I picked up the postcard and read the note. Meet in the first pew when mass is over.
...
I did as I was told, waiting for the last organ note before moving to the front pew and sinking down amidst a thinning cloud of incense. A grand mosaic covered the altar—each shiny, gilded scene representing the life of Mary.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Cross said as he sat beside me, his royal blue bow tie slightly cockeyed. “Sorry I disappeared, but I had to make sure you weren’t followed.”
“Was I?” I should have thought of that. Luis and his father clearly wanted me to meet with Cross. They probably had people tailing me to make sure I went through with everything.
“No, not if you discount my old cycle courier, Marcus Rey.” He clasped his wrinkled hands, gray hair covering his knuckles.
“Yeah, I hear you and Marcus go way back.” I tried to mask my surprise that he was able to spot Marcus like a living Where’s Waldo? amongst the crowd.
“The Reys have quite a history with Dresden.”
“So do you, if I remember correctly. Though your name wasn’t Allen Cross then, Uncle Aleksandr.” I cut him a look.
“Ah, yes. You knew me as Aleksandr Chromy.” There was a hint of Czech in his voice. “I changed it when I became a professor. Allen Cross is more accessible to the masses.”
“Is that the only reason? Because I recently learned my parents were crazy super spies.”
His golden hazel eyes narrowed with a condescending smirk. “What exactly do you think you know?”
I could practically hear the words “little girl” being tagged to the end of his question. “It seems I was raised by liars deemed terrorists by the U.S. government, and it’s possible Keira running a simple DNA test got her snatched from a tub full of blood. For some reason the Bassos, the Stones, and hell, maybe Santa Claus, are behind her kidnapping. And they want me in Rome. They think that you were feeding Keira information, and that you’ll be more ‘receptive’ to talking to me.”
Cross snorted. “Well, they definitely wanted us to meet, I’ll give you that, but I haven’t spoken to your sister since you were kids.”
My chest sank. More confusion. More wrong turns. “So, why am I here? How are you connected to this? Is it Dresden? You worked there, right? Please tell me Randolph Urban’s not behind this. Please tell me I’m not wrong about everything.” I thought of the hug he gave me in his office, that smell—warm, woodsy, and familiar. It was the first time I’d felt safe and cared for in a long time. I didn’t want that to be a lie. I didn’t want every fuzzy family memory I had to decay into cow manure.
“Before I answer, you need to realize how much danger you’re putting yourself in.” He eyed me pointedly. “People get killed in this line of work. Do you understand that?”
My fingers lightly brushed my bruised neck, the cut on my biceps pulsing. Obviously, I knew how lethal this was; that was why I was here. I wasn’t going to let my sister fill more hazmat jars of blood while I safely returned to Boston for the Homecoming dance.
“I understand.”
“Okay.” He nodded once. “I never spoke to your sister, though I was close friends with your parents, so I can see why people would think I was her source.”
“Who are these ‘people’? Who’s behind this?”
“I can’t say with certainty.” His tone was emotionless. “Your parents had a lot of enemies.”
“So you’re a spy?” I asked. “Because Luis claims my parents did so much covert work that a DNA test on them might blow up the planet.” I shook my head, all of it sounding ridiculous.
“Yes. Your parents and I handled a lot of jobs for Department D that could come back to hurt some very important people.”
“Wait, what? What’s Department D?” Pure shock filled my voice. These were answers, real answers.
“We weren’t the type of spies you’re picturing.” He turned to me, his voice even, like he was giving a well-paced lecture on contract negotiations. “We worked for an organization called Department D. Your parents ran it.”
They ran it? Wonderful. “Please tell me that’s a branch of the CIA, right?” I asked, doubtful hope in my words.
“No. It’s a private organization. Unaffiliated with any government entity.”
“What does that mean?”
Cross slid off his tweed blazer and folded it in his lap. There were sweat stains under his arms reaching half his torso. At least I wasn’t the only one so amped up I could use a sponge. My knee bopped anxiously, rocking the ancient pew.
“Department D does jobs that governments can’t do for themselves, jobs that would compromise a country’s public image. We’re masters of manipulating the masses…” There must have been such confusion on my face that he immediately took a breath and started over. “The organization excels at misleading the public and the media. We specialize in disinformation.”
My eyes scrunched. Disinformation? Is that even a word? My mind clicked to the photograph in Cortona—the assassination, the news coverage, my parents’ images being removed. “You mean the Aldo Moro thing? The dead prime minister? Did my parents kill him?’
His head jerked back. “No, of course not. How did you see the photo?”
“Salvatore Basso.”
Cross nodded thoughtfully, like he was absorbing a revelation that was still obscured to me. “Well, that confirms it.” He popped his lips. “Aldo Moro was our first op. We were hired to make sure the prime minister wasn’t found. We needed to buy the kidnappers time, so we planted false leads, misdirected the press, led the authorities down the wrong path…”
For some reason, hearing this aloud was like an ice pick splintering the last frozen remnants of what I thought was a happy childhood. My parents were criminals—conniving, calculating bad guys who helped political assassins. They didn’t stumble upon any crime scene. They made these enemies, and they probably killed Luis Basso’s uncle and set up Julian Stone. They did this. “So my parents weren’t witnesses? They were involved in the assassination from the beginning?” I could hear my voice shake—from anger or disappointment, I wasn’t sure.
“Yes.” He nodded.
“But, why? How did my parents get involved in this? I mean, a dead prime minister?” My mouth hung, stale incense coating my tongue.
“You have to realize, we had no involvement in the kidnapping plan whatsoever, and we never expected Moro to be killed. We were hired after the fact and thought he’d be returned alive…”
“Oh, that makes me feel so much better.” I pressed the bridge of my nose. It felt like I was one giant headache lately—eat, sleep, breath, Tylenol. “Well, Luis is holding a serious grudge against my parents—something about what they did to his uncle. He wants Keira dead. How do I know she’s not dead already? How do I know he’s not disinforming me now?”
Cross wiped a sheen of sweat from under his thick plastic glasses. “The Bassos were bonded to your parents for decades, and what happened to Salvatore’s brother, well, I’m not going to get into that. It was unfortunate, to say the least, and the Bassos probably would now sell themselves to the highest bidder if it meant getting back at your family. It’s why they would take part in this whole mess to begin with. But they’re not the ones pulling the strings. Neither am I. As for your sister, I know why they sent you to me. They want me to show you something, force my hand.” He looked me head on, the gaze of a man full of stories, each wrinkle revealing a piece of history like the lines read by a fortune teller. “I have a picture of your sister in captivity, a proof of life.”
I blinked, unsure of what I’d heard, like a parent who’s been told their missing child has returned yet is too fearful to believe it. A picture…of my sister…in captivity.
“Wait, you didn’t mention this until now!” I suddenly shouted, my voice reverberating off the marble surfaces.
He shot a warning glare, then reached into the breast pocket of his blazer and pulled out a slim black cell phone. He swiped at
the screen. “This was uploaded onto a website our organization uses to communicate. I still frequent it occasionally, but when the picture went live, everyone in the espionage community was talking.”
I grabbed the phone and stared at a black-and-white photograph of my sister’s body contorted in the back of a European car in what appeared to be the same alley in Rome where Aldo Moro was found. She was posed the exact way.
“Is she…” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.
“No,” he interjected quickly. “We’re fairly certain your sister’s alive. She was last seen in Venice after this photo was taken.”
“How do you know?” My grip on the phone tightened as I glared at my sister’s twisted body, her closed eyes. Her cheekbones were protruding a bit too sharply, and her chin was pointier. She’d lost weight. Her collarbone was exposed under a wrinkled white T-shirt, and her hair was longer. There were dark roots near her scalp, contrasting with her platinum blond ends. She must hate that.
“The photo was posted exactly fifty-five days after she went missing. That’s exactly how long Moro was held before his body turned up. Obviously, when I saw this, I feared the worst, but then she was spotted in Venice, at a flat used by our organization long ago.” His voice maintained his matter-of-fact demeanor that I was starting to hate.
“Did you talk to the cops? Did you go after her?” Accusations were thick in my voice.
“We don’t deal with the cops, but yes, we did go to the flat. By the time we arrived, your sister had been moved. I have no idea where she is now, but we’re working on it. This was about two weeks ago.”
“You knew where Keira was two weeks ago?” I breathed in a dumbfounded whisper. That was when I snapped out of my pseudo-coma. That was when the cops found the surveillance footage. Someone had given an anonymous tip. “Two weeks ago, someone called the Boston PD and informed them of a surveillance tape showing Keira with her attacker, Craig. It was what ultimately led me to a photo, which led me to Tuscany, which led me here.”
“They probably called in the tip. They’re dragging you into this to force a reaction from us.”
“From who? What are you talking about? Because if they want me, they can have me!”
“You don’t know these people.”
“Do you?” I yelped, my eyes flaring. “You already said you don’t know who’s behind it. Was that a lie? Is it the Stones?”
“Phillip Stone? Who told you about that?”
“Who do you think? Randolph Urban, you know, the guy I thought you and my parents worked for, has a granddaughter who lives in Rome. I met with Sophia, and she showed me some manual my father used to set up her ex-boyfriend, Julian Stone. She and her grandfather seem to think his father, Phillip Stone, might have a financial motive for snatching Keira.”
“How long have you been in contact with Randolph Urban?”
“My whole life! You know that,” I spat. “He’s paying for my trip.”
Cross tapped his finger on his lips, his eyes deep in thought. “Phillip Stone’s a bastard. Stay away from him, as a point of fact. But I doubt he’s behind this…” His voice trailed off, his gaze distant like he was solving calculus equations in his mind. Then he shrugged off the thought. “Be careful who you trust, Anastasia, who you talk to about this.”
“You mean, like you?”
He tsked in response. “The only reason I’m telling you any of this is because I want your sister found. As much as you do. You may not realize that, but I do.” He ripped his cell phone from my hand and tucked it back into his jacket pocket. “There are a lot of people who are trying to help you.”
“Where? Who?” I tossed my hands around the empty cathedral. “Because right now it seems to be me, you, and some kid from my high school.”
“There are agents from Department D who are still loyal to your parents. We’re trying to end this without dragging you further into it.” He slid his arms into his blazer, hiding his massive sweat stains. “Your parents wouldn’t want you following in their footsteps, you or your sister.”
“Are you seriously worried I’ll join the espionage team at my high school?” I snapped, shifting loudly in our pew. “Because I can assure you kidnapping prime ministers won’t be the ‘Future Goal’ listed in my yearbook.”
“I’m more concerned you won’t have any future goals. You’re currently following the steps of our first mission—Cortona, Rome, and I’m guessing, soon Venice. Your sister was posed like Aldo Moro. You must see the symbolism?”
“No, actually, I don’t. All I see is my sister’s blood filling our tub.” My knee bounced harder, the creaking boards of our pew echoing through the thousand-year-old space. “I spent months thinking she was dead. It practically sent me into a coma. I thought it was my fault. I left some guy in her room…” Just then, the face of a wannabe Kurt Cobain flashed behind my eyelids. He was the one I really wanted to find; he was the one who deserved to pay. “Do you know Craig? Twenty-something with a scar on his lip? Raspy voice? Tall with dirty blond hair. He took Keira.”
I pictured his head on a stick, his greasy hair dripping with blood. I used to be horrified by films set in medieval times where people would cheer for executions held in the town square. Now, I completely understood. I would stand in the front row to watch Craig the Psycho get the rack.
“We think it was Craig Bernard. I’ve never met him myself, but the description sounds right.”
Craig Bernard. My pulse spiked. He was a real person with a first and last name. “Where can I find him? Who does he work for?”
“Anyone. Everyone. He’s a hired gun. A cockroach. He probably lives in a gutter someplace.” He rose from his seat, checking his watch like he had somewhere to be. “His involvement is a dead lead. He has no loyalties.”
“You can’t go.” I shot up, grabbing his arm and wincing from the cut on my biceps.
“What happened there?” he asked, nodding to my two bloody Band-Aids.
“Luis Basso. Apparently, he’s capable of strangling me with one hand and stabbing me with the other. Marcus saved me.”
“It doesn’t look deep.”
“It’s not. I got lucky.”
Cross paused, thinking. “It’s gonna get a lot worse than that if you keep after this.”
“It’s already worse for Keira,” I pointed out. “Where’s the apartment in Venice? Where were they keeping her?”
“She’s not there. The flat’s empty.” He buttoned his jacket, stepping into the marble aisle.
“Please, you have to help me, help her! God knows what they’re doing to her. Luis said those men…” My voice cracked, unable to finish the thought.
He turned toward me, a sudden softness touching his face for the first time. “They haven’t harmed you yet, not really, but they easily could have.” He flicked a casual glance at my arm like it was a skinned knee. “I’m sure the same is true for your sister. Believe me, I want her found as quickly as possible. Meet me tomorrow at eight a.m. at Sant’Eustachio. There’s a café there; you’ll know it when you see it. I should have more information then.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He simply walked out, leaving me in the empty gilded cathedral with more questions than I had when I’d walked in. A few days ago I believed my parents were engineers, and a few months ago I believed my sister was happy, if not a little boy crazy. I was wrong. About them, about my own life. I felt like I was drowning in lies with no life raft in sight, instead only more weights pulling me down. What scared me most was that I knew, deep inside, that I hadn’t even gotten close to the bottom of this dark abyss. How far would I have to sink to find my sister?
I felt the funk circling overhead. The weight of our grave situations left a heaviness on my chest, the air constricting my lungs. Thankfully Marcus came to find me before my mind could darken further.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bits and pieces of the conversation trickled back like the details of a nightmare I was determined to recal
l—a look in Cross’s eye, a gesture he made. Everything had meaning.
My parents were spies, and not the good kind you root for in movies. They were the villains in a Bond flick.
I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees as I sat on the edge of my hotel room bed, the mattress plusher than anything I’d ever experienced. Marcus was seated in the crimson silk wingback chair across from me, hardly blinking as I relayed the story.
“So you’re meeting him again tomorrow?” Marcus confirmed.
I nodded.
“Do you have a copy of the photo? The one with your sister?” He was trying hard to politely refer to the photo without mentioning her body crammed into a hatchback trunk, but his omission didn’t help me forget. I was already suffering from chills that had nothing to do with the air conditioner.
“There was so much going on that I didn’t even think to get a copy,” I snapped, irritated with myself. “Charlotte’s looking for it now.”
I’d called her as soon as we left the church. A photograph existed of my sister in Italy after her supposed death. With that sort of evidence, somebody in some sort of official law enforcement capacity would have to listen to us, and if they didn’t, then I was pretty sure CNN would. Of course, Charlotte agreed to help only after screaming at me for meeting Allen Cross without her. Her flight to Rome didn’t leave until tomorrow, and I had a feeling it was going to be a long twenty-four hours for her.
It wasn’t feeling any shorter for me.
Marcus rose from his chair and dropped down beside me, the mattress slumping under his weight. My body rolled toward his, a fresh bandage covering the wound on my arm. I let myself lean in to him and slowly felt better, warmer.
“There’s something I haven’t told you.” His voice took on a cautious tone, and I squeezed my eyes. I didn’t want him to ruin this one peaceful moment. I wanted him to hug me and tell me everything would be all right. I wanted to forget what was going on outside of this hotel room and just feel him. But Marcus continued. “Remember how I said I delivered packages in London?”
Proof of Lies (Anastasia Phoenix) Page 19
