‘Of course not. I…’
This time, Hayley let the sentence trail off because she had no idea of what she wanted to say next. Instead of talking, she led the way back upstairs to the bedroom that Ethan had shown her to so recently.
At the door, she turned towards him. This time his hand was on the doorknob. There was no doubt he planned on entering too. Hayley felt a little frisson at the realisation.
‘Why are we doing this?’ she asked.
‘Because you asked me a question.’ He held the door open for her and she walked in.
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘I have to be sure who’s going to be hearing the answer,’ Ethan explained.
Hayley scratched her head, trying to work that out as Ethan followed her into the room.
‘That’s one of my bathrobes?’ he asked, waving his finger up and down in her direction.
Hayley nodded. ‘It was on the bed. I thought that meant for me to —’
‘It was.’
‘I can’t work out what you mean.’
‘You talk too much.’
‘Everyone says that,’ Hayley admitted, feeling a little nervous. ‘I think it’s because I —’
‘Take it off.’
‘What?’
Ethan sighed, pushing his hands into his pockets. ‘In particular, you ask too many questions.’
‘Well, that’s because you ask me to do the strangest —’
‘I’m not asking. I’m telling you. If you want to talk to me about Katy, you have to take the bathrobe off.’
Hayley thought quickly. Beneath the robe, she was clad in a pink and orange striped bra and a pair of pink knickers with an orange frill around the outside. Those were what she had put on this morning…
This morning.
Hayley froze. That bra and those knickers were what she had been wearing until her shower, a short while ago. She had been getting into bed when the alarm sounded. It was the knickers only.
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Ethan. ‘You’ll only talk to me if I’m nude?’ she said. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. What possible reason —’
‘You’re curious about Katy,’ Ethan reminded her.
He perched on the end of the bed and crossed his arms too, mirroring her. She nodded at him.
‘Well, I’m not going to tell you anything unless I’m certain you’re not bugged.’
Hayley shook her head. ‘Bugged? Of course I’m not bugged. Why would I be —?’
‘You’re here because Alvaro Tomasi sent you.’
‘Alvaro Tomasi shot me!’
‘Alvaro Tomasi missed.’ Ethan spoke slowly. ‘I could be suspicious about that too, you know. After all, the information I have is that Tomasi — all the Tomasis — are very good shots.’
‘It doesn’t feel like he missed me,’ Hayley said, rubbing her arm. ‘Anyway, why would he do that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe so I would trust you and let you into my house and once inside, you could ask me all these questions!’
Hayley thought about that for a long moment. No one had ever judged her badly for being so inquisitive about people before. She had always attributed her interest in people to the fact that she cared about them. Because she did care about people.
But maybe Ethan was right. Maybe she did ask too many questions.
Then she turned and fought with the bathrobe’s tie for a moment. She had knotted it in a hurry as she ran, and knotted it, it now seemed, rather too well.
‘You sure you can’t just feel me through the robe?’ she asked, looking over her shoulder.
It was a thick and fluffy robe and as Hayley spoke the expression in his eyes suggested he’d like, very much, to touch it. He leaned forward towards her and uncrossed his legs. Hayley closed her eyes and for one brief moment imagined him standing and stepping towards her, lowering his head towards hers as his hands explored her body through the thickness of the robe, as his fingers joined hers in trying to untie it.
When she opened them, Ethan was still sitting on the bed, watching her. Hayley made one last go at loosening the knot. The cotton now felt coarse beneath her fingertips but finally the knot gave and the two ends came loose. She shrugged her shoulders to shake the bathrobe free and used her hands to cover her breasts as it slithered down her back towards the floor.
As she watched him, his eyes darkened.
Hayley moved her arms slightly so he could see her chest was free of wires.
‘You will tell me now?’ she asked. ‘I have no link to Tomasi, I promise you.’
Ethan coughed. ‘Something tells me I would answer any question you might care to ask while you’re standing, looking like that,’ he said.
She raised an eyebrow questioningly. ‘I have no idea what you mean.’
‘Yes you do. Every beautiful woman recognises a compliment.’
She stepped a little closer, her head leaning to one side. Beautiful? Was he playing games with her? Hayley wasn’t beautiful and knew it. His first wife, Erica — the woman whose photo she had seen — had been beautiful, with long, wavy near-black hair and lips with the juicy colour of bitten cherries. But she knew better than to argue with him about it. If he wanted to pretend for a while that she was beautiful, no harm would come from it.
‘Is Katy safe?’ Hayley asked.
She was surprised by how much she cared to hear the answer. Something in the sad story of this man living out here in a country that was not his own, trying to keep his young daughter safe from the people who had killed her mother, was almost unbearably touching. Without even meeting Katy, she had developed a real interest in the little girl’s wellbeing.
Ethan nodded. Then he closed his eyes.
‘You can do up your robe again now,’ he said. ‘In fact, it might be a good idea if you do.’
Suddenly embarrassed, Hayley wrapped the robe around her and reached for the two ends of the waist tie. This time, she did it up far more loosely.
‘You can look again now,’ she said, sitting beside him on the bed.
‘Katy’s safely at school,’ Ethan told her.
‘At school? But it’s the middle of the night.’
‘Boarding school.’
‘Yes. I should have… She left this evening?’ Hayley asked. ‘Where is it? It must be fairly close by.’
She paused, suddenly aware that she was doing it again. Asking too many questions. She had to admit to herself that Ethan’s suspicions weren’t entirely groundless.
‘I haven’t been completely honest with you about that,’ Ethan said now.
‘Katy wasn’t at dinner,’ Hayley remembered. ‘She hasn’t been here at all, has she?’
‘Not today, no.’
‘So where is she? Why did you —’
Ethan raised a hand. ‘Where she is, is safe,’ he said. ‘It’s a location I am not divulging to anyone.’
‘Not even someone wearing a completely unwired bathrobe?’
‘It wouldn’t make any difference for you to know,’ Ethan said, simply. ‘Katy is virtually my whole family, you know. I have a sister but we aren’t close. And Katy is…’
‘I do understand,’ Hayley felt even more touched. Her own family was very small and, with her father’s illness, threatened to shrink further still. She understood what it was to have all your love poured into one person and how at once fragile and vital this could make that one person seem.
‘I’m not going to tell anyone what you’ve told me, I promise. I came to you tonight because I was worried about her. I was worried about you. My father brought me up on his own. When I hear you talk about her, it’s the first time I really appreciate why my father was always so good to me. How he must have felt. Maybe that’s why I find myself caring so much that she is safe.’
‘I can understand that you care. I can even understand why you care.’
‘You do?’ asked Hayley, who had been wondering about this herself. ‘I don�
��t even know Katy. But I…’
‘Feelings aren’t always rational,’ Ethan explained. ‘You had no idea what Tomasi really wanted to know, but all the same, you must feel slightly responsible for coming here under false pretences. And I feel slightly responsible for you being shot, because it happened on my property.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Hayley said.
She leaned back on her elbows and looked at him from the side. He looked quite different from this perspective. His jaw was very square and his forehead and his shoulders very wide but there was a set about his arms and his strong hands that was almost gentle.
‘It’s not like a man to be so perceptive.’
He grinned suddenly. ‘Maybe I’m no ordinary man.’
‘I’m beginning to get that idea.’
Now that Katy was safe, it dawned on Hayley that she had nothing to do until morning. And she was alone in a big, empty house, with a very attractive man. What was that line she had heard once about Las Vegas? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That was it. She was not ready for any sort of relationships right now, particularly not with a man who was not ready for any sort of relationship with her. But she wondered all the same if that Vegas comment was the sort of comment that could also be made about Siena. The city seemed to be made for drama. The Renaissance here hadn’t only been significant in the artistic skills of perspective and the capturing of light and dark that Hayley tried to incorporate in her photographs, but also of political power games. The city leaders had wielded immense power over lesser citizens, and blood feuds had lasted generations.
Was she part of something like that now? Or was she in a holiday destination, as so many tourists seemed to think, free here to do just as she liked, and to forget about the consequences?
She leaned towards him slightly, testing the water. Ethan turned, a little more. Hayley began to lean his head towards his shoulder. Then his phone rang.
Damn.
Hayley wasn’t sure if she said that, or Ethan said it, or if neither of them said it, or both. They both knew that in the current circumstances, the call could not be ignored. Ethan reached into the pocket of his jeans for his phone and flipped it open.
‘Yes?’
‘Ethan.’ There was a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. Beyond his name, Hayley couldn’t make out what the woman said but felt a sliver of jealousy go through her all the same.
Who was this woman that knew Ethan — who Hayley sensed was a very secretive man — well enough to have his mobile phone number and to feel confident calling him on it in the middle of the night?
‘Thanks, yes it is me. It is a secure line,’ Ethan said. Then he stood to leave the room, and closed the door behind him.
At least the voice on the other end of the line had changed before he left, deep male tones replacing the woman who had made the call. All the same, Hayley felt her heart sink at the idea that Ethan didn’t trust her enough to take the call in here. She tossed her legs out and regarded her toes as though they were beings she could talk to.
You’ve only known him for one day, she told them. Make that just a few hours. You came into this house pretending you were after one thing when really that was fraudulent. Of course he doesn’t trust you. Something tells me that his trust is something that you have to earn.
Through the strong, timber door, she could hear snippets of conversation. Ethan was talking to someone named David, she soon worked out.
‘What did he say?’ Ethan was asking. ‘The corporate crime division had been going from strength to strength? Well, that’s very kind of him but I still can’t come back just now.’
Silence. Hayley tried to imagine what the invisible David might be saying.
‘I really can’t,’ Ethan repeated a moment later. ‘I’ll do what I can from here but first I have to work out how Tomasi is getting his information. This case needs to be my first priority, David, no matter what Michaels thinks. Katy’s safety depends on it. Sometimes these things do get personal.’
A few moments later, farewells were said and there was a knocking noise on her door.
‘Come in,’ said Hayley, feeling that the formality was unnecessary given that he had already walked in here all by himself. Not to mention that soon afterwards, he had seen her virtually naked.
‘Sorry about that,’ Ethan said, swinging the door open but barely walking into the room. ‘Work.’
‘The Tomasis are involved with your work as well?’ Hayley asked. ‘How did that happen?’
He sighed and she realised she had asked another question. More than one. Had she always been like this, she wondered, or was it some change in her character, brought on by her new association with this man?
At least, this time, Ethan didn’t seem to mind.
‘They are involved now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been working with the Corporate Crime Division of a private industry body back home. They recruited me after Erica died. Thought I might know something about the Tomasis and care enough to find out more.’
Hayley nodded. She tried to imagine how Ethan’s life must be. All these different layers of concerns, all centring around the one family he had married into, and had not been able to separate from even after his wife had died.
‘And have you?’ she asked.
‘Enough to discover that he won’t stop at anything. Alvaro Tomasi wants Katy. So does the rest of his family.’
‘I’m not the first person he has sent here, am I?’
Ethan shook his head. ‘And I doubt you will be the last. Please don’t feel bad about it. He is a powerful and influential man. You need to spend some time now working out how to keep yourself safe now you have disappointed him. Tomasi does not take disappointment lightly.’
Icy fingers seemed to clutch around her heart. Yes, she had been shot at, but Hayley had not really believed until this moment, when the stern set to Ethan’s features confirmed what he was saying, that she might continue to be in danger. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean he’s a cruel man and not all of his methods are as easy to identify as a bullet from a gun.’
‘You sound like you’re speaking from personal experience.’
‘Are you going to sleep?’
Hayley regarded him for a moment. ‘You know, I might ask a lot of questions, but you ask the most random ones.’
‘It’s not completely random.’
‘Well, the answer is that I don’t completely know. I might sleep eventually. Why do you want to know?’
‘There’s something I can show you. If you want to see it.’
***
Ethan pushed a DVD into the player in the sitting room and stood back with the remote control to turn the television on. Hayley was sitting on the sofa behind him, her legs curled beneath her. She was still wearing the bathrobe. He had never before realised how attractive one of those could be. Not to mention that he was acutely aware of how little she was wearing beneath it.
‘This video is taken from a family Christmas three years ago,’ he said.
The screen flickered to life. He looked over his shoulder to check that Hayley was watching.
The sound started a moment before the picture. It showed an outdoor scene on a sunny day. There was a well-watered lawn, a background of trees, and part of what looked like a stone wall. Ethan felt himself swallowing as a little girl ran onto the screen.
‘Katy?’ Hayley asked.
Ethan nodded. ‘She’s a lot bigger now.’
‘Is she still that pretty?’
‘I think so.’
A moment later the camera panned out and the complete exterior of this house came into view. A wide stone wall broken up with a long door. A woman walked into the shot, emerging from one of those long doors with a platter of sandwiches.
Ethan looked at Hayley. She was frowning. Perhaps she had realised that the film had been shot here but, of course, she wouldn’t know who anyone was.
‘That’s my sister,’ he explained. ‘Pearl.’
Hayley’s expression cleared. Ethan felt a pang of regret in case he had given her any feelings of jealousy. And then another pang that came from an awareness that Hayley would only feel jealous of another woman if she had feelings about him herself. Could that be the case?
He was annoyed with himself when he realised how much he hoped this was true. It had been a long time since he had allowed a woman in his life, because the prospect was so full of danger both to him and to any woman who might be concerned. That situation hadn’t changed. Even if Hayley were interested in him, he couldn’t allow that interest to develop. Anyone who got close to him was a likely target for Alvaro Tomasi and his guns.
Hayley leaned forward, peering more closely at the screen as the camera zoomed in. Pearl stood there now, laughing as the wide lens caught her dark hair and tossed it about her shoulders. She was saying something to the camera but the sound was not quite good enough quality to make out what it was.
When Pearl began to turn and raised her platter, as though offering her sandwiches to Hayley and Ethan as they sat on the opposite side of the screen, Ethan hit pause. Pearl’s image was frozen in time before them, the image of healthy and smiling young womanhood.
Without saying any more, Ethan leaned towards the DVD player and, slipping in another disk, pressed play. On the screen before them, Pearl’s happy face was replaced with that of a much older woman. She was tall and thin to the point of being angular, with skin that seemed to bear the signs of having been continuously sunburned for at least thirty years. She looked like she could have been the mother of the young woman they had seen on the previous disk. Maybe even her grandmother.
Hayley was still leaning forward. There was the beginning of a puzzled frown beneath her brows.
‘Pearl!’ the voice echoed out from the high quality sound system with the same resonance as if it had been spoken in the next room.
Ethan felt that familiar jolt of surprise many people get when they hear their own voice as it has been recorded. The woman on the screen turned.
‘That’s Pearl?’ Hayley asked. Her voice was sharp with surprise.
Ethan nodded.
‘What happened to her?’ Hayley clamped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, that sounded rude.’
Trusting a Stranger Page 6
