by Lucy Gordon
“Who cares?” Elena chuckled like a merry child. “Venice is a city of gossip, and the gossip I heard is that you fell into the water and ruined your dress. So you need a new one.”
“Elena, it’s sweet of you but—”
Elena shrugged. “I like to give you things. Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because you already spend too much money on me.”
“Too much? Cara, whatever are you thinking of? Vilani’s clothes cost nothing.”
Terri fingered the dress lovingly while her mind reeled from this last statement. A Vilani original couldn’t be had for less than five hundred pounds. And Elena thought that was nothing. The Calvani fortune must be even bigger than rumor claimed. The contessa read her expression accurately and smiled. “It’s nice to be able to have lovely things, isn’t it? Don’t let your enjoyment be spoiled by guilt. There are so few pleasures in life that we should take them as they come.”
“Have you lived like that?” Terri ventured to ask.
“But of course. What other way is there to live?” Elena asked with a pretty shrug. “It’s not a matter of money, but of getting the most out of everything that happens to you.”
“And of paying the price?” Terri asked cautiously. “Isn’t there a saying? Take what you want and pay for it.”
Elena’s beautiful face clouded for a moment. “Ah, yes,” she said on a sigh. “There’s always the price. But who can calculate the price until it’s too late?” Her look became distant. “And when you’re young, it’s easy to believe that the day of reckoning will never come,” she murmured. “Yet it does come…when you least expect it….” But then, like lightning, she recovered her mood. “So you pay the price and go on. There’s always something around the next corner.”
“You sound exactly like Leo,” Terri said impulsively. “He’ll risk everything for the sake of a moment and never count the cost.”
Elena considered this with her head to one side. “Am I really like him?” she asked. “Or is it just that he’s on your mind, so you see him in everyone?”
“It’s true that I can’t stop thinking about him,” Terri agreed. “I remember him at his best, how he’d laugh off the things that hurt him and always try to see the positive side of any situation. And that’s just like you.” She hesitated before daring to say, “Didn’t you ever realize how alike you were, when you were talking to him?”
“Yes,” Elena said slowly. “He was like a kindred spirit. I could say things to Leo that nobody else would understand. He told me how you’ve always looked after him, and I see it in the way you look after me.”
“Oh, I’m more like Papa. He was a very protective person.”
“Your face softens when you speak of your father,” Elena said, her gaze fixed intently on Terri. “You must have loved him very much.”
“I did. If only he hadn’t died when we were still so young. It was so lovely to be with him. He used to make silly jokes and laugh at them himself, and you just had to laugh with him.”
A gentle smile spread over Elena’s face. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes…” A tremor went through her. It seemed to Terri that she made a sudden momentous decision. “Teresa—”
A click from the far door made them both look up suddenly. Denise, a tall woman in early middle age, had come quietly into the room. “We were talking about Terri’s brother, Leo,” Elena said with an effort at casualness that sounded strained. “You met him a few times before you went away.”
“A charming young man,” Denise said politely. “I hope he’s well.”
“We don’t know,” Elena said. “Nobody has seen him for a while, or knows where he is.”
“You mean he’s disappeared?” Denise frowned. “Have you asked Maurizio about him?”
“Oh, yes,” Terri said. “Maurizio remembers having a drink with Leo, but no more.”
Denise frowned. “But Maurizio knew your brother better than anyone. They spent a lot of time together.”
Terri stared. “Surely you must be wrong. Maurizio knows I’m concerned about Leo. He’d have told me anything he knew.”
“Maurizio didn’t tell you that Leo spent several weekends at his home in the south?”
Terri had a sudden sensation as if the air was singing in her ears. “His—home—?” she echoed. “You mean—”
“I mean Terranotte. It’s an estate near Callena, just outside Rome. He goes down there one weekend a month and I know he took Leo with him a couple of times. In fact—”
“In fact what?” Terri asked, watching Denise’s face closely. Her heart was hammering as though she sensed the approach of something too monstrous to contemplate. “Tell me, please.”
“The last time I saw Leo, he was at the airport on the day I left Venice. He and Maurizio were flying down to the estate in the helicopter Maurizio used to charter.”
“No,” Terri said violently. “There must be a mistake. It must have been someone else you saw.”
“There’s no mistake. Leo came over and talked to me. He was waiting for Maurizio, who’d gone away for a moment to settle some detail with the charter company.”
“What did Leo say?” Terri asked in agony.
“We just made small talk for a few minutes. He told me how much he enjoyed his trips to Terranotte. Apparently, he’d been twice before. Then my flight was called and I had to go. I looked back to wave to him but he didn’t see me. Maurizio had returned and they were talking.”
“You actually saw Maurizio?” Terri said slowly, as though she were trying to comprehend the meaning of her own words.
“Certainly. They were walking away together, talking. I thought nothing of it until now. My mind was taken up with my mother.”
Elena frowned. “You left in the third week in September,” she said. “And I don’t think I ever saw Leo after that. I was surprised because we’d been planning the jewelry project at the art gallery. I thought he must have lost interest and left Venice. He could be wayward.”
Terri was fighting not to let her alarm overcome her. There must be some rational explanation. And yet, Leo had visited Maurizio’s estate and never been seen again. And Maurizio had said nothing to her. Abruptly she turned to Elena. “Did you ever ask Maurizio if Leo had turned up at the casino again?” she demanded.
A change came over Elena. She seemed to flinch. “No, I—I didn’t like to.”
There was real apprehension in her voice, as though even in his absence Maurizio had the power to frighten her. Terri had seen this reaction before and thought Elena was exaggerating, but now she wondered what else she’d never suspected about him. She loved him, yet suddenly he loomed in her mind as a figure of vague menace, not the tender, passionate lover who’d brought her to life, but a man that people feared—and with good reason.
When Elena spoke again, she seemed to have recovered her confidence. “Teresa, I’m surprised you didn’t know all this. You and Maurizio seem so close.”
“Yes,” Terri said heavily. “Seemed.”
For the rest of the day, she functioned on automatic while her divided self argued, one half refusing to believe that Maurizio had been deceiving her, the other half full of dread for what she would discover next. Elena sent her home early, and as soon as Terri reached the Midas, she consulted a map of Italy. She found Callena easily. It was about ten miles outside Rome.
A resolution was growing within her. She called Elena and asked for the next few days off. “Have you asked Maurizio about Leo?” Elena said.
“I can’t. He’s at Terranotte. I have to go there myself and find out what’s been happening.”
“Terri, be careful. Maurizio is a dangerous man.”
“I think I’ve always known that,” Terri said somberly. “But I can’t believe—there must be some innocent explanation.”
“You’d better go. But please be careful.”
*
By twelve o’clock that evening, Terri was on the night train to Rome. She lay awake all night in her sleeper, listen
ing to the rhythm of the wheels while her thoughts went around and around like a mouse trapped on a treadmill. It wasn’t possible—but Maurizio had spoken of needing her forgiveness. What was the truth about this man whom everyone seemed to fear? What did she need to forgive?
At dawn, she had her breakfast at a little café on the main concourse of Rome station, and by the time she’d finished, the offices were beginning to open for the day. She bought a map of the area and hired a car to take her to Callena. It turned out to be a small village, and the first man she stopped directed her to Terranotte.
Her heart was beating madly as she drove the last few miles. Surely she would soon awake and find it had all been a nightmare. But as the miles vanished beneath the wheels and still she didn’t awaken, her face grew more set and determined.
At last she saw the place she was looking for, a rambling yellow stone villa with a red-tiled roof, surrounded by bougainvillea. She drove through the wide arched gate and brought the car to an abrupt halt. As she jumped out, a man came forward and with horror she saw that he had a large gap between his two front teeth, just like the man who’d gone to the Busoni to pay Leo’s bill and collect his things. “Where is he?” Terri screamed at him.
The man frowned and stared. Terri dodged around him and ran into the house, her shoes echoing on the tiled floor. “Leo—” she called. “Leo—”
Only silence answered her. She ran upstairs and began to look in room after room, crying his name, but there was no sign of him. Then, in the last room, she stopped and stared while her stomach churned and terror grew in her.
It was an empty bedroom. The bed was stripped and the room was bare, but a wardrobe door had swung open and inside Terri could see a dark blue shirt that she recognized. She’d given it to Leo last Christmas. “Oh, dear God!” she whispered. She pulled the shirt off the hanger and clutched it to her, as if she could somehow make contact with her brother. “Leo, what’s happened to you?”
She became aware of a shadow in the doorway and whirled to confront Maurizio. “Where is he?” she screamed. “What have you done with him?”
Maurizio was very pale beneath his tan. “I’d give anything for you not to have found out like this.”
“Found out what? What have you been keeping from me?”
“Teresa, please listen to me—”
Terri cast aside the shirt and ran to seize Maurizio by the shoulders. “Where is he?” she cried, shaking him. “What have you done with him?”
“Nothing, I swear it.”
“Where is he?”
Maurizio took a long, ragged breath. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me. Haven’t you told me enough lies?”
“I’m not lying,” he said desperately. “I’ve no idea where Leo is.”
“Are you going to pretend that he wasn’t here?”
“No. He was here, but he left four days ago.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell anyone he was going—just slipped away.”
“What was he doing here all this time? Didn’t you tell him I was looking for him?”
“Teresa, please don’t rush to judge me,” Maurizio begged. “Nothing is the way it looks. Leo has been ill. He was here on a visit when he came down with a fever. I got him the best medical attention to be had—a doctor and two nurses doing shifts around the clock. They pulled him through but—”
“But what?” Terri asked wildly.
“But when his fever abated, he—he wasn’t quite himself. Physically he’s strong again but his mind wanders.”
“What do you mean—wanders?” she demanded, aghast.
“He doesn’t know who he is. Sometimes he seems on the verge of remembering, but then the moment passes. Mostly his mind is filled with confusion.”
“Oh, my God!” Terri wept. “Poor Leo. I could have helped him. If he’d seen me, everything could have come back to him. Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
Maurizio took a deep breath. “That’s a long story, and I want you to listen to me carefully.”
“Oh, I’ll listen all right. Because I’m fascinated to know what kind of explanation you can offer for concealing Leo from me. And all the time you— we—” She choked with bitter memory.
“That had nothing to do with it,” he said harshly. “What happened between us was—was something separate.”
“Separate? How could it be? I’m not like you. I can’t keep my life in neatly packaged compartments. I could never deceive you as you’ve deceived me because I—” She shuddered.
“Because you what?”
“Never mind. Whatever there was, is all over now. Did you enjoy tricking me, all the time knowing you had Leo here in secret?”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, and I never will. What kind of man could behave as you’ve done? What kind of man are you, Maurizio.”
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “A madman, perhaps. If my behavior seems strange to you—it seems stranger to me. But I was driven by things you know nothing of.”
“Yes, I’m starting to realize that I’ve never known anything where you were concerned,” she said. “It was all planned, wasn’t it? The room that was ‘overbooked’ so that I’d be put into a better one—you wanted me to stay, and making me comfortable was one way of ensuring it. And the day I went to the Busoni and you appeared out of nowhere. That wasn’t a coincidence. You followed me there to keep tabs on me and find out how much I’d learned. It’s all been a careful front to deceive me.”
He was shocked to hear her put it like that, but mostly shocked by the realization that she was right. It had started out that way. Yet that seemed so long ago, in another life, before he’d discovered her beauty of body and spirit and felt his heart thawing to new life. He felt as though he were standing on the edge of a precipice, trying not to glance down at what awaited him if he made a clumsy move, knowing he had no choice but to begin the perilous crossing. “Teresa, please be calm and hear me out.”
“Calm?” she echoed bitterly. “I don’t feel as if I could ever be calm again.”
“But it’s only in calmness that you could hope to understand,” he said desperately. “Try to set aside your anger while I explain.”
But she clung to her anger, knowing that she needed it. If anger evaporated, it would leave a vacuum that would be filled by grief, agonizing grief that the man who’d brought her heart and body to life had been wearing a mask. And behind that mask was a coldhearted schemer. She looked at Maurizio from hard eyes. “All right” she said. “I’m as calm as I’ll ever be. Explain.”
“Not here—not like this.”
“Now,” she said in a voice of iron.
To his horror, Maurizio found himself struggling for words. He’d always been the man in command while others were at a disadvantage, but now it was hard to speak under the gaze of her accusing eyes. He drew a deep breath. “In the beginning,” he said, “it all seemed so straightforward—a simple matter of revenge.”
“Revenge? Against Leo? Against me? What have we ever done to you?”
“Nothing. But your mother has done me great harm.”
“My mother?”
“Elena Calvani.”
She stared at him in horror. “You knew she was my mother? You’ve known all this time?”
“Leo told me everything one evening when he’d had too much to drink. I’ve hated Elena ever since she drove my brother to his death. I’d lived for revenge, and suddenly I saw how to achieve it.”
“By spiriting Leo away?”
“I told you that was an accident. Leo became ill while he was here.”
“And you made use of his illness?” she asked scornfully.
“That’s not true. I thought only of getting him well.”
“So he was more use to you alive than dead?”
Maurizio clenched his hands. He didn’t know how to deal with her jeering accusations. “I thought only of getting him
well,” he repeated. “It wasn’t until he was out of danger and I returned to Venice that I saw—” He stopped, realizing that whatever he said next, she would despise him.
“Well? What did you see?”
“That Elena was worried. He’d never told her who he was but I believe she guessed. And when he disappeared from Venice—”
“You used it to torment her.”
“Yes,” he shouted. “Just as she tormented my poor brother, through his love for her, tormented him until he couldn’t endure life any longer and went to his death—a death she could have prevented. Don’t judge me. There’s too much you can’t comprehend.”
“How convenient,” she snapped. “What a perfect excuse for despicable behavior.”
He was deadly pale. “Teresa, I warn you—”
“You warn me?” she echoed incredulously. “Who do you think you are to warn me? Because of you, Leo is sick, lost, maybe in danger. You might at least have kept him safe.”
“I thought he was safe. I gave orders that he was to be watched at all times for his own protection, but somehow he managed to slip away.”
She turned away from him and sat down on the bed, clutching Leo’s shirt to her as if it were a talisman. “It was him I saw, wasn’t it?” she asked, dazed. “On the bridge in Venice—it was him.”
“I don’t know. It might have been.”
“It was him—as you knew it was. You kept saying it couldn’t be him—but you knew.”
“No,” he said quickly. “I didn’t know he’d left here. I didn’t find out until afterward.”
She looked at him from stony eyes. “I don’t believe you. He must have been missing for at least a day by then. You knew it could be him.”
“No, because—”
“Because what?” An ironic note came into Terri’s voice. “Surely you can tell me anything now? What can be worse than what I’ve already discovered?”
“All right. My people here didn’t try to contact me until three days after he’d gone.”
Terri considered this in silence before nodding. “They were afraid to tell you, weren’t they?” she demanded bitterly.
