In what?
She headed upstairs, her imagination tossing around images as she grappled with the idea of bodies and break-ins. Tony worked for an oil company in the Middle East, but he was here in Italy to learn Italian.
Or maybe not.
But if not, why? She didn’t think for a moment that he was a killer, but he did have Arab ties. In Italy.
She dropped onto her bed and stared at the window, seeing nothing. She couldn’t fix this. She couldn’t solve the riddles that swirled far too close for comfort. But knowing that strengthened her resolve not to have anything more to do with Tony. Or with trouble of any kind.
And so, the next afternoon when she saw his head extended above the crowd on the Corso Vannucci, she ducked quickly into a shop and then turned around and headed back to the convent.
Light filtered in the window through layers of clouds. She pushed open the casement and looked out to the south where blue tried to prevail. She and that sky had a lot in common.
She didn’t want to hide out, but the messes revolving around Tony made her feel violated.
And yet… and yet. When his face came into focus, she remembered only him. Tony. Neither the perpetrator nor the instigator.
All it had taken was a view of his dark head nodding along. What had it been? Ten seconds? Now, she couldn’t stop obsessing about him, and the gunman’s reality receded behind Tony’s blue eyes.
It had to be hormones. Hormones could make a person stop thinking rationally. This wayward body of hers performed loop-de-loops whenever she got within touching distance of a man she had every reason to fear, one who might be mixed up in God-knows-what plots for murder and mayhem. Her life might actually be in danger, and all she could think about were his lips on her hand. A zing coursed through her as she imagined those lips touching hers. Touching other parts of her.
What a fool. No, she was more than a fool. She was mad. Stark, raving mad.
Jason’s kisses had never done this to her. Ever. And his had done more than trace across her palm.
Maybe she was a closet masochist. She must be if a potentially dangerous person could make her go zing.
Or she was mad for adventure. A Bonnie and Clyde thing?
Absurd. She had to get a grip.
She’d call Acie. She’d intended to. Now she would. They could have a girls’ dinner out.
That would be fun.
Acie agreed to meet at Santino’s for scampi and salad. The scampi was Acie’s idea. The salad, hers.
“Everyone okay at your place?” Rina asked once they’d been ushered to an inside table, had ordered, and the wine had arrived. Their waiter lit a candle, smiling as he filled their glasses.
Acie looked as if she could use the wine as much as Rina.
“Signor Bertelli continues to improve. But they still haven’t found the Mercedes that hit him.”
“That’s hard.” As she sipped, she thought of how many unsolved mysteries existed in this small town.
“Not much else, just Mae blimping even more and wanting to deliver this baby.” Acie set down her glass and stared intently across the table. “What? Something’s up with you.”
Rina described the latest break-in theories, how Hilda said it wasn’t a Libyan after all, but maybe a Palestinian. “Because of Tony. She saw him come to the convent and said he hangs around with Palestinians. I thought his dead friend was Syrian.”
“He could have had a Syrian passport and still called himself a Palestinian. You know, because of the refugee camps?”
“I hadn’t realized. I’ve been labeling them all Arabs.”
“I think they’re more clannish than that.” Acie moved aside to let the waiter slide the salads into place. The jumbo shrimp were neatly arranged on top of the spring greens.
“So, we have Arabs who clannishly call themselves Palestinians—no matter where they live—and we have somebody, possibly one of those clannish folk, hitting me over the head. No one knows my mother was Jewish, so why should they-he-she come after me? I don’t get it.”
“I’m sure it will come clear in the end,” Acie said. “We’re just at the beginning, so we can’t see the whole picture.”
“Wow, that’s so comforting. Let’s just hope it gets a whole lot clearer before I end up dead in my bed.”
“Rina, come on. No one’s going to kill you. Why should they?”
“The guy in my room?”
“He was looking for something. You said so yourself.”
“But what? I don’t have anything.”
Acie lifted her glass but paused before drinking. “So now he knows that, right? No one’s going to come back to the convent.”
“Maybe dying in my bed was a little over the top, but what if we only get to be in this part of the adventure and not at the end to see how it all works out?”
“Would that really bother you? Having it all go away?”
Would it? She sighed. “I guess not. Not if I could know for sure it had gone, that the story was doing fine someplace else without me, and the gunman on the train wasn’t a murderer.”
“You’re still thinking that?”
“I don’t know. He carried a gun. He left the compartment before I did, so he may have been out there when the murder occurred. He’s creepy. He keeps showing up. And there’s been another death. Here, where he is.”
“Ah, yes.”
“That’s it.” She sighed again.
“Better ask your friend Tony.”
“Yeah, well, I told him I didn’t want to see him again.”
“Oh?” Acie pointed her fork at Rina’s barely touched meal. “The shrimp are really good. You need to eat.”
She took a bite. Acie was right. The food was delicious. So was the white wine.
“I had a dream about you and Tony,” Acie said. “You were sitting on a blanket near water. And there was rain.”
“Rain on a blanket? Yeah, that sounds like me. Sorry, but I can’t imagine sitting out in the rain on a blanket, getting soaked. With someone I’m not planning to see again.”
Acie shrugged. “It was just a dream. But you were definitely together.”
“Things are complicated.”
“I bet they are.”
“I’m just going to concentrate on learning Italian.”
Acie grinned as if she’d said something witty. “That sounds like a plan.”
Rina wouldn’t ask about the grin. “I’m enjoying the class. And I’m enjoying you.”
Acie lifted her glass. “Yes, ma’am. Girlfriends abroad!”
A new experience, having a girlfriend. She clinked glasses with Acie. “Loving it.”
“I’m going to hate for you to go. I get it, though. Paris, London, Athens. Sounds glorious.”
It would be. “But we’ll see each other again.”
“We’d better.” Acie signaled for the waiter. “You want more wine?”
“I’m fine.”
While her friend was distracted, Rina let her mind wander ahead to her travels and then to her return home. Which was when Tony’s image flashed into her thoughts. She squeezed her eyes shut. She would not think about him.
She would not let the first man to come along since... since…
But now it was worse, because she was thinking of all those years glued to Jason’s hip as something on the minus side. What a time to be wavering.
No, she was just testing waters. Unstirred waters.
Stagnant?
There she went again. All right. “Examine the facts, Rina.”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken the words aloud until Acie said, “Examine what?”
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking about my future.”
Acie lifted her newly replenished glass of wine in another toast. “Here’s to a glorious future for each of us.”
“I’ll drink to that.” She did. And she forced herself to think happy thoughts of Jason. Of him waiting for her with open arms. Of her walking down the aisle.
With Ja
son.
Tony wasn’t good for her any way she looked at it. She would not think about him.
He was from another world, the wrong kind of world, where he played among terrorists. Even if he were just the engineer he claimed to be—and on good days she thought he probably was—he did work in Arab countries. He did know ugly men who carried guns and dead bodies under bushes. He was not a person she needed in her life. If she ran into him, if he came back to class, she’d just say hello to be friendly.
She smiled across the table. “Tell me about you and Nicco. That grin of yours has to mean something.”
20
TONY
Meeting with Abu Sadiq recruits continued to be a waste of time. No one spoke out of turn. No one looked remotely suspicious. They were student radicals, zealots for a cause, but he couldn’t fault them for more than the inability to think outside their own small box. Pretty typical of a lot of people.
Ibrahim remained somewhere, unmonitored, uncaptured. And his words floated loose in Tony’s memory: Watch your back.
How, exactly, did one do that? His own lumbering self could run, but the image of him actually kicking a killer’s butt had him dropping his head into his hands.
He still hadn’t heard from Paola and neither had his cousin. He turned on his laptop, logged in, and wrote again to Zif.
“Cousin,”—and here his fingers poised over the note. There were a number of pithy words he’d like to insert, but on the off chance someone other than Zif would read them (such as Zif’s sweet old-lady secretary), he let them settle in his head and not in the email—“I’ve found out nothing from the recruits, and Ibrahim has vanished, so where is this help I’m supposed to have? I’m worried. Call me.”
One more try to reach Paola, and he headed out. What a way to squander his vacation, accomplishing nothing, putting his life in jeopardy for what? His mind was probably atrophying, at least the engineering part. And there went any trip home to check on the lake property.
Yeah, he was whining. So what. He felt like it.
He’d just turned away from the post office when he saw Rina walking slightly ahead of him, her hair bouncing against her collar, her slim figure hurrying. If he increased his pace at all, he’d overtake her.
Instead, he veered in the other direction, eventually coming to the hotel where he’d stayed when he first arrived. Ever since he’d sampled their Chianti, he’d associated this place with good wine. He walked into the bar, asked for a glass of the same, and carried it to a padded booth.
The background music soothed him, and he imagined bringing Rina here to sip a glass of whatever she liked. Someday. In another reality.
Another man pushed open the door, settled on a stool, and placed an order. The barman poured a clear liquor and set the glass in front of the man, who lifted his drink, swiveled on his stool, and saluted Tony, the bar’s only other customer.
Friendly was good, as long as the man didn’t want conversation. Tony nodded. The man turned back to the counter.
The Chianti went down as smoothly as Tony remembered. He swirled it again, sniffed again, and sipped. You couldn’t get a red of this caliber just anywhere. Perhaps he could convince Rina to let him treat her to a dinner—once she stopped feeling so skittish. And he knew it was safe.
His gaze traveled back to the man at the bar. Interesting. Casual dress, except for that footwear. The intricate leather work on the boots looked as if they’d come straight off a fancy ranch in Texas.
It took all sorts.
Tony didn’t dawdle after he emptied his glass. He considered dining in the hotel restaurant but really didn’t want to eat a fancy meal alone. Instead, he’d pick up a salad on his way back to his room.
Although the thought of veggie pizza certainly did appeal: vegetables, protein, and starch rolled into one delicious meal. Pleased with his decision, he strolled down the Corso Vannucci. Near the Bar Turreno, he turned left—exactly where Rina would have turned right toward the convent.
A longing to see her seized him. While Ibrahim was gone, she wasn’t in any danger. If only she’d give him a chance to convince her he could keep his hands—and his lips—to himself.
Zif reported only silence from Paola, but the man he’d sent in found no evidence of foul play. Tony objected. There had to be something. For an organization tied to one that purported to be the best in the world, things looked a little dodgy from where he sat.
He rarely thought of Rina.
Only sometimes, when the light shimmered on dark shoulder-length hair or when a snatch of bright blue caught his eye. Then he’d find himself straining to see if it were she. It never was.
This time, he almost ran smack into her as she walked out of a clothing shop on the Corso Vannucci. Pulled up short, he had to speak. “Hello.”
He surprised a glad light in her eyes, which she lowered immediately. “Hey.” Her greeting was softly spoken, but he’d seen the sparkle.
“It’s a small town.”
She nodded. “You haven’t been in class.”
“No.”
“I hope it wasn’t because…”
“It was.”
She looked up at him, those lovely blue-gray eyes large. “I didn’t mean… I'm sorry, I don't want…”
“I guess we’re bound to run into each other.”
“Yes, I suppose we are.”
“Do you mind?”
“Why should I?”
He could barely hear her. Yeah, he had to be careful, but he wanted to know why they couldn’t just be friends. So, he asked.
Her expression mirrored conflicting emotions. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, for either of us.”
He shrugged. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“I think it’s best.”
“So long then.”
“So long.”
He watched as she walked away, her back straight, her hair pulled up off her long, graceful neck and bouncing behind her in a ponytail. Her dress swished as she moved, revealing long, perfect legs, everything about her long and lean and—oh, man, he imagined her skin under his fingers….
Whoa. He couldn’t go there.
Where was all his professed caution? He ought to have his head examined.
He crossed to a side street that would lead him back to his room. Perhaps he’d pick up a slice or two of pizza. Who cared that the starchy calories had begun bulking more than his muscles? Pizza was easy. It was good. And it didn’t involve him sitting in a restaurant wishing he weren’t alone.
21
RINA
She dug her fingernails into her palms and slogged forward as if wading through knee-high mud, down one street, up another until she arrived at the convent. Then it was in and up the stairs, into her room, onto her bed. She wouldn’t think about him. She wouldn’t.
All too soon she was up again, splashing water on her face. “Lot of good you did me,” she told the person staring out from the mirror.
Back on the bed, she spoke to the ceiling. “Did you see how considerate he was?”
The words sent a shiver through her, because that’s exactly what he’d been. He hadn’t pushed to see her again. He hadn’t told her how wrong she was. He hadn’t tried to fix her or straighten her out.
An image of Jason driving to D.C. to move her back home when her friend returned from England flashed into focus. She’d called to tell him of the invitation to stay on in the city. The temp work had appealed to her at that age because it let her see, if only for a day or a week, different people and different places. Instead of listening, Jason had scoffed. “Temp jobs? No, no. You’ve had your adventure. Now it’s time to come home and pursue your career. You can substitute teach until you find the perfect fit. That should fit your idea of temporary.” He’d seemed to consider himself amusing. She’d sighed and let him put her suitcase in his car and her with it. Just like that. Spinelessly. Wimpily.
Was that even a word? It felt like a word. She’d been a spineless wimp, bow
ing to a force majeure, the stronger will, her father’s, Jason’s. Always bowing, agreeing, allowing.
In contrast, Tony had answered with a “Whatever makes you comfortable.” With a mere “So long.”
So long.
She sat up. He had allowed her to make the call. Her. Alone.
She grinned.
Over the next days, she attended class. She ate and slept. She saw Acie once, but the visit was cut short by a phone call from home asking for help with errands. She bought three Italian magazines and struggled through the captions. At her next Tony sighting, he waved from across the street and continued walking.
She checked two more days off the calendar by attending class, lunching with Acie and Mae, and rereading the magazines.
When she finally saw Tony enter a café half a block away, she didn’t move. Her stomach knotted.
She would not follow.
Minutes later, she pushed open the café door and strained to see in the dim light. He sat at a booth about two-thirds back, an espresso on the table next to his elbow. He stood when he saw her.
“Will you join me?” His tone was welcoming but not effusive.
She slid in across from him. “Thank you.”
“Would you like something? A coffee?”
“Water?”
He motioned to a waiter and ordered. “I’m glad to see you.” His lips crooked up at the corners.
“Did you mean what you said before? That you wish we could just be friends?”
His eyes danced at that. “Yes, I wish we could be friends. I don’t have very many of those.”
She stared for a moment longer, until the image of him with half-naked and very beautiful women surfaced, women who leaned into him seductively. A giggle burst past her lips. She covered her mouth as red suffused her face, but it took biting her lower lip to stop the gurgle. Too many of those lurid romance covers, my girl.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just imagining the kind of relationship you do have with women.”
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