White Heat (10 page)

For now he and Emily had the all clear, physically, to go about their business. Except that Max wasn’t letting her out of his sight until he had concrete answers. There was no such fucking thing as coincidence.

“Yeah. Make that sooner than later,” Max flipped the sat phone closed. Emily tried to liberate her wrist. “We’re free to go. But—”

“Oh, no you don’t. There
is
no but.” She glanced at her watch. “I have time to pick up my other bag, and make my original flight. And that’s
exactly
what I’m going to do.”

“Not negotiable. Flight was cancelled, remember?” He rose, still holding her gaze.

“I have things to do.”

“You stay until we ascertain what the hell is going on.”

Her eyes jerked up to meet his, annoyed. “Nothing is
going on
anymore. Who are you? James bloody Bond? You can’t keep me here. I have a life. Plans. People who are expecting me.”

“Who? Franco?”

“He’s one of the people. Yes.”

“I’ll drive you home.”

“No thanks,” she said annoyed. “I’m perfectly capable of driving myself.”

“I said,” he said through his teeth.
“I’ll
drive you.”

“Fine. If you’d let go of my arm—thank you—I’ll go and get my suitcase from my room. I’ll meet you in the kitchen in ten minutes.”

“I’ll take you home, and I’ll deliver you safely to the airport. Agreed?”

“If you insist.”

“I insist.”

“Then I agree.”

As soon as she was gone, he made another call. She might
think
she was going to be allowed to fly off unattended, but he’d have his people watching over her every minute of every day until he knew what the hell was going o—

“Fucking
hell!”

He watched red taillights disappear into the drumming rain as Emily’s Maserati screamed down the driveway, spitting gravel.

Five

SLOWING DOWN TO ACCOMMODATE CITY TRAFFIC, EMILY HIT redial on the speakerphone attached to her console. She was away from Max, bacteria-free, and not quite ready to go home. Had the men in their white space suits left her palazzo a disaster?

Would she see the intruder in every corner? Or Max, coming to her aid like some heroic, twenty-first-century Galahad?

“Franco, pick up—come on. Help save me from myself.” He lived with his mother, grandmother, and sister on Via dell Neri, several blocks from Emily’s place.

God, Max was probably pissed off.

I can
not
believe I left him there,
she thought, half triumphant, and half amused. Listening to Franco’s cell phone ring and ring, she told herself that she didn’t care about Max. He deserved to be left at Daniel’s. Without transportation. “He’s got a phone, he can call a cab.”

She couldn’t hang around him anymore; she couldn’t take it and keep her sanity Max made her breathless, jumpy—reckless. Not a term anyone would usually apply to her.

Max . . . agitated her. Unlike Franco, who made her feel mellow and rational. Attractive without making her feel as though she’d expire if he didn’t put his hands on her—

“Earth to Emily? N and a big 0, remember?” she reminded herself out loud as she tried Franco’s house number again. Still busy. The rain-washed streets were empty save for a few hearty souls braving the crappy weather to go to the local market to pick up their dinner.

She was sorry she and Franco had had to postpone their flight, but at least they could spend the evening together.

She’d just show up. His grandmother would ply her with food, his mother would interrogate her about where they were going, and his sister would want to know where she’d bought her sweater, so she could have the exact same one. It was one of Janna’s more annoying habits to copy everything Emily wore.

She and Franco wouldn’t have a second alone. Emily rather suspected that was how Signora campaigned. She made no bones about wanting a nice Catholic,
Italian
girl for her son.
So much for
that
plan. Signora Bozzato probably wanted Franco to hold out for a virgin as well. Emily shook her head as she disconnected the phone. Franco was forty. He’d be lucky to find anyone over seventeen in his mother’s social circle who was a virgin. But Signora Bozzato kept lobbying.

She’d take him to La Baraonda, Emily decided. Time to exorcise old demons. A lovely meal, a few kisses from a man who cared deeply for her, and her equilibrium would be restored. A great start to their vacation.

This was possibly the most important trip of her life. Taking Franco home to meet her mother. If he could pass
that
test he’d be worth keeping. Except hadn’t she already decided
not
to take him with her? Damn. She’d better make up her mind
soon
.

She squeezed into a small parking space a block from the Bozzato home. Right behind an identical yellow Maserati.

“Damn it, Janna!” She glared at the mirror image of her own, brand new, specially ordered car. “Copycat!” Franco’s sister had gone and bought the same damned car the second she’d seen hers. Emily shook her head in disgust. She didn’t care about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery It was getting bloody annoying having spoiled brat Miss Janna Bozzato copy every damn thing she wore, ate, said, or
drove.

“And I’d better deal with it now, or make peace with it, because she’s going to be my sister—in-law.”

Maybe.

Oh, shit. She was going to have to figure this out fast. It wasn’t fair in any way to string Franco along if she couldn’t let go of the past.

She might not have a ring on her finger, but Franco had started talking seriously about the M word. She hadn’t said no, but she hadn’t said yes either. Although it was pretty much implied if she was taking him all the way to Seattle to meet her family.

Crap. Why did life have to be so complicated?

Perhaps she’d take him to her place later. More, she admitted, because she was a little twitchy about going home alone, than any mad desire to start a deeper relationship with him.

“Which makes me, what?” she asked as she swung her legs out of the car and immediately stepped into a puddle in her already wet socks.
“Stava piovendo a catinelle.
“The equivalent of raining cats and dogs. Within minutes wet feet were the least of her problems. Drenched from top to toe, she hesitated. Continue to the Bozzatos’? Or turn around and go home to a hot shower and dry clothes?

Going home made a whole lot of sense. Franco wasn’t expecting her after all. Unfortunately, a little niggle of residual fear kept Emily trudging through the rain. She really, really didn’t want to go home alone. She really didn’t.

So she’d arrive looking like a drowned rat. Franco could see her at her worst. Shivering, she pressed the downstairs doorbell, and when no one responded, she tried Franco’s house number again. The line was busy, so she knew someone had to be home.

Sometimes the family gathered in the kitchen to watch TV. With the noise from that, and the pounding rain, they probably couldn’t hear the bell. Emily knocked twice more, then pushed open the heavy door, and walked in. All the lights were on in the living room, but the only sound she heard was the drum of the rain on the windows.

No sound of the TV. More disturbing, no sign of Franco or his family. “Franco? Signora? Janna?” Nonna Maria was as deaf as a post. The place smelled sickly sweet, and she wondered if Franco’s mother had allowed him to smoke one of his Cuban cigars inside, which would be a first.

His mother’s church shawl hung in its customary place next to his favorite camel raincoat, on hooks by the front door beside a painting of the Blessed Virgin. And so did a bright red slicker. Identical to the one Emily had ordered from a catalog two weeks ago. She and Miss Janna were going to have words. “Signora?”

She didn’t like this. She didn’t like it a
lot.
The drip-drip-drip of the rain against the windows, and the throbbing, unnatural silence of the apartment made her heart race, and her nerves vibrate.

The faint beep-beep-beep of a phone off the hook made the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Seeing the phone receiver dangling off the edge of the vestibule table ratcheted up her alarm.

Emily’s shoulders tensed as she took her cell phone from her pocket. What were the chances that she would be witness to two separate break-ins? She should get out of here. Dial 113 for
la polizia,
and have them come and check to see that everything was all right.
God. She was
way
overreacting. Wasn’t she?

A slither of unease made its way down her spine as she stopped just inside the doorway. Cold water funneled off her clothes to pool on the worn oriental rug underfoot.
Back up.

She’d never given intuition much thought. But every nerve in her body was screaming for her to get out of there fast.

Because of her own scare this morning, she told herself. But her intruder was under lock and key somewhere. Franco’s mother had heart problems, and Nonna Maria was old. What if they’d had a medical emergency?

Her socks made squishy noises on the carpet as she moved forward slowly. She felt ridiculous scaring herself to death like this. Every light in the place was on. Everything looked as immaculate as it always did.

The furnishings were straight out of the fifties, with the yellow- and-brown floral sofa, and two matching chairs with lace doilies over the backs and arms, and plastic on the lampshades.

Nonna Maria’s worn bedroom slippers sat neatly in front of her chair.
Franco’s reading glasses, marking his place in the latest spy thriller, lay on the end table, as if he’d just stepped away. A half glass of pinot grigio sat on a hand-crocheted coaster next to the book. He always had a glass of wine after coming home from work, and before his mother put dinner on the table.

They should just be sitting down to their evening meal now. Whatever Franco’s mother had cooked smelled disgusting. Probably his all—time favorite
salsicce di cinghiale.
She didn’t like wild boar, and hoped they didn’t insist she stay for dinner.

It was too quiet.

No one was home.

Maybe they’d decided to go out to a movie. Or they were visiting a neighbor. Nonna could have knocked the phone over with her walker and not even noticed. Which made perfect sense. Emily’s shoulders eased. Man, Signora was
not
going to be happy about her tracking in dirty water from the street when she came home and saw the trail Emily was leaving.

She rounded the corner into the kitchen and wished desperately that she hadn’t. Dear God in Heaven!

Red. Blood. Death.

The room whirled. Her muscles turned to jelly, her knees gave out. She braced herself on the doorjamb so she wouldn’t fall into the nightmare. Not capable of drawing in the next breath she hung on.

No, God, no. No-no-no-no-no …

The family was home. They were all in the kitchen.

They’d been violently,
brutally
butchered.

Six

“WHERE IS SHE Now?” MAX DEMANDED INTO THE SAT
phone. He’d been picked up within minutes of Emily hauling ass, and was talking to the operatives tailing her. They’d been on her as she’d zoomed out the gate. He was pissed enough to chew nails and spit out bullets. It was damn fortunate that a T-FLAC security team was patrolling the grounds and outer perimeters of the estate at the time and had vehicles available within seconds.

The driver, an attractive, forty-something oriental woman named Niigata, was in full, black T-FLAC LockOut garb, as were the others on the security team. She handled the vehicle like a race—car driver, taking both the straightaway and corners with high speed and
finesse.
Two more operatives sat in back.

“Looks like she’s at the Bozzato residence,” Emily’s tail, Mike Ragusa, reported in Max’s ear. Max cradled the Glock on his lap, his jaw tight. The kid on the phone was barely out of T-FLAC training. The man he was with, Boyle, Doyle—something like that— hadn’t been out that much longer. First real assignment, security. And Emily’s best hope if she got herself into any immediate trouble. Which there was no reason for her to do.

Still, Max felt a sense of impending danger he couldn’t shake.

She’d be safe at the boyfriend’s until he got there, he rationalized, irritated that she’d given him the slip. And for some odd reason, annoyed as hell that she’d run from
him
straight to Bozzato’s arms. It wasn’t just his usually dormant ego that had taken a licking; he had a bad, a fucking
really
bad feeling in his gut. A feeling logic wouldn’t shake.

He’d stick her in a local safe house with round-the-clock security until he unraveled what had happened to the old man. And/or until the lab and the interrogators could tell him what that vial had been for, and why the guy in custody had broken into her apartment.

Emily wasn’t going to be able to take a pee without someone accompanying her to the bathroom. If not himself, then people he trusted. There’d be no negotiation. “Stay with her. ETA six minutes.”

A second after he disconnected, the phone rang. “Aries.”

“Vacation over, Aries,” Darius informed him. “As of now, your ass is officially T-FLAC’s again. We’ve had a third bombing. This one right there in your backyard. I want you wheels up within the hour. You’ll be in Córdoba in time for dinner. Which you won’t have time for. I’m dispatching your team, they’ll be there at 0 dark thirty.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call Spain my backyard,” Max said dryly. “What went bang?”

“La Mezquita. Familiar with it?”

“Moorish palace converted into a Roman Catholic cathedral.”

“Good enough. I’ll fax you more. EMTs have gone in and collected the bodies, as for now we have control of the scene. But the locals are champing at the bit to get in to comb the rubble. I want you there before they tamper with things they know nothing about.”

“Got it.” Max thought for a moment. “Send Cooper.”

“You think you’ll need a sharpshooter?”