Look into Sal’s death, do some investigating!”
Before Manetti could reply?and she began to fear that his reply might be an arrest and a one-way ticket to an Italian institution for the insane?she swung around, grabbed Raphael’s arm, and left the station.
“I’ll stay with you until we can find Cindy or Jared?” he told her, but she shook her head firmly. “I’ll be okay, Raphael, honestly. In fact, I need to be alone. And you?I want you to take care of yourself.
Manetti thinks I’m crazy, but something very bad is going on here. Please, Raphael stay close to other people. And wear a cross. You’ve been friendly with me, and I may have put you in danger.”
“Jordan?”
“Sal D’Onofrio gave me a ride back to the hotel from the area of that church before he died,” Jordan told him. “Please, please, Raphael, just take care of yourself.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Please don’t worry. I’m going back to the hotel. I’ll be locked in?”
“You said that you would go to Harry’s?”
“Later, that’s hours from now, and I’ll walk by the front, across the main path, and there will be many people around me all the time.”
He walked with her back to the hotel, kissed her on both cheeks. She promised to see him the next day; it was a lie, but she would call the shop when she could and assure him that she was fine.
When he left her, she hurried up to her room and moved as swiftly as she could. She didn’t intend to be caught there.
Ragnor had an uncanny habit of appearing when she did.
First, she went on the Internet and found that she could still get out of Venice that night. She could get a flight to Paris that would connect her directly to New Orleans. If she hurried. If she could get out of the hotel and get a water taxi to the airport quickly enough.
She paused suddenly, feeling as though a breeze had picked up in the room, when there could be no breeze. She looked around the room, an uneasy feeling seeping deep into her bones. She jumped up and searched the sitting area, then burst into the bathroom, her heart pounding. The door was still locked.
She returned to her laptop, desperate to move quickly.
She booked the flight, praying that her credit card, overextended in her travels, wouldn’t be rejected.
She had grown overly anxious but took the time to E-mail the cop in New Orleans, telling him her flight arrangements and her time of arrival. She was going backwards, in time. If she made the nine o’clock flight out of Venice and connected with the overseas plane in Paris, her arrival time in New Orleans would be just after midnight. She packed up her laptop, underwear, and an overnight bag, leaving the rest of her clothing and belongings in the room, carelessly shutting her bag. Terrified that some force was going to stop her, she was running as she left the room, and had to force herself to go back and lock the door.
She didn’t check out, nor did she take a water taxi from the Danieli. She hurried to the hotel across Saint Mark’s Square and took a taxi from there to the airport.
After presenting her passport, she was the last person to run aboard the plane. She watched Venice disappear, feeling a strange sorrow as the plane rose in the night sky. She loved the city like few other places in the world.
But she would be back.
Gino Meroni walked into the second-floor ballroom of the palazzo.
He was alone in the room, dressed in the dottore costume. He liked to be known as the dottore. Oh, yes, he’d said. He liked to cure people of all their ills.
Gino was accustomed to the eeriness of costumes at Carnevale, and the strangeness of his employers, as well. He had shamed himself, he knew. But he had also done well in his efforts to make up for his errors, and he hadn’t expected to be afraid tonight.
But he was.
A fire crackled in the great hearth. That was the only light in the room. The dottore sat in a huge wing chair by the fire, but he was a large man, and did not at all appear dwarfed by the chair; in fact, his power seemed enhanced by it. He was angry. Things tonight?things with which Gino had not been involved ?had not gone well. He knew that the contessa was not even here, she had been wounded so badly. And the dottore .. .
He had escaped with little injury, but the contessa and others had taken a sad toll for his deliverance.
That night, Gino had done well at all his tasks.
Still, the light from the flames burning in the hearth seemed to dance upon the room in shades of blood red. The dottore sat so still, his knuckles white on the arms of the chair as he clutched them tightly. The room was very quiet It was an ominous silence. The dottore made Gino stand in that silence for a very long time, nervously shifting from foot to foot.
“Well?” the dottore said at last.
“I went as directed,” he said. “I was able to clear our place, but I could do nothing about the woman for she wasn’t alone.” He didn’t say that he had been clearing away the last of the refuse when the man had entered the church with the woman. He told the dottore instead that “The police came. Many of them.
But it was all right. I saw to it that nothing was left behind.”
“But the girl walked away with the police?”
“It doesn’t matter. The police think that she’s crazy.” Gino then put a note of trial and exhaustion into his voice. “There was quite a mess you left behind; I was scarcely able to manage for your safety.” The dottore nodded gravely.
“So much would not have been necessary?if you had not been careless with your duties. There is still a wealth of trouble to be dealt with due to your inability to dispose of our refuse with efficiency.” He’d lost the head. That one head! He cleaned up so much for these people, and he’d lost one head . . .
“I work well for you,” Gino said. “I ask no questions. I risk myself.”
“You didn’t bring the girl.”
“I couldn’t.” Gino lifted his hands. “What is so special about this one girl? I can bring you dozens of girls.”
“Miss Riley is my concern,” the dottore said coldly. “You have failed me.”
“I didn’t create the problem at the church?”
“You have failed me.”
“I defended you! The girl will still be available. You will have her eventually. Your game will just go on a little longer. And as to the other... I made one error. One mistake.” The dottore leaned forward. “There are no mistakes in my employ, Gino.”
“The contessa said that?” Gino began, sweat breaking out on his flesh. Odd. He was sweating, yet felt cold inside, cold down to his shoes.
“The contessa does not matter in this anymore. You have failed me.” Since he’d been an adult, Gino had dealt in death and danger. Entering a world of crime, he had always known what the consequences could be.
He had always thought that he would know, and accept, when his time came.
The dread and fear he felt then were horrible. He was afraid that he would begin to shake, that he would lose control of his bowels, humiliate himself completely.
Perhaps the dottore was bluffing, warning him with such a threat.
There were no mistakes.
And the dottore didn’t bluff.
“So, after all my service, you will . .. you will sate your bloodlust on me,” he said, and he tried to sound as if he would die with honor.
“Me? I would be sickened by you, Gino,” the dottore said.
“Then ...”
“There are others who are hungry.”
The dottore lifted his hand.
From the far corners and shadows of the room, Gino heard a scurrying sound.
Hisses ...
Laughter.
Whispers.
He wasn’t going to scream, he wasn’t going to ...
The first pain seared into him. Horror began its crawl over him.
He began to choke on horror. And his own blood.
The crimson tongues of flame that had glowed over the room had been but a taste of what was to come.
And as red death descended upon him, he lost all resolve.
His screams echoed with bloodcurdling agony throughout the palazzo ...
And into the night.
Though her first flight went like clockwork, Jordan was once again the last person to board the plane when she came running along the walkway to her gate at Orly.
This time, her late arrival was good; she wound up being placed in business class with a comfortable seat and plenty of amenities. She was exhausted but tense when she sat and buckled on her seat belt. A glass of champagne seemed a good thing. Wine with dinner might help give her a few hours of sleep before she arrived in New Orleans. Dinner was good. She tried to watch a movie. The seat next to her was empty.
Perfect.
But after the first few hours into the flight, she knew that she would be missed at the hotel. Manetti would have gotten hold of Jared and Cindy by now; they’d realize that she wasn’t going to show up at dinner.
If Manetti had really traced Tiff Henley’s departure from Venice, he could do the same with hers. She was going to visit a man she didn’t know, who could be an insane and corrupt human being, and it was beginning to seem possible that she was losing her mind.
Or else she wasn’t. She found herself looking around the plane. Again, she had the uneasy feeling she had experienced in her room.
Someone was there.
Of course someone was there. It was a full plane.
People were settling in, reading, playing with the controls at their seats. No one was watching her.
But she couldn’t help it. She experienced the sense of being ...
Followed?
The flight attendants looked suspicious, as if they were watching her. She could swear that the pinched-looking woman in the seat across the aisle was watching as well. She was skeletal looking.
Jordan could swear she could see the outline of her teeth beneath her thin skin.
That is crazy! she told herself.
She forced herself to close her eyes, to try to sleep. The champagne, wine, and long hours she had been keeping all seemed to kick in. She slept There was a noise. A terrible hissing sound. Whispers ...