it is. Your theory makes no sense.”

  “You think I’m imagining that this card means something?” I wasn’t going crazy, was I?

  Ava cleared her throat. “I hate to say this, but there’s a simpler explanation. No, it’s too crazy. Forget I said anything.”

  “What were you going to say?” Mahilan asked.

  “Jaya’s disappearing boyfriend,” Ava said, not meeting my gaze, “who doesn’t tell you when he’s going off the grid…Is it possible he could be Triple Triangle?”

  I nearly choked. “No.”