Dying For Siena (30 page)

“Sure,” he said, sipping his second glass more slowly. “Leonardo asked me what I thought about the idea, and I said absolutely.” He flicked food from his beard and his wild, intelligent eyes lit up. “I have a colleague at Cambridge who’s working on non-linear economic behavior. He’ll be coming in for week-long seminars. You’ll like him. He said he wanted to work on a project with you.”

Leonardo poured some
spumante
for Jean-Pierre and slid it down the table. “
Félicitations, chérie
,” Jean-Pierre said, lifting his flute.

Up the hill, Grif saw the
spumante
and celebratory air and grinned. He clasped his hands and raised them over his shoulders like a prizefighter who’d won the championship. Grif turned to Madeleine sitting next to him and said something.

Madeleine straightened and shot Faith a vicious look, chilling her. Then Faith shrugged. The hostility was Madeleine’s problem, not hers.

Leonardo nodded to Grif and shot his thumb in the air. He turned to Faith. “Griffin was certain you’d say yes, my dear. But I haven’t actually heard
you
say it. So what’s your answer? Will you accept a year’s contract at the New Economy Foundation?”

A man’s voice called something out and the table around her erupted in laughter and cheers, the noise echoing off the walls.

It was almost night. Only a faint glow remained in the sky. The street was lit by torches fixed into slots in the ground and candles on the tables. It would have been a romantic, dreamy scene except for the nervous energy erupting all around her. She’d never felt so alive in all her life.

“Yes,” Faith said. “Oh, yes.”

Chapter Thirteen

Don’t lose heart…They might want to cut it out.

The morning of the
Palio
found Dante at his desk at 7:00 a.m. without his cappuccino and
cornetto.
He’d had no choice but to come into the office in that sorry state at what, for him, was the crack of dawn.

Where on earth could he stop for breakfast?

There wasn’t a bar in town where he wouldn’t have been detained for at least an hour, chewing over probabilities and jockey peculiarities or—in his own
contrada
—exulting in the certain upcoming win. He didn’t want to waste any time today. He wanted to be out and free by eleven to watch the last trial heat at 12:30 p.m.

Otherwise there was nothing in this world which would have him sitting at his desk at seven—on an empty stomach!—instead of lying in his bed, preferably with a partner. A pretty one.

He had walked into the
Questura
with the bravado of the utterly virtuous and had been disgruntled to see Loiacono already in the big, airy, communal office all the inspectors shared, hunched over some papers.

Dante stuck his head through the door. “
Ciao,
Loiacono.”

The southerner looked up and blinked owlishly as if torn from his thoughts, and Dante could see that it took Loiacono a moment to register his presence. Then he shot to his feet before Dante could say, “Don’t rise.”

“I’ll be in my office,” Dante told him.
But not before making myself some coffee
, he thought, and headed for the interrogation room.

“
Commissario
, there’s something I think you should read.” Loiacono picked up the papers from his desk and swiveled like a robot to follow Dante’s progress.

Probably the thousandth ministerial circular this year,
Dante thought with a sigh. They seemed to have the power of Holy Writ for Loiacono.

“Uh-huh,” he said without enthusiasm. “Just as soon as—”

“The Deerfield Police Department e-mailed some information on the Americans up at the
Certosa
,” Loiacono interrupted. “Sir, I was just now looking through it.”

Dante had been reaching up for the
Lavazza
coffee kept next to the 1998 edition of the
Civil Code
that no one ever read. “Deerfield?” He dropped back to his heels, the coffee forgotten. “I didn’t know you could read English, Loiacono.”

Loiacono stood stiffly. “Seven years at the Naples British Institute. Night classes, sir.”

Even his voice sounded stiff. Dante squelched a sigh. Now he’d gone and ruffled those sensitive southern feathers and was going to have to repair the damage. On an empty stomach, to boot.

“Well, I must’ve missed that in your file, Loiacono. But be sure that I’ll mention your superior knowledge of English in my report to the
Vice Questore
, and that it’s been of invaluable service to the case. The
Vice Questore
will be delighted that we have, ah—” Was he laying it on too thick? “That we have such forward-looking officers in our service.” Dante wound down.

Loiacono hadn’t changed expression.

“So—what did Deerfield say? Anything interesting?”

“Very.” Loiacono looked grim. He always looked grim, but there was a special quality to it this morning. “Very interesting. It looks like Madeleine Kobbel neglected to tell us she was married to Professor Roland Kane.”

At the
Certosa
, Nick leaned against the wall, arms crossed, staring at Faith’s closed and locked door, as he had been doing for the last two hours.

He’d watched the dawn from the big windows facing one of the smaller inner courtyards, as the sky turned from pale gray to robin’s egg blue. It would be bright cobalt by the midday trial heat, and would be light blue tinged with red-gold by late afternoon.

Restless, he jingled the keys to his grandparents’ house, the keys to his grandfather’s Dedra and the heavy euro coins in his pocket. A door to one of the rooms facing the courtyard downstairs slammed shut and he could hear voices drifting up.

An old man in overalls shambled out with a hose and started watering the plants—roses and some other flowering bushes Nick couldn’t even begin to identify. The sharp smells of heat and dirt and water drifted up—the smells of Italy in summer.

It was the day of the July
Palio
. He’d been in Siena on this day or the day of the August
Palio
at least twenty-five times in his life, and each and every time he’d been happy. Consumed with eagerness if the Snail was running, simply excited at the pageantry when it wasn’t, but always, always happy. Not being happy was so foreign to him it was almost like being in another country.

It was humbling, right now, to realize how happy he’d been all his life, how blessed he’d been in his family and profession, how easy things had always been for him, what a smooth progression his life had been up until now.

Faith hadn’t been so lucky and yet she’d faced her difficulties with a degree of courage and grit and humility that shamed him. He’d been off balance for days now, withdrawn and…sulking. That was the only word for it. The first real hardships of life and he’d stumbled, almost fallen, and had to be picked up by his family.

No more.
He still had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life, and he might drift for a while, but no more sulking, no more feeling sorry for himself.

He would take it one day at a time, one task at a time. And task number one, right now, was seeing that Faith got back to the States safely.

Last night he had convinced Egidio Pecci, the porter, to let him have the empty room next to Faith’s. He’d slept fitfully, one ear cocked for trouble next door, and had risen at dawn, restless, worried about Faith.

She was alive and unharmed, though. Of that he was sure.

Half an hour ago, he’d heard the window shutters opening, then the shower running. And, delightfully, he’d heard her voice raised in song, some pretty Irish ballad.

Her voice was soft and tentative but lovely, which didn’t surprise him. He was beginning to realize she did a lot of things well. She might hide her light under a bushel, but it was a strong light. And a stupid bushel.

Quick approaching footsteps and then her door opened.

“Nick!” She stopped on the threshold, eyes wide. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Making sure you’re okay,” he muttered as his muscles tensed. He was going to catch hell for this.

Her eyebrows drew together. “Have you been out here all night?”

It felt like it. “No. Egidio let me sleep in the room next door.” He shifted his weight off his bad knee and stuck his jaw out. “The room next to yours was empty and I felt better sleeping there than at my grandparents’. I’m sorry if you think I’m interfering, but I just needed to know that you were safe.”

He winced and braced himself for the coming tirade. All the usual stuff about how she didn’t need him and she was fine and he was in her way and he should go. “I’ll be going back to town soon, don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Nick.” To his astonishment, her face softened. She bent to lock the door and turned back to him. There was a smile on her face, one of the very few directed at him he had seen lately. “As you can see, I’m alive.”

She certainly was.

There was something different about her this morning. She was wearing a red sundress he’d never seen before and her hair was up, but that wasn’t it. She had high color beyond the light tan the Sienese sun had given her and she vibrated with excitement, a spring ready to be sprung.

She walked over to him and, to his surprise, took his arm. “Come on. If you were my guard dog all last night, the least I can do is offer you a nice breakfast. And the
Certosa
breakfasts are about the best around.”

Cautiously gauging her mood, Nick let himself smile down at her. “That’s because you haven’t had breakfast at
Nannini’s
yet. I swear they make the best coffee and pastries in the world. Too bad you won’t have a chance to try them out. You’re leaving tomorrow morning, aren’t you?”

Did she squeeze his arm? On the off chance that she had, he tucked her hand more closely into the crook of his elbow.

“Mm,” she said ambiguously and started descending the stairs, slowly, so he could keep up.

She was still smiling. This must be some kind of record. He decided to push his luck a little. “You folks, ah, going to see the
Palio
? You can’t miss it. It’s quite a sight. It would be a shame to come all the way over here and leave without seeing it. Who knows when you’ll come by this way again?”

Her smile deepened and she looked up at him. In the early morning light her light brown eyes looked tawny, like fine brandy, and just as intoxicating.

“You never know,” she said as they reached the ground floor.

They crossed the flowering quadrangle and walked through the small archway leading to the main courtyard. They both stopped as if on cue to admire the scene—bright green grass, towering dark green and brown oak, brick walkway. The big ancient oak tree in the center was so huge its canopy covered the sky while they walked under it toward the refectory.

Even if he didn’t know where the refectory was, he could have found it by smell and sound. The fragrance of freshly brewed espresso and warm
cornetti
was a counterpoint to the sounds of dishes and male voices raised in laughter.

Faith raised her head to the sky and breathed in deeply. Her throat arched, soft and smooth, and his hand itched to touch it. Just once, just run his finger along its smooth, pale length to see if her skin was as soft as he remembered. He clenched his teeth and put his hand in his pocket.

Up ahead, heavy terra-cotta planters on the arched walkway a floor above spilled bright red flowers down several feet like a vibrant, colored curtain. The delicate, lacy blossoms swayed gently in the morning breeze. Nick slowed his pace to enjoy the contrast of the red flowers against the red highlights the bright, early morning sun picked out in Faith’s hair.

Instead of entering the ground floor walkway through one of the four entrances cut into the low wall, Faith stopped and patted the broad gray stone surface of the wall. “Sit down. I have an idea. It’s so beautiful outside, why don’t we have our coffee here? I’ll ask one of the waiters if they’d be willing to serve us out here on a tray. They might. They’ve all been so nice.”

She smiled up at him, slim and vibrant in the morning light, and he thought the waiters would probably run into Siena to get her coffee, if she asked.

“Sounds great.”

It did, too, because out here it might be easier to carve out a little private time with her without having to share her with the geeks still in the breakfast room, inhaling
cornetti
or whatever it was geeks ate.

Already in the courtyard there was probably enough brainpower to run a third world country. There were at least five geeks lounging in the cloisters, eyeing Faith, clearly hoping to catch a word with her. His glare kept them away.

There would probably be another thirty of them inside, and there’d be no hope of sitting at a table alone with Faith for more than a minute. Yeah, it was better to stay out here.

He brushed the gray slab of stone, which still retained the cool of the night, and sat down heavily. His knee really hurt.

Faith came out from the refectory empty-handed and he stood. Obviously, it wasn’t going to be possible to have their coffee outside, so… He smiled appreciatively and shook his head in wonder.

Two waiters were following Faith, one carrying a little round table and the other carrying two cane-bottomed chairs. While one waiter set up the table on the grass, whisking a cotton tablecloth over it, the other disappeared for a moment, returning with a filled tray.

“
Ecco signorina,”
the first waiter said, with a broad sweep of his arm. He pulled back a chair and waited. Faith smiled as she sat and glanced up at him.

“
Grazie.
To both of you.”

They bowed and went back inside.

“Don’t just stand there, Nick,” she said serenely as she poured two cups of coffee for them. There were four
cornetti,
slices of bread, pats of butter, a small jar of honey and a pot of steaming milk. “Come have breakfast.”

The waiter had put the chairs facing each other, but he wanted to sit next to her. He pulled the chair over and sat down. “You put something in the water here? Either that or you’ve cast a spell on them. Tuscans aren’t usually so obliging.”