Ethan had already seen the low-slung blue car and he changed gear, putting further weight onto the accelerator as they sped off in the same direction. Beside him, Hayley was clutching onto the seat at both sides with her hands, but the expression he could see with the corner of his eye was exhilarated, not scared.
‘They’re turning left again,’ she said.
Although he could see this for himself, he was glad she told him because he was unsure when Tomasi — or whoever he was — might do something that he hadn’t noticed.
‘Pearl doesn’t drive?’ Hayley asked when they had reached a long, straight stretch of road.
Ethan shook his head. The car ahead of them was gaining speed but so was he. At least it was not gaining distance.
‘You need to take out my cell phone and call the police,’ he said. ‘Let them know where we are.’
Ethan reached into his pocket and passed his phone to her. He hoped she wasn’t going to be the sort of silly woman who made a big fuss about not knowing how to work mechanical things.
Evidently, she wasn’t. A moment later he heard her speaking in — as far as he could tell — fairly fluent Italian as she told the phone operator on the other end of the line what they were doing and why they needed help.
Obviously, she didn’t know the Italian for kidnapping, because she said that in English, looking across at him.
The police dispatcher seemed to know exactly what she meant anyway. Hayley didn’t lose anymore time explaining the situation.
‘How long do you think it will take them to respond?’ she asked when she had disconnected the call.
‘Didn’t they tell you?’
‘They said ten minutes. Does that sound realistic?’
‘I don’t think so. They can’t know where we’re headed. I mean, I don’t know where we’re headed for.’
‘Do the Tomasis have property anywhere around here?’
‘The Tomasis have properties just about everywhere,’ Ethan told her.
A few minutes later, the car ahead of them took a quick and unsignalled turn and joined up to a major road they had been driving alongside for the past few hundred metres. As Ethan reached the corner behind it, he looked ahead and saw the blue car pull over to the side.
A tall, thin woman emerged from it, looking dazed.
Pearl.
Ethan sped towards her, as the blue car tore away.
‘Is Katy in there with him?’ he asked when they were alongside her.
Pearl looked even worse than she had last time they met. She looked like she had taken a hit recently, too. She nodded.
‘And is it Tomasi? Alvaro, I mean. Not one of his henchmen?’
Pearl looked down at her fingers and scratched her ear. She seemed unconvinced that this was a critical situation.
‘Can you give me a lift?’ she asked. ‘I’m going to Rome. I think I’m going to Rome. Am I going to Rome? We’re in Italy, right?’
‘You can come with me but I’m going to get Katy and then I’m going home,’ Ethan said. ‘Decide quickly.’
‘You won’t take me to Rome?’
Ethan shook his head. But he knew he couldn’t leave her here like this, destitute as she almost certainly was. He reached for his wallet, lying between the two front seats and peeled out two of the notes.
‘Get yourself a hotel room. I’ll be back for you later.’
‘How will you know where I am?’
‘I’ll call you.’
‘I don’t have my phone.’
The expression on her face told him what she had done with it. That it had, of course, been exchanged for drugs as everything she owned of value had been exchanged.
Ethan felt a stir of annoyance. He had given her that phone and had not done so because he wanted to help her score.
He reached into his wallet for another note and for one of his business cards. They had all his contact details on them. He had no choice really. Pearl might use the money for drugs rather than a phone but the blue car was so far ahead of them now that he couldn’t afford to spend another moment here chatting with his sister.
‘Buy yourself another one,’ he said. ‘Text me your new number.’
Then he sped off.
There was more traffic on the road now. It was nearing the start of the working day and, hence, peak hour. Ethan realised he was fortunate Tomasi had such a recognisable car. A more common vehicle would have melted into the crowd.
The traffic slowed as it thickened. The dull blade of panic slipped inside him, turned slightly.
Hayley reached out and rested her hand on his leg. The pressure was warm and comforting.
‘Tomasi has to slow down as well,’ she reminded him.
Oh, she was good for him, there was no doubt about it. Ethan looked down at her and tried to force a smile.
Tomasi took the next turnoff, along a winding country road that led down to Montepulciano. The road was narrow and less busy but just as slow and Ethan was many, many cars behind. Beside him, Hayley reached for her camera and zoomed in on the cars ahead.
It seemed a strange time to be looking for things to do that might be relaxing.
‘In case we need evidence,’ she explained when she saw him looking.
That might make sense. The traffic increased in speed a little and he had to concentrate on driving. When they next slowed, the Tuscan town’s walls and rose-coloured towers were visible.
The blue car pulled into a car park outside the town walls and slammed to a stop. The driver’s door opened and Alvaro Tomasi climbed out. He was wearing his black from head to toe. His dark, shoulder-length hair blew around his face.
‘Everyone I’ve ever disliked has smoked,’ Hayley remarked. ‘I hate how much it reminds me of my mother.’
Ethan settled his shoulders, furious at the very sight of his enemy. Then he turned his eyes towards the other doors. Perhaps the man had not realised he was being followed.
They were almost there now. Almost.
‘Traffic, move,’ Ethan found himself saying beneath his breath.
Tomasi was taking a few steps away from his car now. Ethan couldn’t understand it.
Was he planning on leaving Katy in there?
They were there. Finally, they had caught up. If Katy was in the car, he could get her out, breaking a window if necessary, and that would be it, the worst minutes of his life behind him.
Ethan pulled to the side of the road and leaped out of his car. This was one of those times in life when an official parking spot really didn’t matter.
‘Tomasi!’ he yelled at the top of his voice, running towards the other car.
Hayley was beside him. He was glad of that. She was small and their enemy was huge and strong and armed, but she was brave. At the very least, she could turn Katy’s eyes away from any violence.
‘Hey!’ Ethan repeated when his first yell hadn’t attracted the attention he required.
Tomasi froze and turned towards the two of them. The expression on his face was impossible to read.
Ethan sped towards the car before Tomasi could get back there. It had been a mistake to call out, he realised, until he had Katy safely back with him. But he had been too angry. He had not been able to control himself.
Tomasi didn’t do what Ethan expected. Surprise continued to be one of the main ways he operated. Instead, he stood at a distance, arms folded across his chest, watching with an expression of sardonic disinterest.
His car had tinted windows but as he reached it, Ethan could tell immediately that there was no one else in the vehicle.
Tomasi barked a cruel laugh when he sensed Ethan’s disappointment and pain.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Hayley, standing beside Ethan and also looking in. ‘Where is she?’
Ethan sprinted towards Tomasi, who had still not moved. Was it possible that he was stunned to see them there? Possible that he hadn’t realised he was being tailed?
If he hadn’t realised that Ethan was behind him, t
hen why had he been driving so erratically?
Overcome with fury — his child was missing, and this man was certainly responsible — Ethan seized Tomasi by the collar of his dark and expensive suit.
‘Fancy meeting you here,’ Tomasi said, barely bothering to struggle.
‘Step back!’ Ethan called to Hayley who was standing too close by, one hand raised over her mouth in horror. Another expression passed over her face too. What was it? Confusion?
Then with one quick move, Ethan turned his hand into a fist and used it to break his former brother-in-law’s nose.
‘Where is she?’ he demanded brutally.
Tomasi looked up at him from the space in the dirt where he had stumbled. He wiped his hand across his face and winced. Then he looked down at the blood on his fingers and winced again.
‘If I hadn’t already decided to kill you, I’d kill you just for this,’ he vowed.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Hayley told him as she approached. ‘Give me your keys.’
Tomasi looked from her to Ethan.
‘Well, well, well. Hayley Wolfe. Wedding photographer,’ he slurred. There was a distinct note of disdain in his voice that made Ethan want to hit him again. Who was he to put Hayley down for the way she earned her living?
‘You’re actually working for Ethan MacDonald?’ Tomasi continued. ‘That’s clever, Ethan. Unexpected. More my sort of speciality. How did you manage that?’
‘Your keys,’ Hayley repeated. She was ignoring Tomasi’s question.
Ethan rested his foot over the fallen man’s throat. Tomasi’s fingers closed around his ankle but he made no further move. His neck would break if Ethan pressed down. Ethan could see by the expression in his eyes that he was just as aware of that as he was.
‘We need to check his boot,’ Hayley said.
His boot. Of course.
Ethan went cold as he considered the possibility that Katy could be in there. It was so horrifying he hadn’t allowed himself even to imagine that until now.
‘Give Hayley your keys,’ he told the fallen man.
Blood was running from his nose into his mouth and it was a gruesome sight to see him smiling through it. ‘They’re in my pocket,’ Tomasi said.
Ethan paused to reach into his holster and pull out his gun. He was just aware of Hayley’s eyes widening in shock.
‘Let Hayley reach them out of your pocket. One false move and I’ll shoot,’ Ethan said.
Tomasi shuffled to one side on the dirt and let Hayley reach over and feel around inside his pocket for the keys. He rolled his eyes back with mock pleasure as her fingers moved next to him.
The expression sickened Ethan until his gun shook slightly. At least, with his eyes shut, Tomasi couldn’t see that.
‘Here they are,’ said Hayley, standing.
She pointed the keys towards the car and pressed the release catch for the boot as she ran towards it.
‘It’s empty,’ she called back to Ethan.
His gun still trained on his enemy, Ethan took a step closer. He had to see for himself.
Hayley was right. Katy was not in the boot either.
He didn’t know whether to be relieved about that or panicked. The two emotions tore at him. At least Katy had not been through that particular indignity and fear and discomfort.
On the other hand, where was she?
Tomasi was coughing as he stumbled out of the dirt and to his feet. His expensive suit would never be the same.
‘Where is she?’ Ethan demanded again.
Tomasi raised both hands as though to emphasise that he was not armed.
‘I’ve been following the man who has her,’ he said, between splutters. ‘He got away. We need to sit down and talk.’
***
Hayley ordered espressos for all of them and carried them back to the trattoria table that Tomasi had led them to in Montepulciano’s main piazza. It seemed fitting to be having this conversation in an area that had been the meeting place of the town for centuries.
The occasion had increased the awful aura of unreality that she had been operating under for hours now. Hayley couldn’t believe that she was here, after everything that had happened, without having slept, wearing the same clothes that she had worn yesterday. The nearby Duomo towered over them, its very architecture looking at once grand and threatening.
She really needed this coffee.
Tomasi and Ethan looked like they needed the caffeine, too. Hayley hated to include them in the same thought. She couldn’t believe that she had once trusted Alvaro Tomasi enough to come here on his assignment. He was an evil and malicious man. Seeing him beside Ethan only heightened the contrast between the two. Both were big and dark haired, but Ethan had that clear face and open expression about his eyes that spoke volumes for his honesty and suffering.
The two men both had dark shadows beneath their eyes. Enemies, they fell onto the coffees Hayley ordered like a couple of wild animals over a carcass. She wondered if they would go for water at the ancient cisterna well after this, or order it like civilised people.
Tomasi’s eyes were shadowed as black as the coffee he drank. Was it possible that he hadn’t slept either?
Hayley sipped her own drink more delicately and tried to step back to view this situation more objectively. She couldn’t assume that Tomasi was all evil just because he was so ugly compared to Ethan. No one would come out seeming honourable if the requirement was to be as attractive as Ethan MacDonald. But she had to remember that, contrary to what they had thought, Tomasi hadn’t had Katy with him.
And he looked exhausted. As though he needed sleep as much as Ethan and Hayley did. It didn’t seem like the sleeping habits of an evil man in the midst of acting out some terrible plan. Not to mention that he looked as worried about where Katy was as Ethan.
‘Let me get this straight,’ Ethan was saying as she took her seat.
He looked up as he spoke and Hayley understood that this part of the conversation was for her benefit.
‘You followed this man, Ivan, to the school,’ Ethan recapped. ‘You’d had a tip that he knew where Katy was. You sent Pearl in to get her, but Katy ran away from you in the car park and was seized by this Ivan fellow?’
Tomasi had the decency to look awkward as this embarrassing tale was told.
Hayley continued to regard him sceptically. ‘What sort of evil villain are you?’ she asked.
‘What would you know?’ Tomasi fired back.
‘Enough. You’re not a very good one,’ Hayley observed.
She needed another coffee already. She needed a change of clothes. Feeling grotty and tired in a place like this was doing nothing for her mood.
‘A bit clumsy, I’d say,’ she suggested
‘That sort of talk gets us nowhere,’ said Tomasi. ‘What do you think, Ethan?’
Ethan looked exhausted. Hayley’s heart went out to him. She thought about how awful it must feel to not know where your own child was, but she couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
‘I think that maybe Hayley has a point,’ Ethan said. ‘You can’t be a very good kidnapper if your victim makes such as easy escape.’
‘I meant: what do you think of my plan?’ Tomasi asked.
‘I think you killed my wife. Why should I listen to anything else you might say?’
‘You think I killed Erica?’ Tomasi sounded astonished. ‘You can’t be serious.’
Hayley found herself looking at him more closely. His eyebrows were raised, the whites of his eyes showing.
Could he be as good an actor as he would need to be to fake an expression like that, or had Ethan been mistaken about him all these years?
‘You’re trying to tell me you didn’t?’ Ethan asked.
Hayley rested her hand on his thigh and gave his leg a gentle squeeze.
The message was meant to be for him to look at her. She wanted him to realise that she believed Tomasi. Ethan didn’t look at her. His leg was firm beneath his jeans, the muscles that
rippled through it firm and clenched.
‘She was my sister!’ Tomasi exclaimed. His face was red with fury, the dark whiskers speckled over it erect with tension.
‘She was my wife!’
‘I didn’t think you killed her!’ Tomasi yelled.
‘You had no reason to say that!’
The two men were leaning together over the little trattoria table as though they wanted to break it in half between them.
‘I did not kill my sister,’ Tomasi said in a low voice, as he suddenly backed off.
Hayley had to admit that she didn’t blame him for the retreat. Ethan MacDonald, aroused in anger, was a fearsome sight. She doubted she would be able to stand her ground against the force that radiated as much from his dark eyes as from the set of his broad shoulders and the thickening whiteness of his knuckles.
‘Someone killed her,’ Ethan said.
‘I live for my family. Why do you think having custody of Katy matters to me?’ Tomasi demanded, as if wanting control over a girl when her father was still alive were the most reasonable thing in the world.
Ethan leaned back slightly. The full implication of this seemed to be striking him for the first time. Hayley felt herself longing to reach out for him. How much worse must his suffering be, if he didn’t know who his enemy was?
‘I loved my sister,’ Tomasi continued at last.
‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Hayley said.
She surprised herself by speaking as she formed the thoughts but Ethan looked too stunned for speech and it seemed one of them had to regain control of the situation.
The two men were both looking at her now.
‘What doesn’t make sense?’ demanded Tomasi, with a glowering look that clearly meant he thought she had some nerve trying to be part of the conversation.
‘Someone killed Erica,’ Hayley said. ‘If it wasn’t you, then who?’
She looked from Tomasi to Ethan, watching him as his skin blanched.
‘Ivan Vasilovich?’ Ethan asked Tomasi.
Slowly, very slowly, Tomasi nodded his head.
‘Ivan has Katy now?’
Tomasi’s nodding continued.
Ethan looked as though he was about to pass out. Instantly, Hayley had realised how critical this news was. Because, although Ethan had believed that Tomasi wanted Katy, it had only ever been an issue of custody and of not wanting to see her under the influence of a man he thought was evil.
Trusting a Stranger Page 9
