Blind Alley ed-5

by Iris Johansen

  “No force. Choice. She made the choice, Jane.”

  “Her birth and circumstances made the choice. What else did the scrolls say about her?”

  “That she was kind to her friends, ruthless to her enemies, and it wasn't wise to cross her.”

  “Who were her friends?”

  “The actors in the theater. She didn't trust anyone else.”

  “No family?”

  “No. She took a street boy into her home and was said to have been very kind to him.”

  “No mention of anyone else?”

  “Not as far as I remember. Most of Julius's scrolls concerned her beauty and sexual prowess, not her maternal attributes.”

  “Chauvinist pig.”

  He chuckled. “Me or Julius?”

  “Both of you.”

  “Chauvinist or not, he was ready to kill for her. In one scroll he was contemplating murdering his rival who was stealing her away from him.”

  “Who was it?”

  “He didn't name him. He referred to him as a young actor who had recently come to Herculaneum and taken the town by storm. Evidently he had also taken Cira by storm and it threw Julius into a rage.”

  “Did he kill him?”

  “I don't know.”

  “He's far more likely to have tried to kill Cira if he couldn't change her mind about leaving him.”

  “You think so? Interesting.”

  Not interesting. Horrible. And only a small example of the life Cira had lived.

  Trevor suddenly stopped. “Here's the passage Joe will take to get to the ledge overlooking the vomitorium.” He shone the light on the rocky wall to the left and she saw a shallow dark cavity close to the tunnel floor. “It's barely crawl space and he'll have to wriggle through the opening, but two yards into the passage he can stand and walk upright until he gets to the ledge.”

  “I would never have noticed it if you hadn't pointed it out.”

  “And neither will Aldo.” He started down the tunnel again. “There are too many offshoot branches in this tunnel for him to notice a small hole in the wall. He's going to have a plethora of choices.”

  “Aren't we close to the vomitorium yet?”

  “Yes, a few minutes' walk from here.”

  “Then let's hurry. I want out of here.”

  It seemed longer than the few minutes Trevor had stipulated when he stepped aside and shone his flashlight into the blackness ahead. “Here we are. Not exactly the most elegant example of Cira's time. Though those six marble bases that are scattered around the area probably held statues of gods and goddesses and maybe the current emperor on the throne.”

  But the bases were now jagged, broken remnants that guarded the darkness of the three tunnels leading off the vomitorium like sentinels with bared teeth. There were three photography can lights and a battery generator next to the bases but she paid no attention to them. She took a step forward, her gaze on the center of the room. A long red velvet cloth lay on the rocky ground.

  “What's that?”

  “Part of my prep work. I wanted to make sure Aldo knew he'd reached pay dirt.”

  “I'd think that the lights would tip him off.”

  “Okay, it's a little dramatic touch. So I'm a ham.”

  The velvet looked like a splotch of blood in the oozing darkness and she couldn't take her gaze off it. “That's where you're going to put the coffin?”

  “Eventually. But we want Aldo to know what's coming. We can lead him so far and then we turn him loose to search for himself. After he spots this place, he'll start setting up his plans.” He pointed to the walls. “I've already placed the torches.” He indicated a wall to the left facing the vomitorium. “Do you see that small opening in the face of the rock about thirty feet up? That opens to the passage I showed you. Joe will be lying on his ledge and able to point his rifle directly down into this area. And, as a matter of fact, the video camera I mentioned is filming us right now.” He pointed to a large flat rock close to the ground. “I'll be right there and able to roll that rock aside to get out and help you if something goes wrong.”

  Her gaze shifted to the right. “Two tunnels lead off this area?”

  “Three including the one you'll be using.”

  “And Aldo will be in one of them?” She couldn't seem to tear her gaze from the yawning darkness. She could imagine him there now, watching them. “Isn't there any way we could go after him and try to hunt him down once we're sure he's there? You said he won't be familiar with these tunnels.”

  “Joe and I talked about the possibility.” He shook his head. “It could be a nightmare to try to track someone. These tunnels are like a maze and there are at least two exits besides the one at Via Spagnola. He could stumble on one of them and then we'd lose him.” He paused. “But if you're having second thoughts about drawing him into the open, tell me. It's your choice, Jane.”

  “I was only asking. I'm not having second thoughts.”

  His lips twisted. “I believe I was hoping you were.”

  “How strange.” She took another step toward the velvet cloth. “It looks . . .”

  Blood. Pain. Aldo standing looking down at the velvet in triumph.

  Imagination.

  Crush the fear. She swallowed. “It looks very theatrical.” She turned away and started back toward the tunnel. “I'm sure Cira would have approved.”

  “Only if it was a comedy. Tragedy wasn't her forte.”

  “Not mine either.”

  His hand was on her elbow, supporting, comforting. “And I intend to keep it that way. Let's get out of here.”

  I'll go ahead.” Trevor climbed the ladder and opened the trapdoor to the kitchen. “If Quinn is awake and stirring, then I'll be the one to face his wrath first.” He glanced around the room, and whispered, “All clear.”

  She hadn't realized how relieved she'd be to know she wouldn't have to confront Joe and Eve. She was shaken enough without having to deal with any other emotion.

  “Get to bed,” Trevor said as he pulled her up into the kitchen and shut the trapdoor. “Tomorrow's a big day.”

  “For Eve,” Jane said. “Not me. As far as the media is concerned, I'm only here because I'm Eve's kid and she wanted to expose me to European culture.”

  “But since she's not too accessible, they may try to get at her through you. And anyone who read the Archaeology Journal article might see the resemblance with the statue.”

  “It was too blurred. Sam did a good job.”

  He stiffened. “Sam? You're on first-name terms?”

  “He's that kind of man. And we hit it off.”

  “I'm sure you did. I'd bet you had him wound around your finger before you'd been in his office fifteen minutes.”

  She frowned. “It wasn't like that.”

  “Really? What was it like?”

  “I told you how difficult it—” She broke off. “I don't have to make explanations. What's wrong with you?”

  “Not a damn thing. I was just wondering what you did to get—” He stopped and turned away. “You're right, I'm out of line. Sorry.”

  “Apology not accepted. If you mean what I think you mean.”

  “It was a mistake, okay?”

  “No, it's not okay. Are you some kind of sex maniac? First, that stupidity about Cira and now this. I don't sleep with people to get my way. I have a mind and I use it.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  Anger was searing through her. “It's no wonder you have those disgusting dreams about Cira. You believe all women are prostitutes.” A sudden thought occurred to her. “It's my face. Because I look like her, you think I'd behave the same way.”

  “I know you wouldn't.”

  “No? In some part of that pea-sized, chauvinistic brain the thought must have been there or you wouldn't have acted like such an asshole.”

  “I don't think you're like Cira.”

  “No, I'm not. But I'd be proud to have her strength and her determination, and I resent you intimatin
g that she was less than she was.”

  “May I point out I've never admitted comparing the two of you? You're the one who's so sure that I—”

  She turned to leave the room.

  “No.” His hand was on her shoulder, spinning her around. “Don't turn your back on me. I've stood here and listened to you condemning me for a sex crazy son of a bitch, but I won't let you run away until I have my say.”

  “Let me go.”

  “When I've finished.” His eyes were glittering in his taut face. “First, you may be right. I've lived with the image of Cira for so long that I could be unconsciously comparing you. Not consciously. I realize the differences. One of which sticks in my throat and nearly chokes me every time I look at you. Second, just because I've got my share of healthy lust doesn't mean I think less of her . . . or you. I told you that I thought she was bigger than life. Sex is part of the package, but only a part. Third, if you were older and had a little more experience I wouldn't have to tell you all this. I could show you.”

  She stared up at him, anger ebbing away, replaced by that odd breathlessness she'd experienced once before.

  “Don't look at me like that,” he said thickly. His hand left her shoulder and moved up to cup her cheek. “God, you're beautiful. You have so many expressions. . . .”

  Her skin was tingling beneath his touch yet she couldn't seem to move away. “Everyone has expressions.”

  “Not like you. You light up, you cloud, you sparkle. . . . I could watch you for the next millennium and not get tired of—” He drew a deep breath and his hand slowly dropped away from her. “Go to bed. I'm not behaving well and it could get worse.”

  She didn't move.

  “Go to bed.”

  She took a step closer and tentatively touched his chest.

  “Oh, shit.” He closed his eyes. “Now you've done it.”

  His heart was beating so hard beneath her palm. . . .

  His eyes opened and he stared down at her. “No.”

  “Why not?” She took another step. “I think I want—”

  “I know you do.” He drew a deep shaky breath and took a step back. “And it's killing me.” He turned and headed for the door. “Sex maniacs are like that.”

  She barely remembered calling him that. “Where are you going?”

  “To get some air. I need it.”

  “You're running away from me.”

  “You're damn right.”

  “Why?”

  He stopped at the door to look back at her. “Because I don't screw schoolgirls, Jane.”

  She could feel the heat flush her cheeks. “I didn't say I wanted to screw you. And that's not a very pleasant way of—”

  “I didn't want to make it pretty. I'm trying to discourage you.”

  “You act as if I attacked you. I only touched you.”

  “That was enough. When it's you.”

  She lifted her chin. “Why? After all, I'm only a schoolgirl. Not important enough to be of any account.”

  “No more than the black plague was during the Dark Ages.”

  “Now you're comparing me to a plague?”

  “Only the devastation factor.” He studied her expression. “Have I hurt you? Christ, I keep forgetting you're more fragile than you pretend.”

  “You couldn't hurt me.” She stared at him defiantly. “I wouldn't let you. Even though you tried your best. Let's see, you called me a plague, a schoolgirl, Cira.”

  “I did hurt you.” He didn't speak for a moment and when he did the harshness was gone from his voice. “Look, I never want to hurt you. I want to be your friend.” He shook his head. “No, that's not true. We may be friends someday but there's too much in the way right now.”

  “I can't imagine being friends with you.”

  “Ditto. That's the problem. Oh, what the hell. I'm just digging myself deeper.” He slammed the door behind him as he left the house.

  “I never want to hurt you.”

  But he had hurt her. She felt rejected and uncertain and lonely. She had acted instinctively, compulsively, and he'd refused her.

  It was only her pride, she told herself. She was far from ignorant, but she didn't know anything about sex on a personal level. He obviously wanted to have nothing to do with a novice.

  Well, she wasn't to blame. He was attractive and she'd responded to him. And it wasn't as if she'd been alone in that attraction. He'd touched her and made her feel—

  And then the bastard had treated her as if she were a teenage Lolita.

  Screw him.

  She turned on her heel and went down the hall to her bedroom. Wash up and go to sleep and forget about Trevor. Look upon tonight as a learning experience. Didn't most teenage girls have a fixation on older men at one time or another?

  She wasn't most girls. She didn't feel any younger than Trevor and he hadn't been fair. She had a right to make a choice, not be sent away with a pat on the head. It wasn't as if she didn't have friends her own age who already had sexual experience. One of her classmates had even gotten married last quarter and was going to have a baby in August.

  And the only reason she didn't have experience was that she hadn't been tempted. The boys at school were . . . boys. She'd felt like their older sister. She had more in common with Joe and the guys at the precinct than she had with her peers.

  But not with Mark Trevor. She had nothing in common with Trevor and there was no reason she should feel this closeness to him.

  She opened the bedroom door and started to get undressed as quietly as possible. Her face and hands were smudged from the tunnel but she wasn't about to go down to the bathroom to clean up. She'd been lucky Eve and Joe had slept through their excursion in the tunnels and wasn't going to risk waking them. She'd get up early and shower before they got out of bed.

  She moved over to the window to look out at the winding street. Was Aldo standing somewhere in the shadow of one of those shops? Down in the theater tunnel she'd been overwhelmed by death but not the death that Aldo represented. Trevor had made her see that ancient Herculaneum far too clearly. Young suntanned athletes, languid women on litters, actors rehearsing their lines. All cut off in the prime of their lives. She'd been deluged, chilled, and crushed by the realization of the scope of those deaths.

  Yet she'd never felt more alive than that moment when Trevor had touched her cheek. Perhaps that was why she'd been so affected and caught off-balance.

  But now she was back to the real world.

  Aldo's world.

  It was truly like a funeral procession, Aldo thought. The metal coffin was being carried by four of Sontag's students and the mourners were Joe Quinn, Eve Duncan, and the reporters and soldiers following the procession.

  The coffin.

  He stared with feverish intensity at the box that contained Cira's remains. He'd seen specially constructed coffins like that as a boy when he'd played around his father's archaeology sites. Sontag had obviously done everything possible to preserve that skeleton from disintegration.

  It would do him no good. He would smash those bones, grind them to dust. He would defile and—

  Jane MacGuire and Mark Trevor had come around the corner, trailing behind the crowd around the coffin. She looked pale and composed beneath the dim electric lights illuminating the sepulchral darkness. Her gaze was fixed straight ahead, not on the coffin. What are you feeling? Anticipation? Triumph? Or is it too painful, bitch? You don't know pain yet.

  Do you feel me looking at you? Does it frighten you? But then you like to have men stare at you, don't you? Trevor is watching you now, devouring you with his eyes. How long did it take you to lure him into your bed, whore?

  He could feel the fury explode inside him. It shouldn't have happened. Trevor had no business coming between them. It should have been him. It would be him. Before he took her face, he'd take her body. He'd spend himself, cleanse away the evil that was Cira.

  But it might not be enough. What if he had only a few moments to enjoy that final vi
ctory? He needed more. He needed contact again, her voice, her words.

  The procession had passed out of sight down the tunnel and he had to catch up before he lost them. He moved quickly down the robbers' tunnel that ran parallel with the theater tunnel. He wasn't really worried. He'd be able to follow them. He knew these tunnels well and the darkness was his friend. The blood was singing through his veins with a rhythmic refrain that repeated over and over.

  It was his time.

  SEVENTEEN

  You went to pretty elaborate lengths to make this look authentic,” Eve murmured to Trevor as she watched the students carefully placing the coffin on the table in the large, high-ceilinged library. “It wasn't easy for them to get that coffin up that ladder.”

  “Not as hard as it would have been if Sontag hadn't made sure that the opening would accommodate large art items.”

  “As far as I can see, you only did one thing wrong,” Eve said. “If those tunnels underneath this villa location are supposed to be such a big secret, won't those students talk?”

  “Not if they want to keep their internship with Sontag. He'll give them their walking papers if they exchange even a passing remark with anyone. I told you he wasn't a very nice guy. But in this case, it serves us well.” He turned to Jane. “It's starting. Last chance to back out.”

  “Don't be ridiculous.” She moistened her lips. Why couldn't she take her gaze from that coffin? It was a fake, a con. There was no reason to be disturbed. “What's in the coffin?”

  “A skeleton.”

  Her gaze flew to his face. “You're joking.”

  He shook his head. “I don't know how close we're going to be observed by Aldo and I didn't want to take any chances.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “I visited a small museum outside Naples and borrowed it from them. It took some pretty fast talking and I made a hell of a lot of promises in Eve's name to get it.” He turned to Eve. “The woman's skeleton was one of the bodies found in the marina.”

  “You want me to do an actual reconstruction?”

  He nodded. “Everything should give the appearance of being absolutely authentic. You told me once that you had to be careful not to see any photographs because you were afraid your hands and mind would betray you. This time I want that to happen. Think Cira. Or Jane. I've set up a pedestal and bought supplies for you. How about it?”