Hunting Daylight (9781101619032) (45 page)

From inside the house, I heard the Dolfini children talking in excited voices, and I remembered when Vivi had been young.

Oh, Vivi
, I thought.
If only I had given you sisters and brothers.

Our constant traveling would have made it harder with two children, but Jude and I would have managed. And Vivi wouldn’t have been alone.

I was still thinking about her when Signore Dolfini and his daughters walked through the shadowy garden, toward the boat dock.

Raphael strode onto the terrace and put his arms around me. I detected an intriguingly different smell, a clean, lemony-orange scent with a trace of rosemary. Then I realized he’d changed his cologne—he always wore Acqua di Parma when he was at Villa Primaverina. It was the same fragrance that Jude had worn. For a moment, I felt disoriented, and I stared at the dark lagoon. I was breathing in layers of history, all of those long-ago moments with Jude and Raphael.

The Dolfinis’ boat chugged away from the dock, and the spotlight fanned across the dark lagoon. The horn tooted, then the boat angled toward Venice. I pressed the back of my head against Raphael’s chest.

“
Sei l’amore della mia vita
,” he said.

“You’re the love of my life, too,” I said. The inverna
rushed over the terrace, stirring my dress and filling me with all kinds of longings.

“It will stop blowing at midnight,” Raphael said, smoothing my hair.

“I’m enjoying it.” I put my hand over his. “I also enjoyed watching you with Signore Dolfini’s daughters.”

“Nicci and Viola are the eldest,” he said, his voice holding a lightness, just a hint of laughter. “He has two babies at home. Luisa is four. Bettina is six months.”

I turned and put my arms around his neck. “You’ll be a loving father.”

“When the gods are willing.” He bent down to kiss my wrist, and his hair brushed over my arm, cool and silky.

“I can’t wait for them, Raphael.” I held his gaze while the wind moved around us, pushing my hair into his. He picked me up and carried me straight to his room. While he swallowed Benadryl tablets, I unbuttoned my dress and dropped it on a chair.

“
Sei bellissima
,” he whispered, pulling off his shirt.

I didn’t feel beautiful, but I did feel his love. He walked up to me. I kissed his palm, inhaling him. God had granted me two great loves, and I did not want to be undeserving of that blessing. I would love this man for the rest of my life.

Raphael’s phone trilled through the dark bedroom. He reached across me, toward the table, and lifted the receiver. “
Si?
” he said.

I heard Beppe’s excited voice, but I couldn’t make out the words. I pulled up on my elbows, frowning. Raphael’s
butler was famously coolheaded in emergencies. I’d seldom heard him speak above a bass-baritone, but now I heard a tenor, edged with a falsetto. Something was horribly wrong. Had the vampires found us again?

A shape moved beneath the covers, and I jumped. Arrapato’s dark head popped out from beneath the blanket. I pulled him against me.

“Did she say what happened?” Raphael asked Beppe.

She? I blinked. The intruder was female? A sudden vision of the French designer whirled behind my eyes. Or maybe Gillian had finally arrived.

“Show them to the terrace,” Raphael said, then hung up.

Them? I swallowed. Now I was hoping the angry-eyed designer had arrived. She was preferable to the nebulous
them
. Raphael rose from the bed and picked up our clothes, tossing them over his shoulder. His silence worried me, and I tried to peek at his thoughts, but I bumped into an obsidian slab.

I stroked Arrapato’s head. He looked up at me and sighed.

Raphael put on his trousers, then handed me the blue dress. I slipped it over my head, then I stared up at him, waiting for him to explain. We’d never pressured or wheedled each other. Maybe that was one reason we were so compatible, but I couldn’t take the silence another second.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

He knelt beside the bed and took my face in his hands. “Sabine is here,” he said.

We rushed to the terrace. Through the open doors, I saw the lights of St. Mark’s Square.

“Caro,” Sabine said. She pushed away from the railing. A wide piece of tape stretched across her nose, and her eyes were bruised. Her hands and knees were raw and scabbed. From the ground, a Sherpa bag emitted meows, and Marie-Therese pushed her face against the mesh panel.

“We’re so sorry,” Lena said. She stepped forward, one side of her face bandaged. Beppe and La Rochenoire stood at the other end of the terrace, their arms folded, expressions grim. Maria was there, too, and her eyes were swollen, as if she’d been crying.

No, no, no.
I put one hand on my chest, my heart thudding against my palm. My vision blurred. “Where’s Vivi?”

Raphael came up behind me and folded his arms around me. Something broke inside me, a quick, final sound like the crack of a dogwood branch.

Lena began to weep. “They took her,” she said, barely moving her jaw, like someone who’d just had dental surgery.

Sabine stepped forward. “Be strong,” she said. “Vivi was kidnapped.”

SUTHERLAND, SOUTH AFRICA

A rhythmic
whap-whap-whap
noise roared in Vivi’s ears. She was lying on a metal floor, her hands and feet bound, cold air blowing all around her. She lifted her head. A door of some kind stood open, and daylight poured in like clear water. Beyond the door was a bench. Four men in uniforms were sitting on it, earphones clamped over their heads, a steel wall curving behind them. Way up front, two men in black helmets sat in a cockpit, dials spread out in front of them.

I’m in a helicopter?
She grimaced, trying to remember how she’d gotten there, but the din sliced through her mind, leaving torn images. A vineyard. The coppery smell of blood. Bodies in a driveway.

“Hey,” she yelled at the men.

They didn’t seem to hear her. She tried to get up, but her hands and feet were latched together. A man rose from the bench and made her lie down. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. He had food in his teeth, and his breath smelled like an ashtray. Another man walked up and stuck a needle in Vivi’s neck.

Ow, ow, that hurt. Dammit, stop doing that.
She whipped from side to side, screaming as loud as she could.

The man shouted something, his lips moving over his dirty teeth, and then he put a smelly finger over her mouth.

She nodded. He wanted her to shut the hell up.
I’ll be good, mister.

She pressed her lips together, but some part of her kept screaming, the sound rising from her pores like a vapor. Maybe the man had given her another shot. Maybe he hadn’t. She thought maybe he had.

The floor tilted beneath her. Through the open door, she saw a rumpled ocean and boats. Or was she dreaming? Because her eyelids wouldn’t stay open. She felt the tug of gravity, then let herself fall.

Vivi awoke in stages, like a swimmer moving out of deep, black water, pushing through the rippled blue, toward the luminous surface. She opened her eyes and blinked, taking in her surroundings. It was nighttime. A dashboard cast a glow across the front seat of a big van; she was sitting up, her shoulders wedged between two men. The driver had a buzz cut and a square face. He wore a camouflage uniform and shiny boots. So did the man on her right.

Who were they? Why couldn’t she remember anything? Her thoughts rose up in waves and went still. She tried to wipe her eyes, but her wrists were caught behind her back. Her ankles were bound, too.

The van hit a pothole, and Vivi keeled toward the steering wheel.

“Oopsy-daisy,” the driver said. “She’s tippin’ over, Dave.”

The man named Dave caught her shoulder. “There you go,” he said.

Their voices moved above her head, slow and sticky as sugar water, reminding her of how Gillian talked. The Southern way.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“In a van,” the driver said.

“Yes, but where?”

“South Africa.”

“Africa?”
She blinked. “How’d I get here?”

“On a broom. How d’ya think?” The driver chuckled.

“Hang in there,” Dave said. “We’re almost to the compound.”

“What compound?” she asked.

“No more questions, kid.” The driver mashed his lips together.

I’ve got to Induce these men and run.
She inhaled, swallowed, and tightened her belly. Then she shoved a thought toward the driver.
Stop the van. Let me out!

The driver swatted at the side of his face, as if shooing a mosquito. He lifted his arm and wiped his ear on his sleeve. “My ears are popping like the dickens,” he said.

“Mine ain’t,” Dave said. “Chew you some gum. That’ll help.”

“Nah. I’ll be fine.”

Something’s wrong
, Vivi thought.
I hit him hard, and he’s still driving.

Her cheekbone throbbed, and one of her eyes felt smaller, like it was swollen, but she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten hurt. She forced her eyes to stay open and looked out the windshield. The headlights poured two bowls of light onto a gravel road, but she couldn’t see anything beyond that because it was too dark.

The van stopped in front of a tall wire gate. Barbed wire was coiled around the top, and floodlights spilled down, brightening dead weeds and more barbed wire. Two men in berets ran out of a little house and pulled open the gate. The van rumbled through, the headlights bouncing over the rutted gravel road.

“Goddamn vampires,” the driver muttered.

“Copy that,” Dave said. “Soon as I’m finished here, I’m headed back to Afghanistan.”

“Anyplace beats this shithole,” the driver said.

Lights fanned around a one-story, tan concrete building. A tall fence circled it, and men with guns stood outside. The van stopped, and the driver shut off the engine. Dave lifted Vivi off the seat and carried her on his shoulder, as if she were no heavier than a winter jacket.

“Catch you later,” he told the driver. Then Dave put her onto a wide veranda, through double doors, into a lobby. It was poorly lit, filled with cold, red air. He set her down, and her knees collapsed.

“I got you, honey,” Dave said, lifting her up. She craned her neck, looking for exit signs, trying to remember the layout.

Two men in uniforms waited at the end of a long hall. One man was short and wiry, and a thin mustache was sketched over his mouth. The older man had bushy salt-and-pepper hair. A hospital gurney stood behind them.

Soldiers
, Vivi thought. Was she in a military hospital?

The driver put her on the cot. Her hands and feet were still bound, so she rolled onto her stomach, slid off the gurney, and scooted under it. The soldiers dropped to their knees and reached for her. A hand clamped over her face, and she sank her teeth into his palm.

The man howled and jerked back, shouting in a strange language, one that sounded like exotic music.

The gray-haired man laughed and said something musical, too, then put a strip of tape over Vivi’s mouth. His hazel eyes circled her face, and then he looked up at Dave. Vivi had forgotten that he was still there.