Lost in Italy (26 page)

Yes she is.

He ignored that voice, turning his attention to another issue that’d occurred to him during the drive to the city.  The reason he’d secretly hidden the video SD card, his one remaining concrete piece of evidence, back at the boat.  When he got justice for Sean and Lorenzo, he’d find a way to return her family memories.

“Listen, even if your brother and sister are here—”

“They are.”

“—have you thought about the rest of your situation?”

“The rest of my situation?” she repeated with a frown.

“I don’t want to scare you, but you do realize that after what happened at the Torno police station, these guys know exactly who you are, right?”

Silence.

“You gave them a copy of your passport.”  Voicing that fact out loud triggered a click in his brain. 
That
must be why he didn’t feel right about leaving her.  Because even after she was back with her family, she wouldn’t be safe. 
Not
because he didn’t want to say goodbye.  Not because he was going to miss her.  “They’ve got your full name, your address back in Wisconsin, everything.  And they know what you recorded.”

“Stop.”

“I’m serious, Halli.  You’ll still have to—”

“
Trent
.  I want to go now.”

“No, damn it!”  He struck the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.  Tension pulsed through the interior of the car, stimulating the hairs on his arm.  “You need to listen to me and understand—”

“I understand, okay? 
I get it.
”  She took a deep breath, but stared straight ahead.  “Now quit ruining everything and take me to the consulate like you promised.”

Ruining everything?  All he was doing was trying to look out for her.  His frustration mounted, but if she didn’t want his help, what could he do?  He was done forcing anything on her.

After a quick check of the mirrors, he shot back out into traffic and made the final turn onto Via Princepe Amedeo.  Buildings rose up along either side of the narrow, one-way street.  Five stories high on the right, with the consulate up ahead on the left in a more modern high-rise.

Halli obviously spotted the American flag flying above a first-floor, side entrance, because she needlessly exclaimed, “There it is!”

She sat forward, and he just knew she was scanning the area for Ben and Rachel.  He slowed down on his way past the consulate entrance, but didn’t see anyone resembling either of her siblings in the video.

“Pull over and I can wait for them here.”  She’d already unbuckled her seat belt.

He kept driving.  “Hold on.  I want to take a drive around the block first.”

“Why?”

“Just humor me, okay?”

She sat back with a huff, arms crossed over her chest.

As he made a left hand turn onto the one-way Via Montebello, he noted his windbreaker folded on her lap.  “Do me a favor and put that jacket on.”

“I’m not cold.”

“Just do it.  And put the hood up.”  He reached up to tug at the bill of his hat, though it really couldn’t go much lower.

“You’re acting like we’re on some sort of covert operation,” she complained.

That was just it, he wasn’t acting at all.  Surprisingly, though, she did as he asked, and pulled the hood up over her head without further prompting.

Coming up on the next intersection, he eased his foot off the gas and flipped the lever for the left turn signal again.  Like many larger cities in Italy, the narrow streets were hell to navigate with the number of cars and the endless confusion of one-ways merging into two-ways.  Looked like they’d have a wait up ahead before the two-way traffic allowed them to continue.

A pedestrian with a backpack slung over one shoulder darted between two parked cars.  Trent braked hard to avoid hitting the guy, automatically reaching a hand to brace Halli.  Good thing, since she hadn’t refastened her seatbelt.  However, his palm collided with the silky blouse and soft curves of her chest.  In a different situation, he might have enjoyed the accidental contact.  Now, he jerked his hand back lest she think he did it on purpose.

That’s when he spotted her sister, sitting on one of the cement barricades partitioning off the small plaza in front of the building that housed the Consulate.  She sat straight and stiff, one forearm across her middle to brace the elbow of her other arm as she chewed on her thumbnail.  Halli’s brother Ben was nowhere to be seen.

Red flags exploded like fireworks.

Trent’s gaze darted to the traffic ahead and back to Rachel again.  Maybe Halli’s sister routinely indulged that particular nervous habit.  Then again, maybe she had a specific reason to be edgy.  Trent kept driving.  Given the past twenty-four hours, he preferred to err on the side of caution.

“There!  That’s Rachel right there.”  Halli bounced in her seat like an excited kid.  “I told you they’d be here!”

Trent stepped on the gas and switched the signal to a right hand turn.  A horn bleeped, conveying the annoyance of the driver on their rear end who’d darted over to go around them.  Rachel’s head jerked in their direction, but she focused on the car behind him.  Thankfully his lane scrabble drew no more notice as more horns blared ahead and behind them.

Halli spun around as Trent drove past her sister.  “What are you doing?”

“Just hold on a sec.”  Trent took the right turn, checked traffic, his review and side mirrors.  No one seemed to be following them.  He pulled over in the first parking spot he saw and jammed the car into park.  A yank on the review mirror confirmed her sister hadn’t moved.

Halli, on the other hand, dove for the door and had one foot out of the vehicle before Trent caught hold of her arm.

She fought him.  “Let me go!”

“Jesus, Halli, stop for just a moment.”  He hauled her back into the car and growled, “Shut the door.”

She rounded on him, blue eyes snapping with fury.  “What the heck is your problem?”

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Tell me about it.  You’re holding me hostage again!”

“Don’t start.  Now shut your door until I can figure out what the hell is going on.”

“There’s nothing going on—”

He felt below his seat, located the pistol with its silencer, and brought it up to wedge between his thigh and the seat, the grip free for an easy grab.  Halli’s eyes grew round as saucers.  He hadn’t let her see him stow the gun in the car when they’d left the boat.

“Shut the door.
”

The car rocked with the force of her compliance.  Trent drew a deep breath, glancing around to see what kind of attention they’d drawn.  Apparently, they were nothing out of the ordinary, because no one cast them anything other than a cursory glance.  Especially now that she’d finally listened to him.

For good measure, he thumbed the automatic locks.  “Now look,” he commanded.  He sunk lower in his seat and twisted around to focus on Rachel, who was just barely visible beyond the corner of the building at the end of the block.  “What do you notice about your sister?”

Halli stubbornly remained facing forward.  “That she’s sitting there all alone probably scared to death wondering if I’m okay.  This has nothing to do with—”

“Dammit, Halli,
look at her
.”

She turned her head to glare at him, then sighed with annoyance, grasped the headrest, and pulled herself around.  “Just like I said.  She looks worried.”

“She’s wearing the same clothes she had on in your video.  And where’s your brother?”

“They were probably looking for me all night.  Ben’s probably checking inside right now while Rachel waits outside so they don’t miss me.”

“Clearly they got your message to meet here, so they knew you were okay and would’ve had no reason to stay up all night looking.”

“Maybe they didn’t get it until this morning.”

Trent held his frustration in check at her single-minded belief that today would be the end of her troubles.  Unfortunately, he’d bet a hell of a lot of money they were far from over.  And, unfortunately, it was up to him to spell it out, letter by un-sugar-coated letter.

“Okay, then, tell me this.  Where’s their Fiat?”

“Their what?”

“The blue rental car your brother was driving.  I don’t see it anywhere.”

“Maybe they parked around the corner—I don’t know!  Trent,
please
, let me go to my sister.”

Halli didn’t know what else to do other than beg, but Trent was relentless with his suspicions, hurling question after question after each explanation she lobbed back.

“I watched that video yesterday,” he stated in a low, ominous tone.  “Your sister was obsessed with a hair dryer.  Don’t you think she would’ve changed her clothes at the
very least?
”

A ripple of fear cascaded down her spine.  Oh, God, he was right.  She stared through the back window at Rachel across the street, all alone, and suddenly looking more terrified than worried.

“What are you saying?”  She knew the answer, just couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

“I’m saying, we can’t rush in there after Lapaglia’s goons showed up at my villa out of the blue last night.  Somehow they connected you to me.  Now how exactly do you suppose that happened?”

Her hand covered her mouth.  “Ben’s phone.”

“Exactly.”

“But…I never said your name, and I didn’t leave your number because I didn’t know it.  How could—”

“My guess is your brother and sister came back looking for you yesterday morning and found Lapaglia instead.  After you left that message for Ben, and assuming his phone records incoming calls, Lapaglia easily could’ve run a check with his police contacts for the info on where the call came from.”

Her eyes burned.  She squeezed them shut, but it did nothing to relieve the pain or the guilt.  This was all her fault.  Her brother and sister were in the hands of murderers all because she had to film a couple of swans that she’d known darn well were no different from the ones back home.  How she wished she could go back in time and shut off the camera when Rachel asked her to.

Opening her eyes again, Halli pressed her cheek against the headrest, staring at Rachel.  “She’s just sitting there.”

“Think about it, Halli.  They want you.  They want your video.”

“And if I’d have run out there…”

“They’d have you, too.”

His blunt statement skimmed another icy chill across her skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake.  She was safe for the moment, but what about Rachel, sitting there like bait?  And where was Ben?  She turned to Trent, wishing she could see his eyes through the dark sunglasses shadowed even more by his baseball cap.  One glimpse of the man who’d surprised her with the garden walk would really help right now, because this stranger left her cold.

She swallowed hard and willed her voice to work.  “So now what?”

“I’m working on it.”  He swung around in his seat again and shifted the car into gear.

Halli grabbed for the steering wheel in mindless protest.  “We’re not
leaving
.”

Trent pushed her back in her seat with one hand, ducking his chin to check the left side mirror.  “The longer we sit here the more dangerous it is.”

She fought against his strong-arm tactics with one hand and fumbled for the door lock with the other.  “Rachel is in danger, too.”

He whirled around, locking his grip on her left wrist to pull her away from the door.  When she swung at him with her right hand, he caught that one, too.  Applied pressure brought her face within inches of his, but stopped just short of being painful.

“You’re not going anywhere right now so
stop it
before whoever put your sister out there sees this little scene you’re making.”

Helplessness overwhelmed her.  “What do you care anyway?  Just leave me.  You can have the video either way.”

“Fuck the damn video, Halli.”

“No, fuck you!”

The moment she screamed the harsh expletive, tears flooded her eyes.  How easy it would be to fall apart right now.  Give in to the terror trembling in her limbs and let whatever was going to happen, happen.  But something in his dark, granite carved countenance challenged her.  She stiffened her spine.  Sucked in a huge lungful of air and refused to let the tears fall.

“You done?”

Her gaze narrowed at his callous tone, but she gave a stiff nod.

“Thank God.”  He released her as if she were nothing more than an irritating fly.

Anger rose up, engulfing everything inside her in fiery flames.  To think just an hour ago, she’d actually believed she’d developed feelings other than dislike for the insufferable jerk.

Trent swerved back onto the street, talking as he drove.  “As I see it, we’ve got a couple options here.  One, we get into the building through a side entrance or something, then access the consulate, and enlist the help of the officers inside.”

“I like that option
very
much.”