by Brenda Drake
Sid leans over the passenger seat and calls out the window, his eyes on me. “Don’t have too much fun. I’m off for a lunch romp. Ring me when you’re done.”
A grin creeps onto Shona’s lips. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Girl, you know I can’t promise that.” He winks, straightens in front of the steering wheel, and zooms off.
“We’re not waiting in that,” Shona says, waving at the line. “While you were out messing around this morning, I bought us tour tickets. We’re to meet our guide near the entrance. There she is with the white sign over there. It’s the woman with light brown hair in the black turtleneck sweater.”
Marek and I join the group forming a half circle in front of the guide. She’s already into her spiel about the tour. Her Italian accent is thick. “The Vatican City is its own separate sovereign state located within Rome and governed by the Pope. It’s said to be the smallest country in the world.”
The guide leads us inside the museum. It’s like entering airport security, walking through the metal detectors and having my purse checked by an X-ray machine. Once in, we go up a set of stairs and down another, through hallways, viewing magnificent paintings and artwork from famous artists—Raphael, Caravaggio, Da Vinci.
The air smells as ancient as the artwork. Tall pillars support the high, arched ceiling. The soles of many shoes hitting the marble floors echoes through the corridor. Sculptures of religious people, cherubs, and other objects line each side of the passages, kept safe behind ropes.
Shona glides up to my side and practically shoves her umbrella at me. “Here, hold this.”
I grasp it and turn on my best sarcastic tone. “By all means. Maybe you should check your coat, too.”
Marek stifles a laugh, his brown eyes sparkling with amusement.
“I didn’t see a coat check,” she says and slowly turns on her heel, her eyes scanning the artwork. “We need to find an escape from this very boring tour.”
Boring? All the history and artwork fascinates me, and I almost forget we’re here to find the clue Mr. Conte left for Marek.
Our tour guide takes us into a courtyard with four squares of green yards and sidewalks cutting through them. A colossal bronze pine cone, green with age, sits on a pedestal with a peacock flanking each of its sides. In the middle is an enormous bronze orb.
“This is Sfera con Sfera,” the tour guide announces. “It means Sphere within Sphere, and it is by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro.”
She doesn’t linger here very long, ushering us on. After twenty minutes of studying the Renaissance architecture used on the buildings surrounding the courtyard, she heads for the doors leading inside.
I get a feeling like we’re being watched and scan the shadows surrounding the courtyard. Something flutters just to our left. I swallow hard and squint, trying to see it better, but it’s too far for me to make out what it is.
It’s nothing.
Besides, we’re at the Vatican. Nothing bad could happen here.
Going through the door, I bump against Marek. Our hands brush against each other, and a wave of excitement hits me. They touch again, and this time I look up at him. The smile on his face says it was on purpose, and my heart is like a skipping rock in my chest, bouncing once, twice, then plunking under, sending ripples through my stomach.
Shona glances back at us. “What are you doing? Keep up.”
We walk through hallway after hallway. I can barely concentrate on the tour guide’s comments about each piece of art. I tell myself it’s because of what we need to do, and not because I’m obsessing about Marek’s touch. Problem is, I know when I’m lying.
The Sistine Chapel is practically empty. We need more people here so that our search will go unnoticed. After leaving the chapel, the guide takes us down a long hall and points out the architectural details.
The tour is winding down, and the doors open to the public. Tons of people pour into the hallways. When the crowd distracts the woman, we back away from the others and follow the signs back to the Sistine Chapel.
It’s wall-to-wall bodies, stifling hot, and unusually quiet for this many people. Guards call out instructions occasionally.
“No photos,” one warns.
“Silence,” another says.
“Move along.”
“Shh.”
We shuffle around the Sistine Chapel with the mass of tourists. The murmur of voices rises every so often and buzzes across the room like white noise before quieted with an order. A guard barks at two young men to stop taking pictures with their phones. I want to grab a few shots, the frescoes are so beautiful, but I don’t want to get in trouble or risk the guard kicking me out.
I lift my face toward the vaulted ceiling, admiring one colorful fresco square to the next. The images are vibrant and detailed. I try to find the woman in Shona’s reproduction among all the marvelous paintings that crowd the chapel.
I pause on The Creation of Adam. Seeing it in real life is breathtaking. The details are amazing. Angels surround God on the right, and Adam is on his left side, each reaching a finger out to the other.
A large man with a striped shirt stops in front of me, and I try to move around him, but there’re people on both sides of me. Just over his shoulder, I spot the fresco of the woman with red hair and point at her. “There she is,” I whisper as low as I can so as not to alert the guards but loud enough for Marek to hear me.
He looks where I’m pointing. “That’s definitely her.”
“Where’s Shona?” I slowly turn, searching in all directions, tourists bumping my sides as they pass me. “I don’t see her.”
“I’m right behind you.” She joins us.
“How did you get back there?” I ask.
“I got jostled around and ended up here.”
Marek points out the fresco. “Ana found it.”
She angles her head back to view it. “Now what?”
We study it for quite some time before Marek lowers his gaze. “I don’t see any clues.”
“Maybe it’s something around it.”
There’s absolutely nothing around it.
Shona stumbles forward and rights herself. “Crap,” she hisses. “The floor’s loose.”
Sitting on my heels, I press my hand against the white rectangular tile she indicates. It shifts slightly. There’s a small etching of a star in the corner of it. In the mural of the woman with the red hair, the same star is over her left shoulder, and her eyes point down as if she’s staring at the tile. I dig my fingernails into the seam of the floor and try to lift it and can’t.
I stand. “It won’t budge. Do you have a file or something?”
Shona searches her purse, and Marek pats down his pockets. “I’ve got nothing,” he says.
“Just an emery board,” she says, “but it’s too flimsy for that. How about a credit card?” She removes one from her wallet and hands it to me.
A quick scan of the crowded chapel and I pinpoint the guards. They aren’t nearby, so I squat back down and try the card. “Doesn’t work. It’s too bendy.” I straighten. “Got anything else?”
She shakes her head.
It’s not as if I can ask people for a tool to deface the chapel. I bite my lip, trying to come up with a solution. Light coming in from the stained-glass window hits the silver pendant on a woman’s rosary clenched in her old, fragile hands.
The pendant is thin and medal.
I turn to Marek. “Your necklace.” I don’t have to say more than that. He gets it right away and slips the chain holding his nautical medallion over his head.
“Let’s give it a try.”
“Pretend to tie your shoe,” I say. “Shona and I will cover you.”
Marek goes down on one knee and messes around with his already tied shoestring.
Shona glances down.
“Don’t watch him,” I say. “You’ll alert the guard.”
She lifts her chin, and the corners of her lips dip. “Then hurry up. The guard’s heading this way.”
I step in front of Marek to block him from the guard’s view, aiming my camera phone at one of the frescoes.
The guard says something in Italian, and I lower my phone. “English?”
“No photos allowed,” he says with a heavy accent.
“Oh, sorry.” I slip my phone into my pocket.
The guard nods before spotting something to my left and rushing off in that direction. I rise on my tiptoes to watch his retreat through the crowd. The people separate to let him pass, and I can see him heading for Shona, who has her phone aimed at the ceiling, snapping pictures with her flash on.
How did she get over there so fast?
Marek straightens to his feet and shoves something box-shaped into his pants pocket. “Got it. Let’s get out of here.”
I weave around tourists after him. “What was it?”
He gives me a quick look over his shoulder. “I’ll show you once we’re someplace safe—”
Bjorn towers over us. The grin stretching on his face is somewhat disturbing. “Fancy meeting you here,” he says. “You aren’t a careful lot. What did you find?”
Marek’s hand covers the box hiding inside his pocket. “Nothing. What are you doing here?”
“You can trust me.” Bjorn’s eyes never leave Marek’s face. “I’ve known your grandfather most of his life.”
Most of his life? Adam Conte was probably in his sixties, while Bjorn is somewhere in his thirties. Something in my gut tells me we have to get away from him.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Marek says, and the tone of his voice suggests he might think so, too. “Why are you following us? Wait. How did you know how to find us?”
Bjorn steps closer so there’s barely any space between him and Marek. “We be having our ways. Now you’re going to have to give me what you found.”
Marek backs away. “Why?”
“You be just as stubborn as Adam.” He bends slightly and stares Marek in the eyes. “Hand it over and go home, Marek. Take care of Grams. You needn’t be in the middle of this.”
A group of tourists, faces lifted to the ceiling, shuffles in our direction.
“Did you kill him?” Marek fists his hands.
The group reaches us.
Bjorn’s brows shoot up, and his eyes widen. “I’d never—”
I grasp Marek’s arm and tug him back into the crowd. People block Bjorn from getting to us. We scuttle around the many people filling the chapel, putting as much distance between him and us as possible with a sea of bodies slowing us down. Body odor and overused cologne hang in the air like an invisible mushroom cloud. It’s hot and stifling, and I just want out of here.
“Where’s Shona?” I hop up, trying to see over the all the heads blocking my view.
Marek stretches up, looking left then right. “I don’t see her. She knows where the hotel is. She’ll have to get there on her own. We need to ditch my unc—” He stops and corrects himself. “Bjorn.”
I shoot a shocked look at him, making it clear I’m not at all happy that he even suggests going without Shona. “We can’t leave her.”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” he says. “I’m not sure what’s going on here. Bjorn really wants something in my grandfather’s bag bad enough to follow us here. Which makes me think he’ll do anything to get it. Like—”
“Kills us? You think he’s going to kill us?”
A man in front of me turns his head at my outburst. I go right to get away from his scrutinizing eyes and find a new trail through the crowd. There’s hardly any room between all the people. I shimmy around the bodies, the chorus of different languages filling my ears. Marek shuffles down another aisle between a tour group and a couple with interlocking arms.
“I wasn’t going to say kill.” He dodges an older man that stops in his path. He falls in line after me.
“Then what were you going to say? You think he wants to invite us to a tea party?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.”
Marek snatches my hand and tows me along with him, edging toward the exit. His fingers tightly gripping mine cause my already speeding heart to rev up.
We make it out of the chapel, and Marek drops my hand. Jog-walking through the corridors, I stare straight ahead, my eyes on the exit.
The vibrant paintings on the walls are flashes of colors in my peripheral vision. I don’t dare stop. Our stalker freaks me out. Whatever Marek’s grandfather was into had to be bad. And I mean the kind of bad where people die.
At the end of the corridor that leads to Vatican City’s exit stands our Uber driver, Horus. I dart for a door and end up in the courtyard we were in earlier with the tour guide. The bronze pine cone is on the opposite side, which means we need to go forward.
“This way,” I say, tearing down one of the sidewalks and passing the huge bronze sphere. I glance back. The doors we just burst out of are still closed. “Do you think he saw us?”
Marek gives a quick look over his shoulder. “I don’t know, but we’re attracting attention. Slow down.” He eases into a determined stroll.
He’s right. All eyes are on us, along with many disapproving looks and a few shaking heads. I slow down and match his steps. It’s no coincidence that Bjorn and Horus are at the Vatican with us. They’re definitely after whatever we just found. Though I don’t like her much, I worry about Shona.
I extract my phone from the bottom of my bag and punch the call button next her number in her contact page. She answers on the fourth ring.
“Where are you?” She sounds pissed, her words coming over in quick sound bites. “There are too many people. I…can’t see you. Are you…still in the chapel?” Her breath is exerted and her sentences choppy, as though she’s hopping up and down to search for us.
“Hold on,” I stop her. “We’re being followed.”
“How do you know that?”
“There’re two men here. The same ones we ran into back home.”
She draws out a long sigh. “This is inconvenient. What do they look like?”
“One man is really buff—looks like a Norse god or something. The other guy is a hot African man. We haven’t seen the other one. She’s a woman. A tall model-type with dark hair. Looks like that actress Nazanin Boniadi on Homeland…”
“I have no idea who that is.”
“Um…beautiful, almost black hair.”
“Is it long and straight?” she asks. “All legs?”
“I don’t know. That’s pretty vague.”
“Wait.” She’s quiet before continuing, “Okay, I sent you a pic.”
Her message chimes in on my screen, and I pull it up to view it.
“That’s her,” I say, stepping around a man with a fancy camera blocking the sidewalk as he snaps pictures of the surrounding Renaissance-style buildings. “Don’t let her see you. Get out of the Vatican. Make sure no one is following you. We’ll find you outside.”
“Okay, if I don’t get squeezed to death by this mob.” There’s no urgency in her voice. I’m about to tell her we may be in danger and to be careful, but she hangs up.
I blow out a frustrated breath, frown at my phone, then drop it into my bag.
Marek gives me a side-glance. “What’s wrong?”
“That girl is in a dream world,” I say. “I’m not sure she realizes the seriousness of this situation.”
How can I blame her? I’m not sure what’s going on. It’s all too confusing. Yet, I know that for our three model-looking pursuers to track us all the way to Italy, it has to be dangerous.
A crowd trying to funnel into the door leading back inside slows us down. I mak
e the mistake of glancing back. Horus heads in our direction, his gait precise and determined. My legs are tired and wobbly. It’s like I’m walking on a wire, teetering and about to plunge to an unknown depth.
I shove Marek’s back, trying to hurry him up, but he’s blocked. We shuffle forward until we’re inside.
Marek shrugs my hands off his back. “Why are you pushing?”
“He’s coming.” I swallow down the panic rising in my chest. “Horus.”
“This way,” he says, capturing my hand and leading me through the hallways. We come to a large circular room with a skylight dominating the ceiling and a massive winding staircase with souvenir display cases and shelves surrounding it. Plaster cupids decorate the half walls running the length of the stairs.
The steps are broad, and it takes several long strides to cross one. Marek storms down them, and I keep to his side, dodging slow-moving tourists on our way. At the bottom, we scramble over the mosaic marble floor and find the exit through a large arched door.
Guards dressed in camouflage uniforms flank the gates. They hold semi-automatic rifles across their chests, surveying the crowds. Tiny cars zoom by on the road that runs along the side of the massive barrier wall protecting the Vatican.
I grip the handle of the umbrella and hold the strap of my bag as we hurry past souvenir and gelato stands and over a blue-and-white striped crosswalk to the other side of the street.
Fat drops of rain fall from the sky, pinging my head and filling potholes. My hand shakes, and I don’t dare open the umbrella, fearing it will slow me down.
Several concrete steps lead down to a small road between the five-story buildings lining it. Instead of going down them, we hide behind a white van parked beside the curb and watch the Vatican exit for Shona.
The rain comes down faster, and I open the umbrella. Marek gets under it with me. Time goes excruciatingly slow as we wait for Shona. When I spot Horus coming out of the exit, I gasp and shrink back behind the van.
“He doesn’t give up, does he?” I say, my breath rushing in and out, not out of exhaustion but because of the fear clutching my lungs.