Betrayal

by Christina Dodd

  No one appreciated his adding the last comment, but he was seventeen and a nerd, so Noah tried to sound as prosaic as possible. “This is going to turn out well, or it isn’t. So let’s get it over with.”

  Nonna moved in with a kitchen towel and blotted Eli’s forehead. “I’d like to give it a try,” she said, her voice as bright as if she were offering to take over a sewing project.

  “Nonna, thank you, but you’ve got a bit of a tremor,” Eli said.

  “That’s because I’ve got eighty-year-old hands.” Nonna held them out. “They’ve got arthritis in the joints. They’ve been used for a lot of things. I wouldn’t miss them much.”

  Noah tried to smile at Penelope, but he couldn’t. His guilt and worry were too profound. Because Nonna expressed what they’d all been thinking: If the collar blew, it wasn’t only Noah who would lose. Eli’s hands would go, too.

  “Nonna, when I get done with this, I’m going to want a meal. Please cook for me.” By that, Eli meant no, and he kept the knife firmly in his grip.

  “You boys make me so angry.” Nonna stood with her fists on her hips. “I suppose I should be happy you’re not fighting anymore, but somehow, that’s not cutting it.” Turning, she whipped around and started banging pans, hard, on the stove.

  She wasn’t really mad, Noah knew. She was scared.

  Eli sliced at the leather and in a conversational tone said, “Noah, I didn’t quite understand why you decided to tell us now rather than fling yourself on a martyr’s grave.”

  “He had no choice.” Penelope was chalky with tension, but her voice was firm and strong. “We’re having a baby.”

  “But this morning you started your… Oh.” Brooke looked startled, then thoughtful. “Ohh.”

  “Hey! Congratulations, Noah!” Darren’s voice was cheerful.

  “My dears.” Nonna came to hug first Penelope, then Noah. Her brown eyes were bright with joy, and heavy with added fear. Being Nonna, she spoke only of the joy. “You’ve made me so happy.”

  “Good job, man!” Eli socked Noah in the shoulder.

  “For Pete’s sake, don’t jostle him!” Chloë admonished.

  Eli pulled his hand back. “Sorry!”

  “The collar seems very stable. I’ve worn it for two weeks,” Noah said.

  “Two weeks!” Eli smacked him again, more lightly. “What the hell? You couldn’t have told us sooner?”

  “I was trying to do the right thing.” Noah watched Penelope with such warmth, she flushed, bringing some color to her pallid face. “It’s okay,” he said to her. “We’ll do this.”

  She nodded as if she believed him, but her face was bleak.

  She was recalling, he knew, the deaths that had previously broken her, and bracing herself for another future alone. She knew too much of sorrow, and his heart ached as he imagined her anxiety now.

  Going to the stove, Brooke said, “Darren’s searching the net. Chloë’s helping Eli. I’m not doing anything, and it’s making me jumpy. Want me to peel potatoes or something?”

  “Thank you, dear, but you’re supposed to drive Chloë into town to have her cast off,” Nonna said.

  Waving a dismissive hand, Chloë said, “I can’t go.”

  “Yes, you can,” Noah said. “I appreciate your solicitude, I truly do, but you can go to the doctor’s, get the cast cut off, and be back before anything is scheduled to… happen.”

  Penelope glanced at her watch, then glanced at the clock above the door. “What time did you say…?”

  Noah saw no kindness in keeping her in suspense. “Three thirty-seven p.m.”

  “Right. You go on, Chloë. My eyes are good. I can examine the collar and give Eli directions.” Penelope got to her feet and stood beside Noah, her hand on his shoulder.

  He was getting a lot of shoulder action today, but only Penelope stroked him, taking comfort as well as giving it. She seemed steadier with something to do, and he thought they all recognized it.

  “See, honey? There’s always another female to tell me what to do,” Eli said to Chloë. “You’ve been miserable for six weeks. Get the cast off and come back. I’ll have the dog collar off of Rover by then.”

  “Long-distance worry counts as support, too,” Noah assured her, then made a shooing motion.

  Brooke pointed her finger at Noah. “I want to know the second Eli gets the bomb defused.”

  Noah appreciated their certainty. “We’ll give you a call.”

  Brooke and Chloë grabbed their purses and ran down the hall and out the front door, not to escape the situation, but so they could quickly return.

  “I can’t quite get this vertical cut all the way through this leather,” Eli muttered.

  Noah tilted his chin back.

  Penelope bent down and looked. “The stitching is thicker there.”

  The blade snagged on something.

  Eli yanked it back, hard.

  The point caught Noah under his chin, stabbed and slashed.

  “Damn it,” Eli muttered. And, “Sorry.”

  “No harm done. I cut myself worse shaving.” Noah reached for a napkin, pressed it against the stinging wound, and glanced at Penelope.

  She stared at the blood, her eyes wide and despairing, her complexion bleaching to a terrifying white.

  He looked to Nonna for help.

  Nonna had already seen the trouble. “Penelope,” she said, “if I’m going to make a roast, I need carrots and potatoes. They’re downstairs in the wine cellar. Would you go get them for me?”

  Penelope didn’t stir.

  “Penelope?” Nonna said sharply.

  “What?” Penelope started. “What? Carrots and potatoes. Sure. But I’m the one watching for Eli.”

  “This’ll just take a minute.” Nonna rinsed a kitchen towel under cold running water and placed it on Penelope’s forehead, then draped it around Penelope’s neck. Handing her a wide metal colander, she said. “Fill that up. That should be enough to feed us all. Oh, and bring an onion and a head of garlic.”

  Penelope nodded. “Potatoes and carrots. Onion and garlic.”

  As she started down the stairs, Eli put down the knife and peeled back the leather.

  “Man. Would you look at those wires,” he said.

  Chapter 63

  “Show me,” Penelope heard Darren say. Then, in a horrified tone, “That’s awesome!”

  Reeling with despair and horror, Penelope stumbled down the last two steps and landed on her hands and knees, then sank onto the floor and rested there, her forehead on the cool concrete.

  She took long, deep gulps of air, trying to clear her swimming head.

  She had sat in the kitchen, watching and listening, being absolutely ineffective as Brooke talked strategy with Darren, while Eli risked his life, while Chloë summed up the lay of the land with a few well-chosen words, while Nonna offered her hands for her grandson, while Rafe and Bao raced out to counterattack the people who wished to kill Noah and all the rest of the Di Luca family.

  Penelope felt useless. She was useless. She wanted to save Noah, but she couldn’t even walk down the stairs without collapsing. She knew it wasn’t her pregnancy that caused her weak knees. It was a gnawing sense of hopelessness. She had seen so much death, and now, on the day when she realized that life had bloomed anew within her, and Noah had affirmed his love for her, she also discovered the man she loved was doomed.

  As she lay there, her cheek on the floor, facing the stairway, she wondered, What could she do to help? She had promised herself she would live again, and despite the horror of Noah’s revelation, she couldn’t hide from it.

  A random thought popped into her mind.

  The bottom step was built… oddly.

  Unimportant, Penelope.

  She needed to concentrate. There had to be something she could do to help Noah in his hour of need.

  Her eyes narrowed. Her sense of proportion was offended.

  The bottom step was wrong.

  Not so wrong that anyone c
ould tell there was a problem if they were standing upright. But for a design professional who was on the ground looking straight at it… the bottom step was too thick.

  Lifting her head, she looked around, trying to see some other examples of Alice in Wonderland construction.

  But no. The basement was long and wide, mostly bare except for bins of vegetables and a huge, old wine rack that looked like a wonderful instance of early-American construction.

  The white-painted staircase itself was the essence of simplicity—wooden steps supported by two long wooden stringers down the sides. Every step was the same: a single flat two-by-ten. Except the bottom step, which was four sturdy inches thick and probably fourteen inches wide with the extra inches at the back. There, where the step above it cast its shadow, the board had the slightest indent that ran the length of the smooth painted surface.

  To Penelope’s trained eye, the top of the step looked like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle carefully fitted together.

  But who would create such a thing, and do it with such craftsmanship that no one would notice no matter how hard they were searching…?

  Eyes fixed on the step, Penelope walked her hands along the concrete floor, pushed herself into a sitting position.

  Noah’s grandfather. Nonno. The inveterate builder, fixer, repairman. That was who.

  And why would he do that?

  To create a space to hide his precious bottle of wine, to keep it cool and in the dark.

  Penelope forgot her nausea, her despair.

  In a flurry of motion, she crawled to the step and felt along the barely visible seam between the wide front board and the narrow back board. Yes, they were definitely two pieces sanded and painted to resemble one step.

  She dug her fingernails into the seam.

  Nothing budged.

  She sat back on her heels, her elation dying a little.

  She looked again.

  Felt the seam again.

  No. She was right. Somehow, this came apart.

  She walked around to the back, ducked under the stairway, and knelt there. Here she saw more clearly the extra width of the step, and a notch above the step on the inside of the wood stringer. She lifted from the back—and the step shifted. Lifted. She slid it free.

  And there, resting in a hollow box that ran the length of the step, was an old, very old, bottle of wine.

  The bottle of wine.

  She placed her palm on the long, stretched neck and stroked it as if it were a living creature.

  It was beautiful: green glass, tall, thin, with a long neck and a small, worn, faded label marked, MASSIMO.

  Then reality caught up with her.

  She crawled out from under the stairs, jumped to her feet, ran around the stairs, and shouted, “Noah, could I see you?” Too emphatic. She should be calmer. She called, “Noah? I need to see you.” A moment. “Really!”

  Noah appeared at the top of the stairs.

  Even from here, she could see the strips of leather Eli had dissected off his dog collar, and the confusion of tiny silver cables that encircled Noah’s throat.

  But he smiled as if the sight of her gave him pleasure, and his voice sounded easy, cheerful. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I need you to look at something.” She didn’t know why she was being enigmatic, only that today the scent of danger hung around every word, every action.

  He hurried down a couple of steps, frowning, his gaze fixed on her face.

  Eli called, “Noah, come on; we’re almost there.”

  Noah called back, “In a minute.” He ran down another three steps. “Penelope? You look as if you’re going to… What’s happened?”

  Above in the kitchen, the phone rang.

  Someone answered it.

  Distantly, Penelope heard a vague, one-sided conversation. “Hurry,” she said in a low voice, and beckoned him as she walked around behind the steps.

  “Are you okay?” He ran the rest of the way down, joined her, and with his gaze followed her pointing finger. For a long second, he hung suspended by amazement. Dropping to his knees, he touched the bottle with the same reverence she had shown. “Nonno’s bottle of wine. You found Nonno’s bottle of wine.” He looked at her as if she illuminated his soul.

  “I did.”

  “Look. It has Massimo’s name on it. But how…” Noah was talking to himself now. “Nonno hid it in the step itself. We looked all over the floor, all over the walls, but we didn’t look in the steps. And his note said, ‘up.’ And when it was turned over, it said, ‘dn.’ ” Turning to Penelope, he took her shoulders. “You’ve saved me.” Noah looked into her face, his own features hidden by the shadows of the stairway, and the gleam in his eyes made her heart swell with love.

  “Call them,” she said urgently. “Tell the Smits, or the Propovs, or whatever they call themselves. Tell them to come and get it, and remove that damned bomb from your throat.”

  “Noah!” Eli called from the top of the stairs. He sounded tense and angry, in the grip of a crisis that had intensified yet again.

  Noah turned his head with a frown. “What’s wrong?”

  “Chloë called. She and Brooke were on their way down toward town on our narrow little highway. They saw four people in a car headed this direction, trailed by another car with two people.”

  Noah went on alert.

  Eli continued. “Both cars were taking the curves too fast, like they were on a mission. Chloë called Rafe to warn him. Brooke turned back and tracked them.”

  Noah and Penelope scrambled out from underneath the stairs.

  “Damn it!” he said. Those women were going to get themselves killed.

  “The car dropped two people off in a wash that leads into the property. The people remaining in the car gunned their way across the lawn and—” Eli turned and looked toward the front door.

  Penelope heard it open.

  Eli shouted, “They’re here!”

  Chapter 64

  Noah heard a shot.

  Nonna screamed.

  Eli smacked the side of the upper door, stumbled forward, then tumbled down the stairs.

  “Eli!” Noah leaped up the steps, catching Eli halfway down.

  Feet thundered above.

  Another shot.

  Nonna. They’d killed Nonna.

  Eli was limp, unconscious, a deadweight in Noah’s arms.

  Penelope ran toward the stairs to help.

  Noah said, “Hide!”

  Absurd. She had nowhere to hide. But he couldn’t stand to see her just die.…

  Already he’d lost Nonna.

  Nonna, who had loved him his whole life…

  And Eli, whose crimson chest bore witness to the fact that the Propovs were shooting to kill. Lifting him, Noah swung around and jumped off the stairs. He deposited his brother out of the way at the edge of the stairs.

  Penelope jumped, too, landing next to Eli. She ducked and got under the steps.

  Thank God she listened to him. Thank God she was hiding.

  Noah looked into her eyes, saw the strength and compassion there. Their hands touched, clung; then Noah released her. He straightened. He stepped to the bottom of the stairs, where he faced his death.

  Hendrik stood at the top of the stairs, his Glock held at the ready.

  Noah held his arms wide, baring his chest, inviting the shot. “Do it!”

  “No way. I’m not letting you off that easy. You’ve got”—Hendrik consulted his watch—“eight minutes before your head blows off. I want to watch you squirm as every second of your life ticks away.” His cold, killer eyes took on a cruel sheen. “But look at you. Isn’t that cute! You tried to disarm your collar.”

  Noah took one step up. “How do you know I didn’t succeed?”

  “We’ve been listening.” Hendrik laughed with all the pleasure of a man at the height of his powers. “Grieta fixed the microphone. You know she’s good at what she does.”

  “Yes. I know.” Noah’s mind raced. When had they f
ixed the microphone? How much had they heard?

  Hendrik took a step down. “You doomed the Di Lucas with your touching confession of your youthful adventures with us. Because of you, we’ll search everyone down, kill them one by one, until we wipe the blot of your existence from this—”

  Liesbeth appeared in the doorway behind him and gave an exasperated sigh. “Stop the melodrama, Hendrik, and move. Let me talk to him.”

  Hendrik turned on her. “You’re not in charge anymore, old woman.”

  With one large, strong hand, Liesbeth gripped Hendrik on the muscle between his neck and his shoulder.

  Hendrik twisted and went down on one knee, his pistol drooping in his hand.

  “That was dumb,” Noah said. During the robbery of the famed painting, Noah had seen Liesbeth use her pressure points on servants and security people; they always crumpled. But never had he seen her use one on one of her own.

  But then, he’d never heard Hendrik speak to her like that, either.

  Hendrik believed the power had shifted.

  Liesbeth corrected him. Holding Hendrik helpless, she looked reproachfully at Noah. “Why did you do that? Why did you tell the Di Lucas? I warned you what would happen if you did.”

  Noah didn’t know whether she was being deliberately obtuse, or if she put new meaning into the word clueless. “I told them because I didn’t want my head to blow off, Mother.”

  “Six more minutes!” Hendrik called out.

  Liesbeth gave his neck another twist. He writhed and groaned.

  Noah kept his gaze at the top of the stairs. If he could get up there fast enough, remove the pistol from Hendrik’s hand, gain control of the situation…

  Liesbeth’s gaze shifted to look over his shoulder.

  He half turned to see Penelope rising from under the stairway, the bottle of wine in her hand. “Penelope. No,” he said.

  Penelope paid no attention to him. Her focus was on Liesbeth and Hendrik. “There’s still time to stop the timer,” she said to them.

  “No,” Noah said again. Didn’t she see? Those two wouldn’t make a deal. Not while they held the power.

  But Penelope held the bottle sideways on her palms, offering it to the two at the top of the stairs as if they were gods. “Disarm the bomb at Noah’s neck and this is yours.”