“Just in time!” they said in unison.
“Just in time for what?” Savannah leaned over to study the map.
Rachel pointed to a small area near the famous Trevi Fountain. “We were going to visit this little café right next to the fountain.”
“We’re going to have a very, very, very, long lunch,” said Faith.
Savannah sat down at the table and looked at the sisters. “Oh, I get it. You’re going to charm the owners into telling you about Alan’s family. Right?”
The twins’ eyes lit up. “Yes, but that’s not all we have to tell you.”
Savannah’s eyes narrowed. “What have you done?”
“We noticed something about Albert,” said Rachel.
Faith nodded. “Yes, it started after the dinner in our suite. Breaking that glass was the start of our suspicions.”
Edward sighed. “Stop stalling. What have you done?”
The twins looked at each other and shrugged their four shoulders. Rachel answered, “We noticed that he had been taking a long time to answer when we buzzed the service needed button.”
Faith finished, “So this morning after breakfast we decided to follow Albert and find out about these long absences.”
Rachel rubbed her hands together. “We walked by one of the crew access doors and before he could close it, we saw him deep in conversation with Officer Gaffney.”
Edward interrupted. “But that could be innocent. Albert is a senior member of the cabin stewards.”
Rachel lowered her eyes. “Be still, I’m getting to the good part. They were arguing about money.”
“Money?” Savannah rubbed her temples with both hands. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”
“We agree,” said Faith. “We didn’t get any more out of them because he became aware of us and slammed the crew door shut.”
Savannah sighed. “Rachel, Faith, I truly appreciate your enthusiasm, but you must promise me that you won’t do that again. There’s nothing at all that would point to Albert. I think you’ve taken your addiction to reading cozy mysteries far beyond the pale. Promise me that you won’t try to tail any of the other crew members on the ship. I just can’t add you two to my long list of worries right now.”
“We were only trying to help,” said Rachel.
“We didn’t mean to add to your worries,” said Faith.
“I know, but make that promise, please,” said Savannah. “Both of you!”
They said in unison, “We promise.”
Edward sat at the table. “First things first, ladies. Where are Aunt Kate and Uncle Howard?”
“They’re resting,” said Rachel. “Naturally, this has been a tremendous strain.”
“On Kate’s heart,” continued Faith. “She’s on some pretty serious medication.”
Savannah looked over to Edward. “Why don’t we track down the Maggio sisters and hopefully eliminate them from our investigation. It shouldn’t take long and maybe by the time we’re back, your aunt Kate will be feeling better.”
“Good plan.”
Cruise lines over the past several years had been slowly decreasing the permissible areas for smokers, and now there was only one place to smoke on board, where they had found Ruth previously. It was near the Mast Baron the starboard side, deck 14, aft.
Edward led the way to the bar. “Do you want a soda or sparkling water? I’m parched.”
“Perfect, make that with ice and a lime.”
They took their plastic cups over to the smoking area and as expected Ruth was camped out like a claim jumper. This time, however, Sally was lying on the next lounger reading the latest OK! newspaper.
Edward found two plain chairs along the railing and picked up one in each hand. He placed them in front of the sisters and motioned for Savannah to have a seat.
“Hey, what do you guys want? Nobody asked you to join us.” Ruth exhaled a long breath of smoke in Savannah’s direction.
She coughed involuntarily. “Hey, no need for that.”
Edward moved his chair to be right next to Ruth, deliberately imposing his large frame in her space. “We’re here to get some straight answers from you.”
“We’ve been working with the security police on board. They’ve given us authority to continue investigating Ian’s disappearance. If you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll call them to come up and take you down to the interview room.”
“I’ve just come from there,” said Edward. “I promise you, the view is better from here. Answer our questions, or we call Officer Gaffney.”
Ruth was in the process of blowing more smoke at Savannah but changed her mind—too late to keep from coughing up a storm. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist . . . We’ll tell you whatever it is you want to know.”
“When was the last time you saw Ian?” asked Savannah.
Ruth looked at Sally and nodded a “go ahead” to her. “I already told you about that.”
Savannah stood up. “Okay, Edward. They’re not going to cooperate. Call Officer Gaffney to escort them down to security.”
Edward made a show of dragging his phone from his pocket and lifted his finger high over the surface of the smartphone.
“No, stop!” Ruth lurched from her chair and tried to take the phone from Edward’s hand. “I’ll come clean. Don’t call security.”
“Then tell us what you know right now.” Edward’s voice carried and the other smokers had turned to stare.
Savannah patted his knee. “Calm down. I think they’re ready. Right?”
Ruth and Sally nodded.
Ruth looked at Sally. “Go ahead. You’re the one most affected.”
Sally looked tragic. “After you talked to me, I confronted Ruth and we had a mighty row. We were lucky we didn’t get thrown off the ship. But, suddenly it occurred to us that maybe we had caused Ian to jump overboard.”
Sally caught her breath, then continued. “We both started crying. The thought of Ian overboard, trying to swim, failing, then drowning after he couldn’t swim anymore. It was a life-changing moment for me,” she said.
“I kept imagining how he must have felt to watch the lights of the ship go farther and farther away from him with no chance to get back aboard.” Sally shuddered. “It was horrible.”
“That was when I admitted to Sally what a horrible sister I had been.” Ruth spoke in a quiet, calm tone. “We held each other and cried for what seemed like hours.”
The sisters looked at each other with eyes overflowing, which they wiped away.
“Then what happened?” asked Savannah.
“We were looking over the aft end of the ship when someone tapped our shoulders,” said Sally.
“Was it—”
Ruth nodded. “You guessed it. It was Ian.”
“We both jumped a foot.” Ruth pulled some tissues from her pocket, handed one over to Sally, and then blew her nose. “What a shock to see him.”
“How did he seem?” asked Edward. “Was he stable? Sober?”
“He was sober, all right.” Sally swung her legs over to the side of the lounge chair and sat up. “Ian apologized to both of us. It seemed sincere, didn’t it, sis?”
Ruth mirrored her sister’s position on her lounge. “He was serious. Ian said that his life was in danger and that he needed our help.”
“I believed him,” said Sally. “He was always so carefree around us. This was an entirely different Ian. I felt like we were given a second chance to do right by him.”
Ruth leaned forward. “He said that he was hiding from an old enemy and asked if we could help him.”
“So, you got his medications from our cabin?” asked Edward.
The sisters fidgeted and squirmed in their chairs and looked down at the deck. Sally looked at Ruth and motioned for her to answer. “Yes. It wasn’t easy. We had to time it just right so that your room attendant wouldn’t notice.”
Sally leaned forward. “I distracted him while Ruth slipped in and got them. They were right where Ian h
ad told us they would be.”
Savannah put her hand on her forehead. “So that’s why you were in the crew section. You were delivering the medications.” Savannah leaned back in her chair. “Did I interrupt the delivery?”
“No,” said Sally. “I had already done that. But you certainly scared me to death.”
“Do you know who he’s hiding from?” Edward asked.
Ruth reached for her pack of cigarettes, but drew her hand back. “No, we don’t know anything about that. He told us to stay mum and he would see us back in St. Albans and explain everything.”
Savannah and Edward exchanged looks. Edward reached out and squeezed Savannah’s hand. “This is the proof I needed,” he said while a slow smile spread over his face. “Ian is alive. It’s safe to tell Uncle Howard and Aunt Kate.”
* * *
Savannah and Edward reached the suite and Rachel let them in.
“Do you have news?” Ian’s parents opened the master bedroom door. “We were resting when we heard you,” said Aunt Kate as she looked at Savannah. “What’s the news?”
“It’s good news,” said Savannah. “I found an image of Ian on the ship. He’s alive but hiding from someone. We don’t know why.”
Edward followed with, “Not only that, but we talked to the Maggio sisters who have seen him and filched his medicines from our cabin to give to him. So, he’s not going without.”
Aunt Kate put her hand on her chest and staggered. Uncle Howard quickly grabbed her around the shoulders and led her by the hand to a dining room chair. “I knew he was perfectly fine,” she said, “but it’s such a relief to know that he has been seen.”
Savannah leaped up and grabbed a glass from the bar and filled it with water. “Here, Mrs. Morris. Drink this.”
Aunt Kate took the glass. “Thank you.” She drank with a trembling grip and placed the quivering glass down on the table. Then she reached up to briefly squeeze Savannah’s hand. “You’re so kind.”
Uncle Howard sat in the chair next to Aunt Kate, but still held her by the hand with his arm around her shoulder. “Kate, take it easy now. Your heart isn’t what it used to be.”
She grinned at her husband. “Nothing is what it used to be, Howard. But I’m so thankful for these young people.” She drank the rest of the water with a steadier hand.
Savannah’s complexion blanched a shade, then she turned to Edward and spoke slowly. “Do you think he’s avoiding you?”
“Me?” Edward reared back in shock. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“With all the theories we’ve been batting around, I wanted to make sure that Ian wasn’t blaming you for his situation or maybe even his depression.” Savannah watched the reaction of Ian’s parents. They both looked confused.
Good, they trust Edward.
She grabbed Edward’s hand and gave it a good hard squeeze. “I didn’t think that could be the case, but I thought we all needed to hear you say it out loud.”
Savannah crooked her neck to peer at Edward and smiled. She focused her attention on the sisters. “Now, what about that great plan, ladies?”
“Meanwhile, we can comb the neighborhood for Alan.”
Edward knit his brows. “You think he’s there?”
“I think that’s where he went from Provence. I can’t prove it, but I think he’s part of the family that ran the counterfeiting ring. It makes the most sense,” said Savannah.
Albert approached holding a tray of drinks. “I took the liberty of having some refreshments sent in.” He placed Cosmopolitans in front of Rachel and Faith, a gin and tonic in front of Edward, Aunt Kate, and Uncle Howard, and finally a Guinness in front of Savannah.
They toasted to their belief that Ian was certainly alive, but in hiding from someone he feared would harm him. They vowed to pursue all clues and leads to find the root of his predicament.
Chapter 20
Friday, in Rome
“What time is it?” Edward had his hands wrapped around a large coffee.
“It’s seven o’clock.” Savannah had consumed half of her cappuccino and only a few little flakes remained in evidence of her chocolate croissant. “We need to be one of the first people off. Our hired car will be waiting right next to the ship.”
“How did you arrange that?”
“Simple, I e-mailed your travel agent. Jan had it arranged in a flash. Our driver’s name is James.”
“You are kidding me. How many clichés are we going to experience during this investigation?”
“Come on, hurry up!” Savannah headed for the take-out cups for coffee and filled two for their taxi ride into Rome.
James was alarmingly proficient at cursing his way around traffic snarls and dropped them off at the Trevi Fountain within an hour of leaving the ship. They asked to be picked up two hours before the ship left port.
They both turned to see the fountain. According to a sixteenth-century author quoted on the website Garden Fountains, it was named after a virgin shepherdess who showed the spring to soldiers seeking water. Water flowed from the mouth of the dominating figure—Neptune, god of the sea—standing atop a shell-shaped chariot drawn by two sea horses and two gods. The horses represented the changing mood of the sea. The larger statue on the left was a representation of the goddess Abundance, above who was a bas-relief depiction of Agrippa, the son-in-law of the 19 B.C. emperor, shown approving the plans for construction of the aqueduct. On the right was the god Salubrity, topped by a representation of the virgin directing soldiers toward the water.
They stood in front of the fountain in silence. “I had no idea it was so beautiful,” whispered Savannah. “It doesn’t look like this in the movies.”
“It doesn’t sound like this, either.” Edward wrapped an arm around her shoulders and they stood for a few more moments. “Okay, grab your coins. We’re here. Let’s do it.”
They each dug three coins out of their pockets, turned their backs to the fountain, made a wish, and tossed their coins in the fountain.
“I hope this works to reverse the bad luck of the shattered teapot,” said Savannah. “I want to come back here when things aren’t in such a mess.”
“Luv,” said Edward. “Trouble has your scent and will stalk you to the ends of the earth. That’s why we should always take our pleasures when we can.”
Savannah smiled a crooked grin. “I do seem to find myself in trouble a lot, but I always get us out.”
“That you do.”
She grabbed him by the hand. “Let’s do this.”
The steep twisting cobblestone streets were a navigation challenge, but after a few wrong turns, Savannah and Edward were standing on the street that Amanda reported as the area where the counterfeiting ring originated, according to the ancestry documents she found.
They found the right house and Savannah knocked on the door. A young boy aged about ten answered and looked up into their faces.
“Hello there,” said Savannah. “Do you speak English?”
His big brown eyes widened and a broad smile flashed a row of perfect white teeth. “Yes, ma’am. I learn good English in school. Good morning. How are you? Have a nice day.”
Edward knelt to the young boy’s level. “Could we speak to your mama or papa?”
In rapid Italian, the boy gave a shouted warning to someone behind him and slammed the door.
Farther down the street, Savannah saw Alan dashing around the corner.
“Christ on a bike!” she yelled. “It’s Alan. Run!”
They gave chase, down to the first corner, and followed him up a steep cobbled street. They followed him down a tiny alleyway, but after the next intersection of five individual lanes, they lost him.
“Crikey!” Edward panted, leaning against a wall and holding his aching side. “You glassblowers are really fit.” He continued to gasp long after Savannah recovered her breath.
“My morning runs with Rooney have certainly paid off.”
“I thought we would be searching all
day.” He puffed. “At a leisurely walk.”
“Well, we know this is the right neighborhood, anyway,” said Savannah.
“Let’s go back to the house and watch for the little boy,” said Edward.
“Why?”
“If this is the kind of family that I think it is, we should be able to bribe him into giving us more information about where Alan might be.”
“Bribe the kid to rat him out, you mean?”
“Ten-year-old boys are heartless—remember? I should know,” Edward said with a grim tilt of his head.
“Right.” They went back toward the house. There was the usual neighborhood café on the corner and they were able to get a seat that gave them a good view of the house.
After several cups of espresso, a cannoli each, and two more chocolate croissants for Savannah, another boy came walking down the street kicking a faded soccer ball. He tucked the ball under his arm and knocked on the door to the house. It opened immediately and the tattletale emerged to begin kicking the ball back and forth to each other along the street.
Edward left a generous pile of Euros on the table and they began to follow the boys at a safe distance. They led them to a small field with other players kicking, throwing, and practicing hitting the ball with their chests and heads.
Savannah whispered, “Now what?”
“Watch this.” Edward pulled out his wallet and removed a one-hundred-Euro bill. He waved it in the air. “Do any of you speak English? I need a translator.”
The players froze in mid-play. The boy from the house ran up to Edward and jumped in the air to reach the bill. “Hang on! Let me hear you speak.”
“I can speak English!” The boy put his hands on his hips. “You’re the ones who were at my house.”
Edward gave the boy the bill. “That’s for speaking English.” He pulled two one-hundred-Euro bills from his wallet and held them up. “This is for telling us why Alan Viteri ran away from us and where is he going?”
The boy shuffled from one foot to the other. He eyed the two one-hundred-Euro bills in Edward’s hand.
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