by Sara Rosett
Jack nodded his head, motioning behind them. Zoe understood instantly. Surprise was about the only thing they had on their side. They scooted backward like two crabs scuttling over the sea floor. Jack resumed his prone position, the pen hidden in his hand. Zoe hunched over the paperclip, punching way with renewed vigor, her hands trembling from the effort.
Footsteps echoed closer, and then receded again. After a moment of silence, Jack scrambled upright and went back to work on his tape.
They punched for a few seconds. Zoe shot a glance at Jack. Every few seconds, he tucked the pen into the corner of his mouth then twisted his hands back and forth. She could see the raw skin where the tape had given away—a tiny strip. It was working. She twisted her hands. About an inch of the tape gave, ripping away a thin layer of skin on the back of her hands. She caught her breath. “God, that hurts.”
“Be glad it’s not on our mouths. That’s the worst.”
“That’s looking on the bright side,” Zoe said. She paused a moment, then resumed her sewing machine-like trek through the tape.
With his head bent in concentration, Jack said, “We could sing a few show tunes. You know, help pass the time.”
“Let’s not. I’ve heard you sing.”
“It’s atrocious, I know, but it would be distracting,” Jack said, pen in his teeth as he wrenched his hands back and forth, his shoulder muscles contorting with the effort.
The bells tinkled, footsteps tromped across the floor, and Jack dropped to his back.
“Darling, where are you?” called a male voice.
Zoe’s gaze shot to Jack’s face. He was staring at her, and she knew they were both thinking the same thing. They knew that voice. It was deep and rolling. Footsteps moved closer, then away. “Roy?” Zoe whispered. “What is he doing here?”
Jack resumed work on the tape with ferocity.
“Why would he...” her words trailed off as the image of the butterfly necklace coiled in a neat spiral came back to her. It was like an image finally loaded on the computer and everything jumped into focus, sharp and clean. “Roy helped her. He’s in on it, too,” Zoe said, horrified. “We went directly to him. Told him exactly where we were in Naples. He’s the one who sent the police to our hotel, not Nico.”
Jack spared her a quick look out of the corner of his eye. He looked grim, like he didn’t want to believe it, but he didn’t argue with her.
Zoe felt the same way. She shoved the paperclip through a particularly thick layer of tape while shaking her head. “I should have figured it out. I saw her jewelry and knew there was something about it...I didn’t put it together until now.”
Jack refocused on his tape. “Go on.”
“She’s wearing a ring with a special design—it looks custom to me. I’m no expert, but I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a butterfly with diamonds set in the wings. There was one exactly like it, except on a necklace in the upstairs bathroom at Roy’s house. There was a bottle of perfume, too.”
Jack worked on the tape silently for a few minutes. “Roy went out of his way to mention being a bachelor.” Jack’s voice was rough with anger. “He really played it up—all that about not having much food in the house. He was setting us up. No one was in a better position than Roy to help Francesca when she wanted to disappear. Roy finished out his assignment, then he retired in Naples.”
“So, they’re cautious,” Zoe said. “They must have decided to go their separate ways for a few years. She moved to Venice, he stayed in Naples.” She stared at him, her eyes widening. “The cleaning lady,” Zoe said and explained what the woman at the café had told her. “I bet Francesca goes to visit him disguised as a cleaning lady so no one recognizes her, and she doesn’t raise any eyebrows in the neighborhood. He comes to see her in Venice, too, obviously,” Zoe said nodding toward the door where they’d heard his voice.
She broke off at the sound of voices mingled with sharp footsteps. Jack dropped back to the floor seconds before the door swung open. Francesca led the way down the steps, a fresh roll of tape in her hand. Stefano trotted along behind her, his pace brisk. Zoe palmed the paperclip. She didn’t see the gun, but she was sure it wasn’t far away. Probably in his jacket pocket. Instead of the gun, Stefano held something long and narrow and metal in his hand. It was heavy; Zoe could see that by the way he held it. He shifted and she realized it was a set of industrial-sized tongs. He gripped the pinching end together in one hand, the other heavier end, rested in the palm of his other hand.
He paused a moment at the foot of the stairs, exchanging a glance with Francesca. The tape screeched in her hand. She gave him an impatient what-are-you-waiting-for nod. Stefano quickly crossed the floor to Jack. Zoe thought, Oh, God. This is it. Francesca won the argument. Instead of killing us here, they’re going to knock us out, then tip us into the water. Zoe shoved with her feet, trying to move away, but Jack lay prone, weighing the chair down like an anchor. Stefano went for Jack.
He raised his arm. The tongs whooshed down.
Zoe screamed. Jack flinched away at the last second, jerking the chair and Zoe around.
The tongs slammed into the stone with a scratchy sound. Stefano’s arm vibrated with the impact, but he didn’t pause. He spun to Jack, and his arm whipped down again. Jack shifted, shoving the chair between him and the tongs. Wood cracked as the metal slammed into the chair.
Stefano, his face suffused with red, raised the tongs again. Jack was angled around, trying to keep his body behind the chair. Zoe, her heart racing, had matched his moves and skittered around on the opposite side of the chair trying to use it as a shield, but with both their hands still taped to the arms of the chair, they were exposed. Jack sent her a quick glance, and Zoe knew what he was thinking. She gave a nod.
Stefano raised the tongs over his head. Zoe and Jack shoved together, sending the chair into Stefano. He half-shouted, half-yelped as it smashed into his shins and a caster crunched over his toes, causing him to pitch forward. The tongs clattered to the floor. They yanked the chair backward, and Stefano thudded onto the stone, landing awkwardly on his elbow with a crunching sound that would normally have turned Zoe’s stomach, but at the moment, she was actually quite glad to hear it.
Stefano lay motionless for a moment, then groaned and rolled onto his back, his arm draped unmoving along his side.
“Stop!” Francesca shouted. “Do not move,” she commanded in a voice trembling with anger.
Zoe halted and realized she was breathing hard and shivering. Francesca stood with her arms extended, elbows locked, and the gun gripped between her hands. She’d didn’t have the casual air that Stefano had when he held the gun. The dark circle of the barrel wavered back and forth between Zoe and Jack, her knuckles already showing white because of the hard grip on the gun. She and Stefano exchanged a few words. Except for his arm, he seemed to be all right. He slowly sat up as Francesca took several steps to the side so Stefano would not interfere with her line of sight to Zoe and Jack.
Cradling his arm, Stefano moved to his knees and stood, grimacing with each movement. Zoe felt as if the scale had tipped slightly in their favor. With Stefano limited, they stood a better chance of getting away. Stefano’s blows had damaged the arm of the chair. She could feel the looseness of it. Francesca’s attention strayed to Stefano, so Zoe pulled her wrists toward her body and felt the wood give away where the arm connected to the chair. Unfortunately, it also made a splintering sound. A loud splintering sound.
The tear she’d created earlier in the tape with the paperclip widened, and she rotated her hands and wrists, catching her breath as she wrenched her hands free. The wooden piece of the chair arm clattered to the floor as she flexed her fingers a few times. The air felt cold on the back of her hands where the tape had been.
“Stop!” Francesca screeched. “I told you, do not move.”
Zoe froze.
“You are not good at following instructions, no?” Francesca said, a slight tremor running through her arm and do
wn the gun’s barrel. She was not as cool and collected as she had been earlier, but there was determination and methodical lilt to her words as she said, “It does not matter what you do. I do not want to kill you here, but I will. I will do it if I have to.”
Fear spiked through Zoe. Francesca was serious and intent. She was going to do it. The door at the top of the stairs creaked open. Roy stepped through the door, closing it gently behind him. Zoe closed her eyes briefly, feeling the scales tip back out of their favor again. They were outnumbered again. “Don’t do it, darling,” Roy said, a look of almost pity on his face.
Francesca took a step back and swiveled the gun toward Roy.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“YOU must leave,” Francesca said. She checked the position of Zoe and Jack, then refocused on Roy. He took a few steps down the stairs.
“No, no, no, no!” Francesca said rapidly. “You must leave. This does not concern you.” She released one hand and waved him off. “Go home. Go away.”
Roy moved down another few steps “Of course it concerns me. Everything you do concerns me. That is why I keep an eye on you and your...activities.” Zoe picked up on an undercurrent in his words as Roy looked between Francesca and Stefano. A faint blush suffused Francesca’s cheeks, and Stefano seemed to puff up like a wild animal on a nature show, defending his territory.
“You didn’t realize I knew about all this? Your side business, shall we say?” Roy said quietly, circling his hand to indicate Zoe and Jack. “I know. I’ve known for a long time and looked the other way, but I can’t anymore. Not about this,” Roy said and looked directly at Jack for the first time since arriving in the room. There was regret in his expression. Roy moved down a few more steps.
Francesca tilted her chin up. “It must be done,” she said. “There is no other way.”
“There is. There is always another way. We can leave, right now. Go somewhere new. Together. No one will be able to find us.”
She shook her head sharply. “I do not want to start over. Not again.”
“Murder, Francesca?” he asked, moving down another step. “That is not what we planned. The other woman—the one in Naples—she was already dead. There was nothing we could do, but here...this is different.”
“It has to be this way because you did not take care of things. You said you would keep an eye on him.” She gestured at Jack. “You said you would make sure he didn’t become a threat, but you didn’t do that. Do you think he will just go away?” she asked, tossing her head. Her hands were still clinched around the gun, but she’d pulled her arms in a little. She had to be getting tired. “No, this is the only way to make sure I am safe. This is the only way. I will not run again. I have worked too hard to start over.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Roy said, an expression of resignation settling on him. There was a moment of silence, and then almost as if they’d synchronized it, Roy and Jack moved at the same time. Roy surged toward Francesca. Jack jumped up, tugging on his wrists. The wooden chair arm cracked away from the chair. He grabbed the back of the chair and flung it at Francesca.
A gunshot reverberated through the room, the sound echoing off the stone walls and floor. Zoe ducked, raising her hands over her head. There was an eerie vacuum of sound. Her ears felt as if they were stuffed with cotton. It took a second for her to figure out what had happened. Jack looked okay. It was Roy who was sprawled on the floor.
Stefano and Francesca exchanged a look. He was pleased, almost grinning, and Francesca looked relieved. So it was like that, Zoe thought, a love triangle. She almost felt sorry for Roy. Conned by the woman he loved, cheated on, and then shot. He had deceived her and Jack, and before that, he’d duped Jack and set him up to take the blame for Francesca’s “death,” so Zoe’s sympathy was a bit tempered. Of course, he didn’t deserve to be shot. Zoe thought she saw a movement from his body, but when she looked closer, he was motionless.
Roy had been closer to Francesca, and she’d shot him before he could get to her, but now she had the gun trained on Jack. “I will do it,” she said, then snapped out a sharp command to Stefano in Italian along with a toss of her head in the direction of the stacks of boxes. He moved to the far end of the room.
“Then do it,” Jack said, taking a step toward her, stripping the tape from his wrists, his face set, not showing a flicker of pain as the tape ripped away. “Go ahead. It’s not going to make a bit of difference if you kill me here or if you knock me out and toss me in the water later.”
“Oh, it does make a difference,” Francesca said. Zoe glanced between them and the far end of the room where Stefano was rummaging among the boxes, wincing with each motion that jostled his injured arm. Zoe realized he was working a flattened box free from a pile. Great, she thought, another box. That meant they were sticking to their plan, only they would be dumping three boxes instead of two.
Jack took another step toward Francesca, and she backed up. Zoe stood uncertainly. No one was focused on her. Too bad, there was nowhere to go. Roy blocked the stairs, Stefano was at the other end of the room, and Jack and Francesca were in front of the water.
“Francesca,” Jack said, “I hate to break it to you, but, in case you haven’t noticed, your little plan has fallen apart.”
Zoe had to admire how easy and relaxed his voice sounded. “You didn’t plan for Roy, did you? What will you do when they come looking for him?” Jack asked. “You know there will be a search for Roy. A few days, a week, and then someone will realize he is missing. His movements will be traced. I assume you are used to moving about carefully—incognito, I’m sure. But Roy? He didn’t have a need for the same level of stealth. He wouldn’t have taken the precautions you would have.”
As Jack talked, Zoe inched to the left, positioning herself directly behind Jack so that his body blocked her from Francesca’s view. She rotated her torso and scanned the desk, looking for some sort of weapon.
“It may take a while, but the police will work with the American Consulate, which of course will be involved in the investigation of an upstanding expat. They will follow his movements here. To you. Just as the people searching for me will eventually pick up my trail and follow it to the campo and, then eventually, here.”
“That is why there must be no trace of you—any of you—here.”
Zoe looked around for something to hold—some sort of weapon, even some sort of distraction—but there was nothing within reach except that wretched cardboard box and she couldn’t think how it would help her.
The tongs, Zoe thought. Where were they? On the floor? There was a blur of movement at the corner of her eye. She turned, but it was too late. She didn’t even have time to process the thought that it was Stefano before his good arm whooshed through the air toward her.
A horrible screeching sound penetrated Zoe’s oozy, half-conscious state. It was right above her, almost on top of her. Confusion and fear washed over her. She couldn’t see anything. She was curled up, almost in a fetal position. Her head felt heavy as if it were too big for her neck, like she was some sort of oversized bobble-head toy, a bobble-head with a huge, tender bump on the top of her head, she mentally amended as she gently touched her head.
The awful noise stopped then started again, like fingernails on a chalkboard only magnified as it echoed around in her head. She knew that sound. What was it? If she weren’t so sleepy, she could figure it out. She gave her head a little shake. Big mistake. Pain rolled through her body topped off with a seasick sensation that made her break out in a cold sweat. She held herself motionless and concentrated on taking deep breaths. The nausea cleared her mind and mentally everything came into sharp focus. That sound. Packing tape. Directly above her head.
She was in that blasted box. She wiggled and felt the sides press in against her. The air was stuffy and hot, and now the smell of cardboard registered as she fought to make herself breathe slowly. You won’t suffocate, she reminded herself. Cardboard boxes aren’t airtight. Are they? Sweat beaded
her hairline and her armpits at the thought.
Of course not. She’d played for hours in cardboard boxes as a kid. After their move to Dallas, she’d squirreled away the larger packing boxes and created a hideaway. She’d loved the cozy feeling of pretending it was her own snug house. Granted, that box had been bigger than this one, and it hadn’t been taped shut.
She forced another breath in and out as she ran her hands over the interior, feeling the flaps of the box and bits of plastic and fabric under her. The contents of her messenger bag, she realized. Francesca had dumped them in the box. So efficient, getting rid of all trace of her presence along with her body. Zoe heard a sound and frowned, then realized it was a half-sob that had come from her.
She had to get a grip. What was it Jack had said? Something about keeping your head when everyone else was losing theirs. Okay, keep your bruised, lumpy head, she lectured herself. Don’t panic. You’re just taped in a box. Surely it can’t be that hard to get out of a box. It’s just cardboard.
Where was Jack? Taped into his own box for easy transport as well? She heard sounds that she realized had been going on, but she’d been too freaked out to process. It was as if someone had turned up the volume and the noise suddenly came through, making Zoe feel even queasier than during the initial wave of nausea.
Thumps and thuds. Grunts. Ragged breaths. Blows landing and bodies struggling. A fight.
She crunched herself down and folded one of the interior flaps down, exposing a sticky line of the underside of the tape running overhead along the seam where the two exterior flaps of the box met. On the sides, above the edge of the folded down interior flaps, there were gaps, thin slivers of light interrupted only by the thick press of tape.
