Never Coming Home

by Evonne Wareham

She hugged her knees. You and me both. Two peas in a bloody pod. And now he was Devlin, and she was pretty sure that she was in love with him. But could he learn about love? Would he even want to?

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ She raised her head. A breeze was blowing up. She slid off the rock and held out her hand. ‘Thank you for telling me.’ She looked up into his face. ‘I will respect your confidence.’ It was formal, but it seemed the right thing to do.

  The ghost of a smile dispelled his worried look. ‘I know you will.’ He put a finger under her chin, to tilt her face further up. ‘Don’t worry, Kaz. It was a long time ago. It doesn’t hurt.’

  She nodded and took his arm, a coat of anguish lying over her heart. Hurt, and he doesn’t even know it.

  Devlin watched Kaz across the tiny dinner table, tucked into a corner of the bistro. It was a popular place, pleasantly full and humming with conversation and the scent of good food. She was wearing a deep purple dress, with shiny narrow straps, and a bizarre-looking necklace, which might have been lifted from the neck of a tribal statue. A purple stone winked like an eye when she moved. She was feeding him frites, dipped in garlic mayonnaise, from a bowl in front of her.

  You would kill for this woman. He clenched his fingers on the stem of his wine glass. He assessed her carefully, checking. She’d been very quiet on the way down from the château, but she looked fine now. He didn’t want her thinking that there had been anything wrong with his childhood. It wasn’t anything special, the mix of tedium and powerlessness that you had to endure, until you got old enough to do something about it. His training for the job, now that had been pretty brutal – weaponry, tactics, combat, languages, so that you could disappear, wherever you were. He’d valued that. Even now, he still did it. He’d picked up Bobby’s speech patterns – a spasm across his chest when he remembered Bobby – and now, being around Kaz was bringing up the English in his speech, he was sure of it.

  Satisfied that she wasn’t brooding about his non-existent unhappy childhood, he relaxed into his surroundings, listening to the snatches of conversation around them. Someone had a new baby; someone else was leaving for Paris on business in the morning and was hoping to get lucky tonight. The couple in the corner were arguing amicably over the colour to paint the bathroom. It was ordinary, normal family stuff. He didn’t have a clue about any of it. The char-grilled lamb cutlets on his plate; now that was a completely different matter. He stopped analysing and started to eat.

  The quiet dinner in the bistro developed into a party, once word got around that Mademoiselle Katarina had returned. Curious villagers thronged in, swelling Jean’s coffers as another bottle circulated. Kaz was breathless and a trifle tipsy when they finally made it upstairs. The clock on the town hall was chiming twelve. She collapsed backwards onto the covers.

  ‘The witching hour.’ For some reason that seemed to be very funny.

  Devlin was switching on table lamps and drawing blinds. Soft pools of gold lit up the sheen of antique furniture, and traced designs in shadow over the faded, time-washed rugs that covered the floor. Kaz stretched, and felt warmth floating over her skin.

  Devlin sat beside her on the bed, looking down at her. She couldn’t focus on his face properly.

  ‘You’re sober,’ she accused. She’d seen that the bottle of excellent local wine, bottles, she corrected herself, had passed by him more often than they’d stopped. ‘I’m not,’ she confided happily.

  Devlin was smiling in a very promising way. Kaz wriggled closer.

  ‘I can see that.’ The amusement in his voice sparked her indignation. She started to wriggle away again, but he caught her, rolling her on the bed and trapping her, slightly awkwardly, between both arms.

  ‘Look. No hands,’ she giggled.

  ‘I have a hand.’ He proved it by planting it on her waist, to hold her in place. ‘And I have this.’ His mouth slid over hers and her brain did a long slow glide that had nothing to do with any wine. ‘You taste of blackberries and plums.’

  He’d finished with her mouth and was nibbling his way along her jaw. ‘And you smell of vanilla and fresh green grass.’ He was nuzzling the pulse point behind her ear now, making her heart jump.

  She lost the thread for a moment as his mouth travelled down the length of her throat.

  ‘Shower gel,’ she gasped, as his mouth hit the slope of her breast and began to move down. ‘I … I suppose you don’t need to know that.’

  ‘No.’ He’d found something impossibly delicious to do with his tongue, that involved licking her skin and then blowing gently on it.

  ‘You have a fabulous mouth.’ Kaz writhed as he found a sensitive spot. ‘Don’t stop.’

  ‘No intention. No intention at all.’

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The sun was already heating the air over the police station to shimmering point.

  The Inspector paused on his way in, to survey his domain. Clean windows and paintwork, no litter, the public notices up-to-date and straight in the glass cabinet. Exactly as he liked to see it. A swell of proprietary pride puffed his chest. He acknowledged it, grinning. And why not? A mild obsessive-compulsive with a liking for order. So?

  He fumbled the pristine white handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead. The temperature was already in the high twenties, at this hour of the morning. What it would be like later in the day, down in the centre of Florence …

  He folded and replaced the handkerchief and strode up the steps, pausing in the doorway, with a frown. Early as he was, someone else had been earlier. There was a man loitering in the vestibule, clutching a large briefcase.

  The forensic scientist who had been working on the DNA in that distressing case of the British child – Signora Elmore’s daughter.

  His presence here –

  The Inspector stepped forward, with a quick glance at the officer at the desk. He was engrossed in completing a pile of forms.

  The forensic scientist’s face lightened when he saw him. Some of the tension lifted from the thin shoulders.

  ‘Inspector? I …’ His voice tailed off and he shuffled his feet.

  The Inspector crossed the hall to him. ‘You have something? Something new,’ he said softly.

  A nod.

  ‘Come to my office.’

  Once behind a firmly closed door, the technician recovered some of his composure. He delved into the briefcase that he’d been clutching against a slightly concave chest and held up a folder.

  ‘The full results of the tests.’ Clearly he wasn’t going to say any more.

  The Inspector smothered a sigh, took the folder and sat behind his desk, gesturing the young man to a seat. ‘I’m not going to like this, am I?’

  The scientist’s eyes widened. ‘Inspector?’

  ‘Never mind.’ The Inspector opened the folder and looked at the neatly tabulated results and lines of formulae. There were graphs, too. The crucial conclusion was, of course, right at the bottom of the page. The Inspector forgot himself so far as to swear. ‘You’re sure of this?’

  ‘Certain.’ The young man nodded. ‘It changes things, doesn’t it?’ There was an air of suppressed excitement about him, now that he’d delivered his burden.

  The Inspector nodded curtly, already reaching for the phone. ‘We need to speak to Signora Elmore, as a matter of urgency.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Kaz watched the early morning ferries criss-crossing the lake, shielding her eyes as the sun hit the water. She looked up as Devlin dropped a handful of paper onto the table and his body into the chair beside her. Her mouth had gone a little dry. She couldn’t help it. The way he moved got to her, every time.

  ‘Properties that have changed hands, lakeside, in the last two years, which should more than cover the time that Oliver would have been h
ouse-hunting.’ He was examining the papers. ‘Not so many, when you add up all the requirements.’

  ‘Big, secluded, accommodation capable of being converted into a studio and a place to store several million pounds’ worth of art in progress,’ Kaz recited the list.

  ‘You’re sure about it not being a rental?’

  ‘Oliver likes to own things.’ Where had that knowledge come from? A new clarity when it came to her father?

  ‘There’s really only one.’ Devlin pushed over the paper. ‘Special feature – temperature-controlled wine cellar, which might be modified to store paintings?’

  ‘Sounds exactly what we’re looking for.’

  ‘It’s the other side of the lake, at Bardolino.’

  Kaz’s heart was beating faster than it should. ‘Shall we go and look?’

  They took the ferry. The boat puttered gently from pier to pier, letting off passengers and taking them on. Mostly holidaymakers and tourists, a few locals with business in another part of the lake and time to spare.

  Devlin offered her a pair of field glasses as they neared Bardolino. She’d stopped wondering where he got these things. If she’d wanted an elephant or a balloon ride or a toffee apple no doubt he’d have conjured it up. A package had been waiting for them at their hotel last night. Hand-delivered. Kaz didn’t ask what else it had contained. She had a pretty good idea. The thought of Devlin with a lethal weapon didn’t bother her. She put the glasses to her eyes and focused where he pointed. Her breath came out in a startled hiss. ‘That’s it.’

  She handed Devlin the glasses, waited while he raised them.

  ‘It might be a carbon copy of the château. The size, the tower, the outbuildings.’

  ‘Did you see the skylights in the roof?’

  Devlin let the glasses drop. ‘Oliver’s studio.’

  They were back at the hotel, waiting for the hire car.

  ‘We don’t have to go there ourselves. I can send someone.’ Devlin was pacing the room, which was enough to get Kaz’s attention. Devlin didn’t often pace. ‘Let me send someone. To reconnoitre.’

  ‘We may as well do it ourselves; if we have the wrong place we apologise and leave. If not …’ She savaged the inside of her lip. Her heart was drumming uncomfortably in her chest, but she had to do this.

  Then she could love Oliver and hate him and walk away from him.

  She crossed over to stand in front of Devlin. ‘No one is forcing me to do this. He’s my father.’

  ‘He’s dangerous.’

  That’s what I thought about you when I first saw you. That, and hot sex on legs. Still do.

  She saw the bafflement in Devlin eyes when she smiled. No, I’m not going to explain.

  ‘Oliver hires people to be dangerous on his behalf.’ She edged her mind around the fights and the tantrums that were dim memories from her childhood. ‘He’s 66 years old.’

  ‘That’s not old.’

  Their eyes locked. She kept hers on Devlin’s face. Saw the precise second that he gave in … and loved him for it.

  Hey – wait one damn minute here.

  Can’t now. No time.

  ‘What?’ He was staring at her.

  ‘Nothing.’ She tried to sound calm. It must have worked, because he stopped glaring at her. Now she wanted to reassure him. ‘I go to the house. I call my father every foul name I can think of. I walk out. Nothing simpler.’

  ‘Yeah? And what’s he doing all this time?’ Devlin demanded, frustration clearly spiking.

  ‘Sitting in a chair with his mouth open, wondering where I learned words like that?’ She had to be flippant; she was too close to the edge. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands. Her heart was trying to climb into her throat.

  Forget Devlin, focus on Oliver.

  She’d tried to imagine the scene when she confronted her father, but she hadn’t been able to do it. She wanted grief, she wanted guilt. ‘He won’t hurt me.’ She had to hang on to that.

  ‘Nothing I can do is gonna talk you out of it, short of knocking you out and tying you up,’ Devlin was grumbling for form’s sake. She knew there was concern under the growl. It warmed and hurt, in about equal measure.

  She laid her hand on his arm. ‘I will be all right.’

  She could see he wasn’t convinced, but he knew when to stop wasting breath. She watched as he stalked over to the dressing table to pick up her phone and punch buttons. He held it out to her. ‘I’m coming with you. I’ll stay outside,’ he forestalled her protest. ‘You leave this switched on. You need me, if anything seems off, in any way, you hit three on the speed dial.’

  She managed a crooked smile. ‘And you come running to the rescue?’

  ‘You’d better believe it.’ He hauled her into his arms for a short, hard kiss. She could almost taste his frustration. ‘Let’s get this over.’

  She had expected heavy-duty gates, but these were for ornament rather than security. They swung open under Devlin’s hand. He slid the thin probe he’d intended for the padlock back into his pocket and waved Kaz through.

  ‘Well, at least that takes care of explaining to strangers how we came to break into their house.’ Devlin slid back into the car and peered through the windscreen. ‘This way for Bluebeard’s Castle.’

  The car crunched along a narrow drive, edged with bushes and shrubs. Kaz tried not to be diverted by the sights on either side. She’d remembered a write-up of the villa in The Garden magazine. It had belonged to an English plantsman before the First World War. ‘Which will give me a reason for being here, if they do turn out to be strangers.’ Devlin only grunted in response, but she felt some of the tension leach out of him. ‘Do you have a gun?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Kaz cast a sideways look at him. ‘Don’t shoot the first thing that comes running out. It might be me.’

  The car crawled forward.

  ‘Stop!’

  Alarmed, Kaz trod on the brake. Devlin winced as the car jerked.

  ‘Did you see something?’ She was craning to look round.

  ‘No. This is where I get out.’ He gestured ahead. The foliage cover was thinning in front of them. ‘Better if you go on alone.’

  He took a quick, professional look round. Checking for cameras in the shrubbery? ‘Leave the car somewhere conspicuous up front and don’t take the keys.’ He pulled her close. The kiss this time was long and deep. When he let go, she tried to control the trembling.

  ‘We can still turn round and go back.’ He gestured to the passing place alongside. When she shook her head he cursed softly. ‘Go on then.’ He had the car door open and his feet on the ground. ‘Go. Do what you have to do. And if you need me, use the phone.’

  He’d faded into the bushes before she had the car moving again.

  The drive ended in a wide sweep of dusty, compacted ground. Kaz turned the car to face back the way she had come, before getting out.

  The house was big and imposing, approached by a terrace with two sets of steps, flanked by statues. Sea gods and monsters, as far as she could tell. There was a jumble of outbuildings, garages and what looked like a dovecote. And behind that the tower they’d seen from the lake. A plantation of citrus and olive trees stretched away to the side of the house.

  Kaz reached for the car keys then, remembering, left them where they were. She got out slowly and leaned against the car. She’d come to the right place. A woman had come out onto the terrace, with a watering can in her hand. Kaz walked forward.

  ‘Hello, Valentina. Is my father around?’

  Chapter Fifty

  Devlin had found a vantage point, just on the edge of the foliage cover. It would have relieved his nerves to stay with Kaz and wait in the car for her. But if her father was holed up here, Kaz arriving alone was one thing, arriving with
him in the passenger seat was something else entirely.

  This was hardly a covert op, but old habits were harder to kill than rats.

  ‘Good girl,’ he approved softly as Kaz turned the car. She was getting out. Leaning against the car. The slim woman in black, who had just come out of the house, put down her watering can and was descending the steps. Devlin watched her hesitate, then reach out to embrace Kaz and lead her inside.

  Valentina? Oliver’s latest mistress and mother of Kaz’s half-sister? Who else could it be?

  Showtime.

  Kaz fought to keep her mind on her surroundings, not on her pounding heart. The proportions and construction materials of the villa were beautiful. She saw glimpses of mellow stone and marble, with pale wood and gilding. The understated furnishings, in soft shades of ivory and sand, let the paintings and sculptures sing.

  Kaz caught her breath, swallowing a sudden rush of tears, as they passed a portrait of her mother, holding a mirror. She concentrated instead on the woman ahead of her. Her mother’s replacement.

  Even as the thought came, Kaz dismissed it. Valentina hadn’t arrived on the scene until long after Suzanne had packed her bags. Kaz studied the young woman who was walking slightly ahead of her. They were almost the same age. It was Valentina’s taste that had arranged these rooms and hung these pictures. She’d made a home for Oliver and her small daughter. The scatter of toys under tables and a familiar children’s book, abandoned face down on a chair, brought a lump to Kaz’s throat. She focused again on Valentina.

  The woman didn’t look well. The chic linen top and narrow-legged jeans hung on her, as if she had lost weight, and her movements were jerky and nervous. Kaz remembered meeting a blooming young girl, shy but exultant at her conquest of a great man. They’d dined at The Ivy and Oliver had scarcely been able to keep his eyes, or his hands, off her.

  Was living with Oliver taking its toll?

  They’d reached a small drawing room, giving onto a second terrace which overlooked the lake.