The Widow

by Anne Stuart

  The text was already open in another window—all she had to do was click on it. She only read a few sentences—about Pompasse’s frigid wife who’d been ruined for men for all time, and she pushed back from the table, closing the computer lid with a quiet little click.

  She dressed quickly, calmly. Her clothes had dried, though her bra was still somewhere on the bedroom floor. It didn’t matter—she wouldn’t wear it again. She’d probably never wear a bra with a front clasp ever again—it would remind her of Maguire’s deft hands.

  Her shoes were in the bedroom as well, but she decided not to bother with them. Maguire was still snoring, but the last thing she wanted was to risk waking him up. She’d spent most of her life at the villa barefoot—she could drive back up there barefoot.

  She pushed open the wide living room windows, looking down at the little alleyway. Maguire’s Fiat was still there, and the keys were on the table next to the computer. Thoughtful of him.

  She unplugged the laptop, brought it over to the window, and dropped it. The shattering sound as it smashed onto the pavement below was shocking in the early morning stillness, and Maguire’s snoring stopped with an abrupt snort.

  Charlie grabbed the car keys, not daring to wait a moment longer. She closed the door silently behind her, just in case he’d managed to fall asleep again, and ran down the stairs, out into the wet streets.

  She had to avoid the metal and glass shards from the smashed computer. By the time she reached his car her bare feet were icy cold, and she remembered too late that his heater didn’t work.

  So be it. It wasn’t cold enough for frostbite, just bad enough for misery. If she could concentrate on how cold her feet were, maybe it would take her mind off whatever else felt irreparably damaged. Her soul? Her heart?

  To her amazement the car started at the first try. She shoved it into gear and took off, driving over the remnants of the smashed computer, and out onto the early morning roads leading out of Florence, back to La Colombala.

  Maguire was pulled out of a heavy sleep by a sound he didn’t recognize. A muffled crash, and his eyes flew open, and he was instantly awake.

  Alone in the bed. He sat up and saw Charlie’s shoes on the floor, but he wasn’t reassured. She’d fled, like Cinderella, leaving not one but both glass slippers behind.

  He struggled out of bed and pushed open the door to the living room, and a moment of absolute panic knocked the air out of him. The wide casement windows were open onto the alleyway below, and for a second he thought she might have jumped.

  And then he saw the computer was gone.

  He crossed the room, almost at a run, and looked down into the alleyway below. His car was just disappearing around the corner, and he had no doubts as to who was driving. And directly below his window, smashed into a million pieces, was his state-of-the-art laptop.

  He stared at it for a long moment, then lifted his gaze to the road Charlie had taken. And then he did something he hadn’t done in more than five years.

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  He didn’t pause long enough to think about it. He headed straight to the telephone and punched in a few numbers.

  “Gregory?”

  “Who the hell is this?” Gregory’s sleepy voice demanded. “It’s the middle of the fucking night. Is that you, Maguire?”

  “It’s 6:00 a.m. and it’s me.”

  “You better have a helluva good story about Pompasse to wake me up like this.”

  “No story.”

  There was dead silence on the other line. “You’re shitting me.”

  “No story. Everything was dead boring there. The old man died from a fall, all his ex-girlfriends were cozy, and the best you’ve got is a little gossip for the back pages.”

  “But you’ve got pictures,” Gregory said. “You told me you had great pictures.”

  “Sorry, boss,” Maguire said, totally without regret. “I’m afraid my girlfriend threw my computer out the window. Smashed everything to pieces.”

  “But you backed it up?” Gregory was fully awake now, and sounding in a perfect panic. “Of course you did—you’re a professional. You always back things up.”

  “Not this time.”

  There was a long, charged silence at the other end, and Maguire could hear Gregory lighting a cigarette. A deep craving swept over him, but he batted it away.

  “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, Maguire,” Gregory said after a moment. “You’re going to get in your car and drag your sorry ass back to Pompasse’s villa. I don’t care what excuse you make, how many lies you have to tell, but you get back in there and get me pictures and some kind of goddamned story.”

  “Can’t. My girlfriend stole my car.”

  Another silence. “Since when have you ever had a girlfriend, Maguire? You’re the love ’em and leave ’em type. Besides, what woman would ever put up with you long-term?”

  “I don’t know, boss. But I intend to find out. You’ll have to get yourself another flunky. I quit.”

  “You quit what? The story?” There was real panic in Gregory’s voice now.

  “No, mate. I quit the job.” And he placed the telephone back on the cradle very, very gently.

  Gregory got tired of calling back after about an hour. Maguire made himself strong coffee and told himself he didn’t need cigarettes. He stretched back out on the bed, but it smelled like sex and Charlie, and in the end he left the apartment and the ceaselessly ringing telephone and went out to find something to eat.

  It was a cool morning after the rain from yesterday, and he sat at his favorite café, drinking dark, bitter brew and thinking dark, bitter thoughts. He’d basically fucked his life over completely, he thought. At least Charlie had been driven away—that was one good thing. She would have done nothing but drag him down. She made him vulnerable in ways he didn’t even want to consider. Now that she had taken off he didn’t have to even think about her again. About the sounds she made when she came. About the lost, tentative look in her mysterious golden eyes. About the way…

  He swore under his breath, attracting the attention of the passersby. He had to pull himself together. He’d been a fool to tell Gregory everything was gone. Even crazier to quit his job.

  Then again, he’d been thinking about it for more than a year. It was time to go back home—he could have his pick of newspaper jobs, from tabloid to respectable, and he could be back in the country, near his brother and his wife and their bratty kids. He did happen to like their monster children. George and Harry were two right hellions, a perfect match for Maguire and Dan when they were growing up. He missed them.

  Maybe he’d have a few hellions of his own. Maybe it was time he grew up. Maybe it was time he stopped thinking about whether Charlie could learn to love Australia.

  He needed to think about something else. Like that photo that was nagging at the back of his mind. Now that he’d lied to Gregory and quit his job there was no way he could saunter into the offices and have someone print him up a copy of that photo. No way he could even access it with his computer smashed on the ground, and he wasn’t in the mood to run right out and buy a new one.

  He closed his eyes, bringing the picture up in his memory. It was one of his gifts—an almost photographic memory, both for pictures and words, that had saved his butt a million times.

  He could see it quite clearly. The harried expression on Lauretta’s face as she tried to calm the old lady, the doubtful one on Tomaso’s. She looked like Madame Antonella, he realized with a start. Lauretta was younger, stronger, but there was a definite resemblance.

  It wasn’t that obvious. Maybe it was something as simple as Pompasse going for the same type. Maybe he hooked up with Lauretta because she happened to look like his first model.

  Or maybe Lauretta had already been there, at her mother’s side.

  He stared at the old lady’s face. She was the key to everything, he thought suddenly. The look of malevolence on her face was extraordinary, almost e
erie. And there was one more thing that wasn’t right.

  The wedding ring. In the picture, Madame Antonella, the woman who had been Pompasse’s first mistress and never married, was wearing a wedding ring. A wide, old-fashioned band on her strong, aging hands.

  It was nothing, he tried to tell himself. Plenty of women wore rings on that finger. Hell, she and Pompasse might have even exchanged rings at one point—what the hell did it matter?

  But it did, he knew it as well as he knew his own name. The answers to everything lay in that thick gold band on an old lady’s hand.

  And he wasn’t leaving Italy, and Charlie, until he had those answers and knew she was safe.

  It was late morning when Charlie drove up to La Colombala. The place looked deserted. The Rolls was still in the barn, but there were no other cars. Olivia’s rental was gone, and so was the small Fiat that Lauretta favored.

  There was no one on the terrace, and the table wasn’t set. The windows overlooking the valley were still closed against yesterday’s rain and this morning’s chill, and the sun hadn’t yet warmed the flagstones under her bare feet.

  The house was silent and still, and she walked through the empty hall to the kitchen, suddenly famished. It wasn’t until she was halfway through a slice of buttered bread when she thought about why she had left.

  Her appetite vanished. She could hear someone approaching, the heavy, measured tread on the worn tile flooring. She held her breath and then released it as Lauretta appeared in the doorway.

  “Oh, Signora Charlie!” Lauretta cried, looking distraught. “Why have you come back here?”

  “Is something wrong?” Charlie demanded. “Did something happen to my mother…?”

  Lauretta shook her head. “Everything is fine, little one. Your mother has driven Mr. Richmond into town to get airplane tickets. He’s going home, and he’s taking that Gia with him.” She gave a disapproving sniff.

  “And where is Gia?”

  “Gia’s off shopping. She needs new clothes to go to New York, she says. That one always needs new clothes. She won’t be back, and you shouldn’t be here, either. I told you it upsets Madame Antonella too much. She’s old, she needs peace and quiet and no disturbances.”

  Charlie made a face. “You know I honor and respect Madame Antonella, but I’m not going to have her drive me away from here. She can stay in her cottage and not see me, but I’m going to stay here as long as I want to.” She felt childish and resentful and she didn’t care. She was tired of doing what everyone else wanted, and she wasn’t going to be driven away from La Colombala no matter how desperately she wanted to go.

  Lauretta’s face was mournful, and she shook her head sadly. “Poveretta,” she murmured. “I tried to warn you.”

  “Warn me of what?” Charlie demanded. And then she realized someone had come up behind her. For a moment she froze. The shuffling tread, the wheezy breathing. It was the same from yesterday afternoon, in the studio. Whoever had tried to hurt her then had come back. And it was too late to get away.

  “I’m so sorry, Signora Charlie,” Lauretta was muttering.

  She turned and looked into Madame Antonella’s face. It was creased with hatred, and in her gnarled, sturdy hand she held a long, vicious-looking knife.

  For a moment she froze. And then she turned and made a break for it, dodging past Lauretta toward the kitchen door. Only to be stopped by Tomaso, his familiar face dark with sorrow.

  And then everything went black.

  22

  It was his damned Irish blood, that was it, Maguire thought as he drove hell-bent toward Geppi. He’d spent thirty-five years happily free of premonitions and dark forebodings—the only thing the slightest bit psychic about him were his excellent instincts.

  But it was more than instinct riding him today, and it pissed the hell out of him. Something very bad was going to happen, and Charlie was at the center of it. He had to get to her in time, before it was too late, and the damned car he borrowed had about as much pickup as a turtle. It made the Fiat seem more like a Ferrari.

  He’d gotten off to a late start, as well—he’d had a couple of things to check up on before he took off, and the Italian records system was not made for easy access. In the end he’d given up—if there was a record of a marriage between Aristide Pompasse and Charlotte Thomas thirteen years ago in the town of Geppi or anywhere nearby, he couldn’t find it. But he suspected that it had never existed.

  It was late afternoon by the time he reached the villa. His car was neatly parked by the old barn, and she’d left the keys in it. The day hadn’t warmed up much, so he didn’t expect to see her sunbathing on the terrace, but neither did he expect the house to look so closed up and deserted.

  He called out her name as he entered the shadowy interior, but she didn’t answer. No one did. The place was abandoned, even Lauretta’s domain, the huge old kitchen, was empty.

  He looked out the back door, up at the old cottage halfway up the hill. No signs of life there, either. Maybe Lauretta and Tomaso had taken the old lady someplace. Maybe Charlie had gone off with her mother. Or Henry. He didn’t like that idea at all, but it was better than what he was fearing.

  He stared up at the abandoned church. Charlie had said that someone destroyed another painting and pitched it at her. That meant there might only be one more painting missing. If it was anywhere it had to be up there, and somehow he and Charlie had missed seeing them. If the old lady had taken the paintings herself she couldn’t have lugged them very far, and her cottage was too crowded to hold them. He was guessing there was some other place up beneath the church where Antonella had hidden Pompasse’s paintings, maybe behind that huge pile of rubble that Charlie said hadn’t been moved in decades. Though he still wasn’t quite sure why.

  The one thing he knew for certain was that Aristide Pompasse had filed for divorce three days before his death. But his divorce was from one Antonella Bourget Pompasse. Not Charlie Thomas.

  He took the steep way up, steering clear of Antonella’s cottage. As best he could figure, the old woman had stayed watching, the abandoned wife, for the last forty or fifty years, as Pompasse brought in a parade of women to serve as his mistresses and his models. Through it all she had stayed up in her cottage, waiting.

  But Charlie must have been the last straw. He had actually dared to marry Charlie, or at least managed a semblance of a marriage, depriving Antonella of her secret position as favorite wife. She must have hated Charlie intensely.

  But as long as she was the only real wife, it didn’t matter. It was when Pompasse finally decided to break his true marriage that she acted. Killing Pompasse. The problem was, would she stop there? And why hadn’t Lauretta realized what she had done and stopped her? Unless that resemblance went deeper than an artist’s preference for the same physical type. Lauretta would protect her own mother at all costs. Maybe even at the cost of Charlie’s life.

  He had no doubt the old lady really was senile. She wasn’t faking it—she was old and crazy and very dangerous. But she wasn’t nearly as physically frail as she pretended. Beneath her shuffling, madwoman exterior was a strong, cunning monster.

  It was getting dark by the time he reached the church. Someone had been there recently—there were more boards across the gaping hole in the center, and the pew where Charlie had napped had been pushed off to the corner. He stepped inside the ruined church, utterly silent, listening for the sound of voices.

  All was quiet but for the rustle of the leaves over the missing roof, the faint soughing of the wind through the shattered building. And then the sound of muffled voices began to rise, just barely audible. He moved into the church, making no sound at all, moving to the very edge of the pit and peering down.

  It was almost impossible to see anything but the piles of rocks and rubble beneath the gaping hole. The huge mound of rocks at the far end of the passageway had been moved, exposing a thick oak door. The painting and the journals had to be in there.

  It was farther
down than he remembered—no wonder Charlie had panicked when she’d made her way across the narrow plank. A fall like that could break a few bones if you were unlucky. A fall like that could kill you if you landed just right…

  He never felt it coming. Something slammed over his back, something hard, and he was tumbling headfirst into that deep, endless hole, and the last thing he saw was Madame Antonella standing over him, a heavy piece of wood in her strong hands. And then he hit the ground.

  Charlie woke up slowly, cold and damp and shivering. It was pitch-black, and she tried to lift her hand to see whether she was blindfolded, but she found she couldn’t move. Someone had pinioned her arms to her sides, her legs together, in the inky darkness.

  She was lying on something relatively soft. She was able to move her fingers, and it felt like an old mattress beneath her, covered with some kind of wool blanket. The smell of the place was horrendous—a sickly sweet odor of decay mixed with rodent droppings. Wherever she was, it hadn’t had fresh air in years. If no one came to let her go she’d probably die of the stench before starvation.

  At least she wasn’t dead—yet. She’d had one last thought as she fell to the floor in the old kitchen. She was going to die, and at the worst possible time in her life.

  A week ago would have been fine. Everyone would have wept, but it really wouldn’t have mattered one way or another. A year from now would be okay, too. Then she’d be over it.

  But she didn’t want to die right now, when she was stupidly, crazily in love with that lying, exasperating, treacherous, devious son of a bitch Maguire.

  She was crying, and that probably wasn’t a good idea, either. She could feel the tears slide down her cheeks, and she turned her head to wipe them on the rough wool beneath her. It was bad enough that she was in love with him. She was damned if she was going to cry over him, as well.

  She squirmed again, and the surface beneath her creaked. It was some kind of narrow bed or cot. She reached out her fingers, testing her bonds. It wasn’t rope but something thicker, something clothlike and incredibly strong. It was…