“They started reprogramming cell phones several years ago as part of their corporate espion—I mean acquisitions—program. I have no doubt they’ve heard every sound I’ve made since last night, when I volunteered to come after you. That alone may have raised suspicions.”
“But you work for them.” I could understand how they’d want to record a colonel’s home life or an engineer’s discussions of his latest designs. “You’re just a bodyguard to the little boy.”
“All the more reason to spy on me, don’t you think? When his father’s not present, I’m closer to the Adriano heir than anyone else, his mother included.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Simon didn’t trust his own sons, not any more than Max had trusted Simon. Why would he ever trust an employee?
Quietly I eyed the relaxation in his muscles. The moment I’d been waiting for. For him to let go and believe I’d stay. I could still get away if—
“Don’t even think it,” he warned as if he’d read my mind. “I want you alive and free, but I will kill you if necessary. It would be better for me to be your executioner than Caleb.” He lifted my chin. “I would make it quick. You deserve that.”
I sucked in my breath and shook off a tremble. I would make it quick. By the look in his eyes, I knew he meant it. The strange thing was, there seemed to be a sense of nobility in that threat.
“How did you find me?” I rubbed the mark he’d left on my wrist. “Ever since I left the palazzo, I’ve been careful.”
“You weren’t careful when you were at the palazzo. Wait. I’ll show you.” He glanced back and held up a finger. “Do not run. I’m a good shot and I rarely miss.”
As I climbed out of the car, I contemplated how fast I’d have to run to make it into the little chapel and whether I would actually find safety there. Then I remembered my injury. Sometimes I actually forgot it when the knee wasn’t throbbing. I rubbed a slow clockwise circle around my swollen joint.
He strolled to the front of the car and fidgeted with the bumper. He bent on one knee, fished around under the bumper and then extracted a black box no bigger than his hand. Suction cups lined one side and a wire protruded from the other.
I blinked. “It’s a tracker? Simon was tracking me?”
Eric laughed. “Simon always tracks you. Not for long, though. You switch cars and it’s gone.” He tilted his head. “Good move, by the way.”
“Uh, yeah, thanks.” It had had more to do with Interpol than the Adrianos.
He strolled to a car parked nearby. In less than two minutes he’d pulled back the plastic covering over the front bumper and inserted the tracking device. He pointed at the rental sticker on the car window and the maps of Italia on the dashboard.
“Tourists. They’ll give the Duke a run for his money.” When I frowned, he added, “Once I get us to a safe place, I’ll let you go.” He locked gazes with me as I leaned against the front fender of the Mercedes. “I swear by the Mother.”
He’d risk his life to get me to a safe place, but if he couldn’t, he’d kill me? I would make it quick.
“Eh-wic!”
I looked up in time to see Benny’s face as he stood hand in hand with the old priest. His smile lifted his cheeks all the way up to his eyes. Benny tore loose from the old man and ran frantically for Eric. His tiny shoes slapped the sidewalk with his all-boy bluster. I could have sworn he jumped from three feet away and landed in Eric’s arms.
Eric grinned back uncharacteristically and swung the boy in a half circle. “Hello, my little hellion. Are you having a good day?”
Benny nodded. “Grrrrreat! I had oranges for breakfast.”
“You did?” Eric snuggled against the child but watched me instead. “I smell them on your breath. Did Dr. Moon treat you well?”
“Yessss!” Benny smiled broadly to show a missing baby tooth that he was too young to have lost through natural causes. Obviously Eric hadn’t been able to stop some of the tyke’s shenanigans.
“That’s good. Benny, I have something for you.” He pulled an iPod out of his jacket pocket and snapped a pair of headphones over the boy’s ears. “There. I’ll turn it on for you and you can listen to a story while Dr. Moon and I drive. Okay?”
Benny nodded and crawled into the backseat of the Mercedes without any objections. Eric buckled him in, and the child sat quietly staring out the window and rocking back and forth as he listened to a story I couldn’t hear.
“You sure that’s not a recording device?” I asked, still leaning against the front fender.
“Yes. One, it’s not an Adriano product. Two, I bought it this morning. And three—” he motioned for me to scoot into the passenger seat “—I verified it personally.”
He propped his elbow on the roof of the car and waited for me to move, but I didn’t. Instead I said, “You take the boy back to his mother. I’ve got places to go and people to see that don’t include you. No offense.”
“None taken, but that’s not the plan.”
I still didn’t move. “It’s my plan.”
“It changed. As a matter of fact, Dr. Moon, I’d say all your plans have changed in the past twenty-four hours. All your plans for the rest of your life.”
Okay, so he was right about that. Everything in my future had turned on a dime last night and I was still as confused as hell. Nothing was certain any longer. Not my future. Not even my past. Everything I knew about everyone was suspect.
“Yes, everything has changed. But I’ll still make my own plans. I always have.”
“And where has that gotten you? In league with the devil? When was the last time your plans worked out?”
“Including the San Francisco job that your bad intel nearly botched for me?”
He squinted back at me. “You should thank me for that.”
“Like hell I will!”
“I was trying to keep you away from Simon and Caleb. I was trying to keep that artifact out of his hands.” Eric looked as though he was grinding his teeth with every syllable. “I was trying to save your life. I’m still trying to save your life. You don’t make it easy.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m sorry for making your life difficult.” I shook my head and tried to stay calm. I didn’t want to talk about my plans or where my life was going or where it wasn’t. I was stuck. Stuck! But I refused to give over control of it to the Adrianos…even if they did control my life. “I make my own plans,” I continued, “and they don’t include you.”
Then I remembered my manners. “Thank you, Monsieur Cabordes, for removing the tracking device, but my future doesn’t include any passengers.”
“Then consider me your copilot.”
“No. I don’t trust anybody to be my copilot. Especially anyone who works for the Adrianos.”
“Who said anything about trusting me? You’re not capable of trusting anyone.”
I scowled back. True, I didn’t trust anyone. It’s a harsh way to survive, never letting anyone that close. But survive was what I did. And I didn’t appreciate him pointing out my survival instincts as though they were deficiencies.
“What I mean is,” he corrected, “you’re not capable of trusting anyone right now. It’s because you don’t trust yourself yet. When you can trust yourself, it’ll be easier to trust others.”
I smirked and shifted against the front fender. Such sage advice from a bodyguard-slash-assassin. But it was a subject that was too close to the bone.
“You should take the boy back, Monsieur Cabordes. Alone.”
“Can’t.” I saw the brief struggle in his eyes, then he decided to make a confession, maybe because he didn’t think I’d live to tell it. “I can’t take Benny home. Not yet. I need another day. His father’s in Egypt until tomorrow. I’ll hand him over to Josh and no one else. Not even his mother. Besides, Benny is my responsibility, and if I don’t bring him home, my corpse will be found floating in the Golfo di Napoli next week.”
“Fine, but what has that got to do with me? Find a reason for a del
ay, besides a destroyed cell phone, and wander back at your own leisure. I don’t care how you do it. But I have deadlines of my own.”
“I know. But I need you to trust me on this.” He seemed to regret his word choice immediately.
“No. Besides, you just gave me that speech ten seconds ago on how I don’t trust anyone.”
I did trust someone, didn’t I? Someone? Maybe Catrina just a little bit? And I’d taken Myrddin at his word about the escape route out of the palazzo. Then again, I hadn’t had a choice. Somehow I didn’t feel that trusting someone when I didn’t have a choice was really the same thing. The situation made the decision for me. There was no healing in my heart that rendered me willing to trust. Instead I was simply swept along.
“Even if I did choose to trust someone, why would I start with you?”
“Fine. If you can’t trust me, I’m asking you to keep an open mind. You’re not halfway around the world where I needed you to stay, far away and safe. You’re here, right under the thumb of your worst enemies. You want to get out of Italy and get out alive, then you’re going to have to work with me because I’m all you’ve got.”
“I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”
“Fine. Then maybe what you need is someone to watch your back.”
I sucked in my breath. Dead on target, Eric. But that was more than I’d ever hoped for. Still, I had to travel this road alone. I didn’t know any other way. “I told you, no. I make my own plans. I like to be in control.”
“In control of what? Life? Falling in love? Losing the people we love? Death? None of us has as much control as we think. Life is what happens while you’re making all those fancy plans of yours.”
His words tumbled out, bitter and definitely unplanned. His voice was as smooth as ever, but his tone tore at the shields I’d erected around my heart. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked to anyone in such a raw and intimate way. It was almost as if he really knew me. But how would a bodyguard for a child know anything about my life?
“It beats not having a plan,” I said lamely.
“Just an illusion. To make you feel in control. Because you can’t just let go and live. Can’t you see where it’s gotten you? You had a destiny and you’ve failed it. You haven’t taken your power. You’re the descendant of some of the most powerful women who ever lived, and look at you. Nothing but a common thief.”
“A thief? Yes. Common? No.”
“Okay, yeah, you’re good.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the driver’s door. “Maybe one of the best as far as art thieves are concerned. But for how long?”
“As long as I have to be. I don’t have any choice but to be the best at what I do.”
“Then change what you do.”
“If I had any choice, I already would have.”
Then, as if reading my mind again, he added, “You always have a choice. I’m asking you to make a choice to help me. To help me to help you and to help me to help that little boy. That’s all I’m asking for now.”
“And if I say no, you’ll kill me.”
Frowning at an imaginary spot on the street, he nodded. “I was going to say that I have no choice in the matter, but I do. If I can’t save you, I’m to kill you—and rather than let the Adrianos catch you, I will choose to kill you myself.”
“Oh, yes,” I spat back. “And you’d do me the favor of ‘making it quick.’”
He caught my gaze. “Because of who you are—what you are—it would be an honor to cheat the Adrianos of your death.” He swallowed. “And because there are many more lives at stake here than yours and mine.”
“Like whose?”
He nodded toward Benny, oblivious and innocent in the backseat. “That little boy, for one. Sometimes you can’t do anything for your own future, so you have to do things for the children.”
Eric and I stared at each other for a moment. I caught a brief glimpse of pain beneath the steely exterior and wondered if it was his or merely a reflection of my own that I was looking at.
He wrenched his head in the direction of a sleek yellow motorcycle parked down the street. “I can’t take the boy home on that. Besides, I’m sure it’s wired with a tracker. I just can’t find it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. But I’m driving.” Besides, he wasn’t bad to look at. Maybe if I tried really hard, I mused, I could tolerate having a firm-bodied man riding shotgun.
He ducked into the passenger’s seat while I buckled myself behind the steering wheel, checking once in the mirror to see that Benny was still entertained. I made a three-point turn in the narrow street and headed back the way I’d come.
“How long has Simon been tracking me?” I asked as we sped down a narrow street devoid of pedestrians and vendors.
“I don’t know. Longer than I’ve been with them. A few years maybe. Every time you came to the compound and Simon’s security staff searched your car for bombs? That was more than enough time to plant a tracking device.”
Damn them. Always making a big deal about security, when I was the one being violated. Was I ever truly off the grid where the Adrianos were concerned? I had to believe I was, especially since they’d lost me for the six weeks it had taken to return with the Joan of Arc artifact. So it was possible to hide even when they knew my identity and most of my aliases.
Eric caught me eyeing the boy in the backseat. “You’ve a motherly streak in you,” he observed. “That surprises me.”
I felt my cheeks grow warm. Motherhood was something I didn’t discuss. “He’s a great kid,” I managed to say. “You…you have children of your own?” I wanted to take the microscope off me.
Eric squared his jaw and said nothing for a few seconds. Then finally he answered, “Benny’s my life. At least until he’s a little older. Who knows? Maybe forever. Josh doesn’t trust him with anyone else, especially when he’s away on business.”
“I didn’t kidnap him. I swear. I don’t steal children, not even from raving lunatics like Pauline.”
Eric snorted. “Pauline doesn’t deserve that kid.”
I nodded my agreement. “I had no idea that he was even in the car until—”
“I know.” Eric twisted sideways in the seat to look at me. “Stop straining yourself. I know how Benny got into the backseat of your car.”
“You do? Because there’s no way he lugged that blanket all the way from the main house to the parking area by himself. He’s too little to even walk that far, let alone—”
“I put him there.”
“You what?” I slowed the car to avoid hitting a businessman with a cell phone glued to his ear. An Adriano phone, no doubt.
“I know where the cameras are and where they aren’t. It was easy to get him to your car, even before I saw Myrddin. Or you.”
“But why?” I braked too hard at an intersection, and automatically my hand shot out protectively to brace my passenger. My palm landed squarely on his chest. I blushingly noted the muscles underneath and pulled back. Eric shifted uncomfortably in his seat, equally surprised by my reflexes…or by my touch.
“You were leaving last night and I couldn’t,” he explained. “I knew you’d leave the compound sooner or later. I didn’t think Simon would have you executed last night. He still has use for you. Or did.” Eric took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Benny was safer with you. At least for last night. You know what they say. Adrianos don’t die of natural causes. They live into ripe old age…if somebody doesn’t kill them first.”
“What about Max Adriano? The Duke’s father? Simon said the old man had been hospitalized and wasn’t expected to live much longer.”
Eric stifled a chuckle. “That’s what Simon is telling everyone, isn’t it? The truth of the matter is that yes, Max Adriano was recently hospitalized—after an assassination attempt.”
I’d heard that. From Therese, one of Max’s secretaries, as well as from several other sources of mine. “I’ve heard, too, that he was dead.”
> Eric nodded as I braked at another intersection and he braced himself discreetly. I fought the reflex and kept both hands on the wheel. I didn’t remember being quite as protective of the old man.
“Is it true? That Max Adriano died?” I frowned into the rearview mirror. The gray BMW I’d barely noticed earlier had reappeared. Were we being followed?
“I understand he was technically dead for a few seconds before they revived him. As for Simon, you shouldn’t believe everything he tells you.” Eric shrugged. “Obviously.”
“And the boy? You think someone would try to—” I glanced at Benny in the mirror, headphones over his ears as he stared out the automobile window, and I mouthed the words assassinate him?
Somberly Eric nodded. “It’s already been attempted. I’m the only one who knows it. That’s why I had to get him out of there. I can’t tell Josh. Not yet. I have to do it face-to-face. And he won’t be back from Alexandria until tomorrow.”
“Why face-to-face?”
“Josh carries an Adriano phone. And though it’s forbidden for security to activate a family member’s cell phone, I can’t take the risk and hope it doesn’t really happen. I’d never make it back alive for a face-to-face conversation with my employer.”
Activate Josh’s phone. The words sank in. “Who would spy on Josh?”
Eric shot me a look and said nothing. Ah. He didn’t have to. Caleb.
I glanced again in the rearview mirror and sighed. Good. The gray BMW was gone.
“For weeks now, Caleb has been enticing Benny to dangerous activities. Caleb knows he has to get past me to get to Benny, and I won’t let him get past me.”
From the tone of his voice, I didn’t doubt it for a minute.
“You’re saying Caleb’s been trying to, um…” I cut myself off in case Benny could hear us beyond the insulation of the headphones.
“Yes. But Josh has been gone, and I can’t exactly go to the Duke with that kind of information, can I? I can go to Josh and only Josh. He trusts me.”
“And can he trust you?”
“Of course.” He gritted his teeth. “I’ve paid for the privilege. In blood.”
Lorna Tedder Page 12
