Her heart beating faster, Maria pulled the car with a screech off the highway and onto a local road that soon became unpaved.
Caves, she thought. Caves that wind through limestone cliffs are wonderful hiding places.
Parking the car, she walked between little pastel villas bordering the beach. She stopped to ask several women in the street if they’d seen either of the Serilos, or a little boy…and she described Michael. But they all shook their heads.
She continued on across the sand. The fishing dories were out, only a few nets remained, having been hung out to dry. An old man sat on a rock, mending a net by hand, watching the water, working automatically as if he could see through the tips of his fingers. As she came closer she noticed that his eyes were cloudy, and she guessed he was mostly blind. Yet his stitches were exact and strong.
She stopped beside him. “Did a little boy come this way with two men?” she asked. He might have heard them even if he couldn’t see.
The old man straightened up but didn’t answer.
She tried in her broken Italian. “Un bambino e due uomi…dove?” It was the best she could do with her nerves singing in her ears.
His eyes widened, although they remained unfocused. “Si.” He continued in Italian, and she thought she understood…something about early one morning, before his sons left to fish.
“Dove?” she asked excitedly.
He pointed down the beach. That way!
Her heart raced as her gaze followed the direction of his finger. At the far end of the beach were a few houses, but before them were the low cliffs…and the caves.
Maria hesitated only a moment. “Molte grazie,” she murmured, patting the old man’s hands as she started to move away from him then broke into a run.
She jogged along the beach, then cut up across the sand to the base of the cliffs where she imagined she’d be less likely to be seen. She considered driving back to the villa to tell the police that she knew where Michael was, but it seemed premature.
She kicked herself for not taking the time to bring her cell phone with her. Then she might have simply called the masseria and alerted the police to the possibility. She also could have checked to see if Antonio had returned.
Maria was glad she had worn her good, rubber-soled walking shoes instead of sandals. The limestone ledges, encrusted with barnacles, were sharp and might have sliced through thin leather soles. She had to be careful how she gripped the rocks above her. By the time she reached the mouth of the first cave, her palms were raw. She wiped traces of blood on her shorts and peered into the darkness, listening.
Nothing.
Maria moved further along the ledge, then up to the next higher cave. When she reached it, she thought it was as empty sounding as the first, and was about to move on to another when she heard a soft snuffling sound.
She backed up. Listened harder.
A man’s voice shouted, “Silencio!”
The crying only increased. She cautiously peered around the edge of rock, into the opening of the cave. A lantern’s glow shimmered against the inside walls.
Slowly, she moved closer, until she could see a crude pallet spread with a blanket. On it lay Michael, one little ankle chained to a rusty anchor. He kicked his foot, wailed and threw himself down on the dirty blanket, then pulled at the chain with his hands, continuing to wail.
Her heart broke.
“I said, keep your trap shut!” a voice yelled in a rough Italian dialect.
She shifted her line of sight, and there was Marco, his brother sitting on the floor of the cave beside him.
“He’s too young to understand,” Frederico said. “He’s scared. I told you we shouldn’t do this.”
“It’s working. They have my demands. All we have to do is pick up the money tomorrow morning. You think a Boniface isn’t going to pay for his own blood? His only son?” He laughed nastily. “We should have asked for twice as much. He would have paid.” Marco turned back to Michael, whose wails had merged into a single ear-piercing screech. “Shut up or I’ll put the gag back on you, kid.”
Maria had no trouble understanding what was going on. And she could read the fear in the little boy’s eyes.
She wished she had some kind of weapon. A gun!
She’d drive off the two men and take Michael away. As it was, she had no means of forcing them to give up the child. Maybe they were armed anyway! And she knew nothing about guns and starting a shooting match would be foolish, only put the child and herself in worse danger.
Her only alternative was to go for help, but she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Michael with these two desperate men. One more yowl from the child might set off Marco. She wouldn’t put it beyond the bastard to strike him.
It would be dark soon.
She wondered if she should wait a while, keeping watch to make sure Michael wasn’t harmed. Then, when it was dark, she could sneak in and steal him back while the two men slept.
Maria found a niche just inside the cave’s mouth where she would be out of sight. The light began to fade outside, and Michael sobbed more softly, as if too exhausted to produce any volume.
She waited.
At last, the little boy fell asleep, then Frederico nodded off, and last of all Marco. She wore no watch but estimated, after what seemed like a long time, that it must be after midnight. She was stiff and cold from pressing herself into the rock crevice.
Carefully, she inched out from her hiding place. Moving soundlessly across the cave floor, she watched the two men for any sign of consciousness, but neither moved or altered his breathing. She was nearly to Michael, already calculating how she might gently ease him into her arms as she had many times before without waking him, when a squeal of delight erupted through the cave.
“’Ria! ’Ria!”
She stared in horror at the child, pressing a finger to her lips as she spun, looking for a place to hide. Nothing. And there was no time to grab him and make her escape. When she swung around again, Marco Serilo was between her and the cave’s entrance, and his brother was sitting up, scowling at her.
Marco grinned demonically. “Hey, brother! Looks like we have a complication.”
Fourteen
Antonio had spent the entire day after leaving Maria in bed, in the heat, scouring the countryside on foot. Searching scores of tiny houses, trulli, barns and shacks tucked into rocky landscape he thought the police might have missed. He returned exhausted, defeated, to the main house in the early morning hours.
He didn’t go upstairs to the bedroom. He wouldn’t disturb Maria, didn’t wish to talk about the discouraging day. The police, when he’d contacted them during the day and night, had had no better luck, and now they were talking about the possibility that Michael might have been taken out of the country.
For the first time in his life he understood the anguish of a young mother who loses her child. As a father robbed of his son, he felt no less pain. He felt utterly helpless.
Antonio poured himself a grappa from the crystal carafe in his office. The strong, thick liquor burned its way down his throat, simmered in his belly. He had never cared for the taste of the stuff. Tonight it seemed mild punishment for his failure as a father. He vowed if Michael was brought home safely, things would change. He would change. He would be more of a father to the little boy.
More of a man in other ways too.
Antonio sank onto the couch, buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t have said when the tears stopped and his body sagged limply against the cushions.
He woke with a start and looked around the dark room. Through the window streamed a faint peach-colored light, the shade of the inside of a seashell, and he knew dawn wasn’t far away. He forced himself to his feet and wearily climbed the stairs, wanting to stop in and see that Maria was all right before he splashed water on his face and went off again to meet with the police captain who would oversee the payment of the ransom.
As soon as he walked through the bedroom door, he
sensed that something was wrong. One look at the bed assured him this was so. It hadn’t been slept in. After a quick search of the house and grounds, he realized that Maria was no longer on the property and his car was missing.
No one else in the household would have borrowed it. Maria. Had she gone after Michael?
Panic consuming him, he ran for the gate. “The American woman…have you seen her?”
The guard checked his log. “She left last evening in your car, Your Highness. I just came on duty, but it doesn’t look as if she’s come back yet.”
His mind whirled, then stuck on first hopeful, then horrifying possibilities. If she’d somehow found Michael…wouldn’t that be wonderful! But then why wasn’t she back here? What had happened to keep her from returning?
The only answer he could come up with set him reeling. Someone had stopped her!
For a long moment, he couldn’t move. The fear of losing both of them was devastating. He struggled to think. Calmly, rationally. But in the end he did what he’d always done, what had always worked when he was troubled or confused.
He gazed out across the fields at the gnarled, ancient olive trees ranging away from the villa. The instincts that his ancestors had taken into battle, had won them the land he now cultivated, had brought victory over invaders and the elements, surged into action.
It was morning.
Maria watched the light alter almost imperceptibly from nonexistent to a dim, pearly gray, to the clear blue-white of the earliest hours of day. Little Michael lay with his head in her lap. As soon as Marco had seen the calming effect Maria had on the little boy, he’d put the two of them together and lashed only Maria to the anchor.
She hadn’t slept, but Michael had snuggled up in her lap and closed his eyes as soon as she’d started singing softly to him. She hadn’t dared sleep for fear of what the two men might do to her. Or to the child.
They were still arguing while she pretended to sleep.
“I say we take them down to the beach and let them go.” Frederico stood up from the rock where he had been sitting and stood over his brother. “If we tell no one where they are, it is as good as murder. They will starve to death, if the cold doesn’t get them first.”
“So it is a different form of punishment for Il Principe than I’d planned. It is no less effective,” Marco sneered. “Probably better. He has so much money, giving us a little wouldn’t hurt him. This—” he waved a hand toward his captives “—this will hurt him very deeply. It is appropriate.”
Maria’s heart pounded wildly within her chest. Her eyes burned but remained dry. She would never see Antonio again. She would never be able to tell him how much she loved him, how precious his little boy was to her, how desperately she had come to love this magnificent country of his. All of that was impossible now.
But most of all, she mourned little Michael’s fate. If there was anything she could do to give him a chance of surviving…
“You don’t want to do that!” she blurted out, her heart shooting up into her throat.
The two men spun and glared at her.
“Do what? Kill you?” Marco laughed low and meanly in his throat. “But you’ve spoiled everything, signorina. You’ve left us no choice. Don’t insult me by claiming you wouldn’t identify us if we released you.”
“Of course I’d turn you in,” she snapped at him. “Without hesitation. But the baby. He’s innocent. Your brother is right. No court in the world would take the statement of a three-year-old as proof of identity. And he’s still worth as much to you as before, perhaps more. If you return him safely to his father.”
In Frederico’s sad gaze she saw compassion and respect. He knew she was begging for the child’s life. “She’s right, Marco. Leave her here. We will take the child and get the money coming to us.”
“No!” Marco roared, suddenly wild with rage. “The money isn’t enough! She is just an employee to him. She means nothing to Il Principe. But the child. If he is never found, the man will suffer all of his life. I have decided.” He pounded a fist to his own chest. “It is what I want.”
“But it’s not what I want!” a voice echoed from the mouth of the cave.
Marco nearly fell over as he swung about to face a different Antonio Boniface than Maria had ever seen. Silhouetted against the sunshine-filled opening of the cave, his dark figure nearly filled the space. His eyes were deep, blue-black pits of reckoning. The set of his mouth was vicious. His voice barely contained his fury.
“Don’t come any closer,” Marco snarled. “I have your son and the signorina. Both will die before you take me.”
“I don’t think so, Marco.”
Marco grinned and pulled a gun from beneath his shirt. “I think so.”
“No, Marco!” Frederico pleaded. “It has gone too far. A little money was all right, but this is murder.” He reached for his brother’s gun, but Marco snatched it away from him.
“If you want to punish anyone, make it me, Marco,” Antonio growled, taking a step closer to the man. “Kill me. That’s what you really want to do. Isn’t it?”
“No!” Maria cried, clutching Michael to her. The child woke with a start and began to cry.
Antonio ignored them. “I’m going to take that gun away from you, Marco. Then I’m going to take my child and my woman home. You aren’t going to hurt anyone.”
Marco frowned at Antonio, his mouth quirking into a quizzical grimace, as if he didn’t understand what was happening. “You fool. I am the one with the gun!
He raised the muzzle toward Antonio’s chest.
Maria screamed, crushing Michael’s head to her breast, covering both his eyes and ears. In the back of her mind Antonio’s words reverberated: My woman…my woman…my woman. But it’s too late, a voice warned. Too late!
Suddenly, one thing after another happened so quickly she could barely follow the motions.
With a shout of anguish, Frederico threw himself at his brother, missing the gun. The weapon fired, and Antonio tackled Marco, landing on top of him on the floor of the cave. Then, from the shadows behind Maria came a strange scurrying noise, scrambling footfalls, shouts, an explosion of men in uniform.
In seconds, the nightmare was over.
The police, arriving through a connecting tunnel to the cave, had cuffed Marco and his brother, escorted them out of the cave and down to the beach where official vehicles waited.
Antonio cradled Michael in his arms, pulled Maria to his chest as she closed his eyes with blessed relief. He brushed the top of her head with his lips and whispered over and over into the pale wisps of hair, “Thank you. Thank you for finding my son, Maria.”
She nodded against his shirt, soaked with her own tears. Swallowed the salty flow, trying to stop crying, wanting to speak but still unable.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “They didn’t hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine. Michael is too. I’ve already checked him out. He was giving them one hell of a list of complaints. Just like his father. Won’t take anything from anyone.”
Antonio smiled dimly and kissed her forehead for good measure as they walked from the cave.
“How did you find us?” she asked.
“We saw the Ferrari on the road. The caves echo even soft voices. We heard loud arguing and followed the sounds. Now let’s go home.”
She dug in her heels and looked up at him, at last blinking away tears. “Just one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Your woman?” She pursed her lips and waited.
He rolled his eyes. “I guessed you’d want an explanation for that.”
But it was two days later before that conversation would be completed. During that time, the press was constantly at the gates and calling on the phone. The Serilo brothers had been arraigned in court in Brindisi, and were being held for trial.
In addition, Antonio had flown hastily to Rome then to Naples for reasons unclear to Maria. All she knew was that he’d assured her the trips were important a
nd had to do with the groves.
While he was gone, she spent time with Michael and, to her surprise, Genevra. Antonio’s mother asked her to dinner one day, to lunch the next, and the woman had been remarkably civil. She never directly thanked Maria for her role in rescuing her grandchild, but it seemed a foregone conclusion that relations between the two women would be different from here on.
It was all the thanks Maria needed.
The rest of her days were full of last-minute details related to the advertising campaign. There was still a great deal to do if they were to launch Boniface Olive Oil before the holiday season, but most of the work could be handled in the States.
Maria was both excited and saddened by the prospect of seeing her plans come to fruition. The completion of her job meant the end of her days in Italy, with Antonio.
On the evening he returned from Rome, Antonio asked Maria to dine with him in his suite. Hours earlier, he had seemed preoccupied and solemn. She feared that the trauma of the last few days had reinstated his fear of loss. Her heart ached at the thought of their parting.
Maria dressed with care for their dinner. One of their last, it seemed. She chose one of her favorite dresses—dazzling white cotton, full-skirted with an off-the-shoulder neckline and cap sleeves. She had bought it at mercato one sunny morning. It would always remind her of Italy.
The night was warm and fragrant with lushly blooming roses in the garden. Antonio had arranged for their meal to be served on a table on the patio outside his rooms. Candles in cut-glass globes lined the surrounding low stone wall. Flowers adorned the table. The setting was decidedly romantic, and if she hadn’t been so nervous she would have been entranced by his thoughtfulness.
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