“Why not?” she answered cruelly. “You’ll be gone, what difference will it make?”
“Helen, I have no choice!”
“Oh, yes, yes. I know,” she replied sarcastically. “How could I possibly forget? You have your all important mission, whatever on God’s green earth that is. And everyone is after you, and it’s bigger than both of us, but you can’t tell me about it. Did I miss anything, any of the bad movie cliches you’ve been feeding me since you came here? To tell you the truth, I’m sick of listening to them, and I am heartily sick of you, so why don’t you just...”
She didn’t complete the sentence because he pulled her into his arms and covered her mouth with his. She resisted futilely for a few seconds, but they both understood that she didn’t really want to get away from him.
For a first kiss it was remarkably free of tentative exploration. Matteo knew what he was doing, and Helen’s response was elemental, total. This was Matteo, whom she had saved, and who might yet save her.
Matteo was as lost as she was, moving his lips to her cheek, her ear, lifting her against him to merge her body with his, then opening her mouth with his tongue. Helen responded eagerly, her desire to please making up for her lack of experience, and he ran his hand down her back, forcing her closer. He was still holding the gun, and it slipped from his grasp as he embraced her, clattering to the hardwood floor exposed at the edge of the rug. They broke apart, looking down at it, then at each other. The weapon was a brutal reminder of their true situation, and Helen stepped back, out of the circle of Matteo’s arms. She didn’t say a word but went straight to the bedroom and shut the door. Matteo did not follow.
Miserable and exhausted from her long vigil at Matteo’s side, she fell asleep and woke in late afternoon, sticky and uncomfortable. She listened, but couldn’t hear anything from the rest of the house. For a brief moment she thought that he had already left, but then realized he would have no way of getting to the marina other than hitchhiking, and he would never risk the exposure. She emerged to find him reading one of her books, a treatise on Elizabethan poets. The contrast struck her immediately: earlier in the day he had been ready to shoot the mailman, and now he was calmly reading a textbook, looking for all the world like a graduate student in the stacks of a library. Even the clothes she had brought enhanced the illusion; the jeans and oxford shirt would not have been out of place on any campus in the country.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she announced. “I assume we’ll be leaving later.”
He looked up, putting the book aside. “Feeling better?” he asked.
“Not really,” she answered, unwilling to comfort him. “You should eat something before we go. You don’t know how long it will be before your next meal.”
He didn’t dispute her assumption that his upcoming schedule would not exactly be routine. He nodded, and she left him to prepare for the coming night.
When she returned, dressed like him in jeans and a shirt, he was setting out food on the bar, a conglomeration of the leftovers from her last shopping trip. Helen sat next to him on an adjoining stool, noticing that he ate methodically but without enthusiasm, as if he were forcing himself to consume fuel, knowing he would need energy later.
The atmosphere was thick with undercurrents, very tense. Helen could manage only a few bites and then he cleared everything away, walking a wide circle around her as if she might explode at any moment. Helen felt that his caution was justified; she didn’t know whether to scream at him or burst into tears. He was actually going to leave, without apology and without explanation. It seemed incredible, but there was no mistaking his attitude of quiet determination. He was looking to the future, in his mind already on his way.
“Let me check your dressing one last time,” Helen finally said, breaking the silence that had lasted for almost an hour.
He sat in the chair he had occupied the night he arrived, and she knelt before him, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling off his sleeve, exposing the wound to view. She peeled away the bandage and saw that there was nothing to be done; it was clean and dry. She retaped the gauze in place. Then, unable to help herself, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his naked shoulder, hiding her face.
His arm came up convulsively, his fingers tangling in the fine mass of her hair.
“Oh, Helen,” he said brokenly, and in that one moment she almost believed he would stay.
But then she moved back to look into his face, and what she saw there seemed too much like pity for her to allow it. She straightened at once, rose to her feet and turned away. He was not going to feel sorry for her. She had tried, and she had failed. Whatever called him was more important to him than she was, and that was that.
He rose also, buttoning his shirt. “Can you go to the store once more for me?” he asked quietly. “There are a couple of things I need.”
“Have I ever refused you anything?” she said bitterly, and he rounded on her, his dark eyes blazing.
“Helen, do you think I wanted it to work out this way?”
“I don’t know what you want, other than to get back to whatever it was you were doing last Friday night. And judging from appearances, that wasn’t good.”
He looked away, his face closing. “You’d better get going to the store. It’s getting late.”
Helen sighed resignedly. “What do you want?”
“Dark glasses...”
“Sunglasses?”
“Yes, and a knit hat to cover my hair. And a penknife.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s it.”
“I’ll go right now.”
She picked up her purse and was on her way as he called after her, “Thank you.”
She ignored him, pulling the door closed behind her.
By the time Helen got back it was full dark, and Matteo was waiting for her anxiously, pacing the living room floor.
When she handed him her purchases he donned the glasses and the hat and put the knife in his pocket.
“Won’t people think it’s odd that you’re wearing dark glasses at night?” Helen asked. “If they see you, that is.”
“They’ll probably just think I’m a drug addict,” he answered, and she couldn’t help smiling.
He saw her expression and shrugged. “It’s better than being spotted,” he added, smiling a little himself.
As she watched he pulled the .38 from his belt and depressed the hammer, sliding the cartridge out to check it.
“Do you have to do that in front of me?” she inquired tightly, and he glanced at her quickly.
“I’ll be ready in a minute,” he replied quietly, going into the bedroom and shutting the door.
Helen waited, trying not to think how empty the beach house would seem without him.
He returned shortly, the gun concealed beneath a pullover sweater Adrienne’s son Andy had left behind. She had to admit that he looked like a local. His dress was appropriate for early spring weather in north coastal Florida; the days were warm, but the nights were usually cool and breezy.
“Let’s go,” he said, and Helen turned on her heel for the door.
Matteo followed her to the Mercedes 300D her father kept in the attached garage and got into the back, lying down on the seat. Helen opened the windows and drove out the palm lined lane to the road, turning left for A1A.
The salt wind blew through the car, stirring her hair, as she glanced in the rearview mirror. Matteo could not be seen. Although his precautions seemed almost paranoid, Helen didn’t comment on them. After all, someone had shot him.
It was a short distance to the boat basin, and when they arrived Helen drove past a restaurant and a string of shops to the dock. It was almost deserted at that hour. Boats bobbed at anchor in their slips, the water was calm, the sky spangled with stars. She slowed to a stop and announced, “We’re here.”
“Do you see a boat called Estrellital” he asked, his voice sounding spectral and disembodied floating toward her from the back seat.
“I can’t read the names from here; it’s too dark,” she responded, turning her head toward him. “I’ll have to get out and look.”
He hesitated, then said, “Be careful. If anyone sees you just turn around, get back in the car and drive away.”
“All right.”
Helen got out and strolled along the wooden dock, reading a succession of names emblazoned on a long row of power boats. She passed Sunshine Superman, Blue Lagoon, and a number of others, but could find no Estrellita. She turned around and came back, looking again, but it was not among them.
She returned to the car and said, “It’s not there.”
“Are there any other boats docked here?” he asked.
“Just the commercial craft on the other side of the lagoon.”
“Take me there.”
Helen started the car again, noticing that his tone was changing as he assumed command of the venture. It was obvious that he was used to issuing orders and he was back to his old form.
She circled the marina, pulling up at the commercial dock and getting out to look. It didn’t take her long to find the boat, a medium sized cruiser with a large, powerful engine. She glanced around her. No one was near. She could see a young couple walking hand in hand in the distance, but they were going the other way.
Helen returned to the car and opened the door. “I found it,” she told him. “It’s right nearby. You can get out now; the dock is deserted.”
He emerged feet first, straightening and looking around him. When he satisfied himself that she was right, he followed her to the boat and jumped down into it, reaching up with one hand to pull her after him.
“How did you know this would be here?” she asked, thinking that the question was probably an exercise in futility, but trying anyway.
To her surprise, he answered. “This is the boat I came in on,” he said shortly. “My men were told that if anything happened to me they were to leave it here.”
“Sort of like an alternate escape route, huh?” Helen said.
He examined her in the feeble light, trying to read her expression.
“Sort of,” he finally replied, and she let it go at that.
He went to the control panel at the front of the boat and looked over the instruments, seeming to find that everything was in order.
“How will you get it started?” she asked. “You don’t have a key.”
“It’s hidden on board.”
“But the customs check, the harbor police, Matteo.”
“I’ll be all right, don’t worry.” He turned to face her, and she knew that this was the farewell she’d been dreading.
“When you get off the boat,” he instructed her, “don’t wait for me to leave. Just take your car and drive directly back to your house.”
“And forget you?” she concluded for him, hating the betraying tremble that invaded her voice.
He put his arm around her and pulled her tight against his shoulder, rocking her gently. “No, mi corazon. Remember me, as I will always remember you.”
He let her go, taking her face between his hands and kissing her lips lightly.
“Mi corazon,” he whispered again, still brushing her mouth with his.
“What does that mean?” she asked, fighting the growing tightness in her throat.
“My heart. And you are my heart, even if I never see you again.”
Helen closed her eyes, unable to bear the thought of it.
“Mi princesa americana, mi senorita dolorosa blanca,” he murmured, stroking her hair.
She understood only that he was saying goodbye.
He embraced her once more, quickly, fiercely, and then pressed something into her palm.
She glanced down at it, glinting gold in the harbor lights, and realized that it was the small ring he wore on the little finger of his left hand. It had a signet ring’s flat surface and bore on its face, not initials, but the symbol of a tropical bird inscribed in a circle.
“It’s the only thing I have of value,” he said, “and even that is more sentimental than monetary. Please keep it, so that you’ll think of me when you see it.”
Helen slipped it onto her ring finger, closing the hand that wore it into a fist.
“Now go,” he said huskily, pushing her toward the dock. “I can’t delay any longer.”
Helen accepted his assistance in climbing up to the wooden walkway, turning to look down at him once she was out of the boat.
“Go,” he urged her. “Walk to your car and don’t look back.”
She hesitated.
“My safety is in your hands,” he warned her. “Farewell, majita.”
That convinced her, as he had known it would. She hurried back to the car, not risking a glance at the basin until she was behind the wheel.
The Estrellita was still there, but its deck was empty. He had gone below.
Helen started the car and drove out of the marina, seeing the road before her through a blur of tears.
Chapter 3
The night Matteo left was the longest night of Helen’s life. It was ridiculous, but she couldn’t sleep without him. She, who had prized solitude since childhood and had lived alone since she graduated from high school, was surrounded by the emptiness of the beach house as if lost in the Siberian wasteland. The compact, functional rooms seemed cavernous, and the bedroom where he had slept was a desert. She wound up dragging her pillow and blanket out to the living room couch and sleeping there, where the memories weren’t quite so painful.
In the days that followed she tried to go back to her old routine, but the 1500’s no longer held the charm for her that they once had. She found she didn’t much care any more what had inspired Christopher Marlowe to write Tamburlaine; she had met her own twentieth-century adventurer, and he was the one on her mind.
Helen spent a lot of time sitting on the beach, staring out to sea, thinking about the changes Matteo had brought to her life. She finally decided that she wasn’t going to get any work done as long as she remained in St. Augustine, so she made arrangements to go back to her apartment in Massachusetts. On the day before she was to fly north she went to the supermarket for cleaning supplies, intending to leave the house the way she had found it. Her father employed a housekeeping service, but Helen always felt an obligation to tidy up before she left. When she was younger her mother used to tell people laughingly that Helen cleaned her room before the maid could get to it; she didn’t want the poor woman to face a mess.
After she parked her car in the lot, Helen entered the air- cooled supermarket, picked out a cart and wandered the aisles aimlessly. She stared at the array of sprays and cleansers, soaps and scouring pads, seeing instead the empty deck of the Estrellita.
She missed Matteo terribly. She felt half alive without him, purposeless, incomplete. She didn’t realize until he was gone that she had admired his dedication, the single mindedness that took him away, because while he was with her she had also resented it. She felt, no, she knew that he had wanted to stay with her, but he had put his ultimate goal before his personal desires. And after twenty-five years of her mother, Helen found his attitude a refreshing, even enlightening, change.
She picked up a box of steel wool pads, looked at the price stamped on it and put it back. She couldn’t organize her thoughts enough to make a decision and finally started tossing items into her basket in rapid succession, eager to finish. She was at loose ends. Taking care of Matteo had made her feel needed for the first time in her life. She had never before experienced the fulfillment associated with helping someone she had grown to care for, and she felt its loss deeply.
She got in line at the checkout counter and picked up a newspaper on a nearby stand, scanning the stories for word of Matteo, as she did every day. She had seen nothing and, as desperate as she was for answers, she kept silent and made no inquiries, determined to keep his presence in her life a secret, as he wished.
As Helen paid her bill, she wondered idly how long it had been si
nce her mother had shopped in a supermarket. Queen Sophia, as Helen’s father still called her, never bought her own groceries. Clothes and jewelry, however, being far more important, commanded her personal attention. One of Helen’s earliest memories was of being dragged around to various salons while her mother tried on samples, took fittings for alterations and ordered up originals from designer sketches. Helen could also recall very clearly sitting in the reception rooms of Tiffany’s or Van Cleef and Arpels, fidgeting with a crystal paperweight on the salesman’s desk while her mother shopped. Sophia sipped tea with lemon from a Limoges cup and shook her head repeatedly, waving away the trays of rings, bracelets and necklaces presented for her inspection. The patient clerks, hoping for a big sale, tried to amuse the fractious child, but Helen was finally sent away with her nanny so Sophia could get on with the important business of selecting a new bauble to add to her collection. What a disappointment I must have been to her, Helen thought suddenly. She really wanted a friend to share her interests, and since Helen’s lay elsewhere, Sophia was forced to resort to the likes of Claudia Fierremonte. Claudia, who lived in Rome but didn’t know who the President of Italy was, could pick out any dress at a charity ball and tell you which designer’s house had made it.
Helen realized that she was standing in the store’s foyer, carrying her bag and looking through the plate glass window at nothing. She shook herself and walked out to the parking lot, blinking in the blazing sunshine and pausing to extricate her keys from her purse. When she reached the car, she inserted her key into the door lock. As she did so, a black sedan came roaring to a stop next to her and two figures bolted from the rear doors on either side. Before she could react one man snatched the bag from her hands and the other one took her arm in an iron grip and hustled her into the back seat. In the space of several seconds she found herself sitting with a captor on either side of her as the driver took off again, tires squealing, the car bulleting into the street and rounding a corner almost instantly.
“What’s going on?” Helen sputtered, looking from one man to the other. “Who are you?”
Men of Intrgue A Trilogy Page 5