Your Scheming Heart

by Kress, Alyssa

  "I see," Sabrina replied.

  Across from her, Vincenzo quietly started to go gray. She had to admit: this was not heartening news.

  "Dead," Vincenzo put in, sounding hoarse. "Alan Miller is dead?"

  The bleak look in Vincenzo's eyes made Sabrina return her attention to Harry. "Have you checked if he left anybody?"

  "Now that's what you paid me for." Dear Harry was boasting again. "A widow, in California. And I have an address."

  "Harry has an address for Alan's widow." Sabrina relayed this information so Vincenzo wouldn't collapse onto the carpet, as he appeared in danger of doing.

  "Does he think the widow might have the painting?" Vincenzo seemed to be grasping for straws.

  "Now, how should Harry know?" Sabrina scrambled for a pencil, feeling harried and oddly anxious. After scribbling down the address for Alan Miller's widow, she bid Harry good-bye and hung up the phone.

  With his back against the hotel room wall, Vincenzo had closed his eyes.

  "That's called progress," Sabrina declared. At least it was progress assuming Alan Miller's widow had kept the painting—assuming Alan Miller had ever had it at all. But it was a direction to head.

  With his eyes still closed, Vincenzo shook his head. He looked like a man awaiting execution.

  Not for the first time, Sabrina felt something pull inside her, something sort of...sympathetic.

  This was stupid. Probably dangerous. Vincenzo wasn't sympathetic. He was rich. And Sabrina was beginning to wonder if his crimes didn't go a lot further than wealth.

  As if to deepen her suspicions, Vincenzo said, "This is the work of the dark forces. They do not want me to find the painting."

  "Dark forces." On the bed, Sabrina crossed one jeans-clad leg over the other. "Now, why do you call it that? Why would you think..." She waved a hand in the air. "...fate has it in for you?"

  Slowly, he opened his eyes. "It is what happens. Darkness."

  Sabrina shook her head. "It's how you choose to describe it."

  His brows drew down. "It is what happens. Four years I have been looking for the Lady, but always some obstacle rises to stop me."

  "Yeah, now that's interesting right there," Sabrina remarked. "Four years. Why four years, Vinnie?" She'd asked him before, and he'd evaded an answer. She tilted her head. "Did something happen four years ago?"

  His deep frown froze.

  "Was it something in Milan?" Sabrina persisted. "Is that why you won't go back there?"

  All the color drained from his face.

  "What is it you're so desperate to avoid?" She paused, raising an eyebrow. "Or should I ask 'who?'"

  Jackpot. Over his pale face a cool, clear rage settled. Yep. There was a 'who' back in Milan, all right. And whoever it was roused a side of Vincenzo Sabrina had not yet seen.

  He looked positively murderous. And yet, black as his anger was, Sabrina sensed something even darker underneath it. She wasn't sure what could be darker than murder, but Vincenzo's face made her imagine something could be.

  He'd done something back in Milan. Sabrina had no idea how this guilty act was related to the Madonna, but it was clear Vincenzo had something on his conscience. Something big.

  Oddly, on seeing this evidence Vincenzo was as black-hearted as she'd supposed, Sabrina felt cheated. As if she'd expected something different.

  "This is not your place, to ask." His words were sharp as icicles. Normally coffee-warm, Vincenzo's eyes had gone cold as flint.

  "Fine." Sabrina shrugged. "I don't care about the past—" Not in any relevant way, anyhow. "Except that it seems to make you want to give up all the time."

  If looks could kill, Sabrina would have been in grave danger. "I am not giving up." Vincenzo spaced the words precisely. "In four years I have not given up."

  "No." The same guilty conscience that made him fear failure also wouldn't let him give up the quest completely.

  "In fact—" Abruptly, he turned aside. Sticking his hands in his jacket pockets, he took a pace away. "In fact, I would like to know what you plan to do next."

  He'd changed the subject very neatly.

  "So, Sabrina?" For the first time since she'd met him, Vincenzo's voice hit the harsh, commanding tone of a rich man. "What do we do?"

  Reflexively, she stiffened. "Obviously," she sneered. "We go after the widow."

  Vincenzo nodded. "Your Harry gave you an address?" With his hands in his pockets, he kept turned away from her.

  "He did." Sabrina scowled. "She lives in California. Laguna Beach."

  "California," he murmured, apparently digesting this. It wasn't possible to see his face, the way he kept turned away from her. But the commanding tone of a rich man dimmed. "We are going to fly there from here, yes? No bus?"

  Briefly, Sabrina thought of Darrel. He wouldn't expect her to take the easy route and fly. "No bus," she agreed.

  Vincenzo's shoulders relaxed. "Thank God," he murmured.

  "Not that we don't have to be careful," she warned. Meanwhile she watched his stiff, proud stance relax. The ugly rich man was disappearing.

  "Of course. Naturalmente." Vincenzo sounded eager again, and completely compliant. When he turned around, he was smiling. "Whatever you recommend."

  Whatever she recommended. Sabrina frowned. His anger—and the guilt—it was all gone, slipped into thin air as if it had never been. "I'll take care of the arrangements," she told him, slowly trying to puzzle it out.

  "Very well." Vincenzo made for the door. He was back to his sweet, innocent self again. "I will leave the details in your hands."

  "Right." No more commands from on high. That person was gone.

  "You will call?" Vincenzo opened the connecting door. "To let me know when we go?" He had the oddest look on his face: questioning—no, apprehensive. As if he feared she might leave him behind.

  "Well, yeah," Sabrina replied. "Of course I'll tell you when we're leaving." She had to. Finding his blessed Madonna meant a hundred grand, didn't it? But as he left the room, she felt decidedly uneasy.

  A black-hearted villain had stood before her, using anger and arrogance to block any revelation of his dark past. And then, right in front of her, he'd changed back into a clean, sweet angel.

  Devil or angel? One of them was a disguise.

  The oddest thing was, she wasn't completely sure which.

  Scowling, Sabrina reached for the phone. She needed to make plane reservations, not ponder Vincenzo's true nature. Besides, wasn't it obvious the devil persona was the true one? He'd obviously committed some crime in Milan. Nothing to prosecute, perhaps, but big enough to leave a helluva dark blot on his conscience.

  While dialing the number for the airline, Sabrina assured herself of this truth. Whatever Vincenzo's reasons for wanting this painting, they were not pure.

  Which was just as well, Sabrina thought, tapping her fingernails against the phone. Because she planned to get it first.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sabrina fell asleep on the flight to Los Angeles. It wasn't until the plane started its descent into Burbank airport and the engines changed sound that she woke up. Her knee hit the seat in front of her as her eyes blinked open.

  She found Vincenzo watching her. His gaze was curiously intent.

  "Am I unbuttoned or something?" Sabrina's fingers went to the front of her satin blouse.

  "No." He turned his head, faintly flushing.

  "Then what's the matter?" Sabrina checked the buttons on her blouse, just to make sure.

  Vincenzo's gaze drifted toward the window by his side. "It's just...you look different when you are asleep."

  Sabrina's hand froze on her third button. "Different?"

  He shifted in his seat. "When you are sleeping, you look...soft."

  Her brows lowered. "Soft."

  He lifted a shoulder. "Like a woman."

  "I...see." It was impossible to stem the rush of gratification this stupid statement gave her, but she tried. Her chin came up. "And unless I'm asleep I don'
t look like much of a woman?"

  Vincenzo shot her an abashed look. "Do not be absurd. A man would have to be blind not to see you are female. But now that you are awake...you do not look very soft."

  Sabrina laughed, pleased after all. "Sorry. I haven't found much profit in being soft."

  "No." Vincenzo's gaze deepened in that unnerving way he had. "No, I do not suppose you have."

  At the baggage carousel, she allowed Vincenzo to grab her suitcase. She wished she could forget him saying she looked like a woman, but it stayed in her mind, oddly distracting. Almost idly, then, she took the opportunity to scan the area for signs of Darrel. She'd taken great pains to cover her tracks with their plane tickets, determined to lose Darrel's tail despite his boast.

  So it was with bitter disappointment that Sabrina caught sight of the man leaning against the outside terminal wall.

  It wasn't Darrel, himself, but Sabrina recognized the guy. Joe had taught her to remember faces, and the last time Sabrina had seen this one he'd had a newspaper half hiding it, just as he did now. The camouflage wasn't good enough. She recognized the guy who hadn't helped her open the heavy entrance door to Vincenzo's Manhattan apartment building.

  While Vincenzo hefted their suitcases to the curb and engaged a cab—just as Sabrina had ordered—she kept an eye on Newspaperman.

  "Sabrina?" With the door of a yellow cab open next to him, Vincenzo turned to call her.

  "I changed my mind," Sabrina said. Or, rather, she'd just made her mind up. She was going to lose Lise and Darrel, once and for all. "Come on." Saying which, Sabrina grabbed her suitcase in one hand and Vincenzo's arm with the other. "Get your bag," she ordered, and proceeded to haul him from the cab and across three lanes of traffic. They made it through the doors of a Hyatt hotel shuttle just before they closed.

  "We're going to stay in a real hotel?" Vincenzo visibly brightened as he sank into one of the cushioned seats. "I cannot believe it."

  Sabrina hummed a noncommittal response as she watched out the van's window. Their follower had closed his newspaper and started walking—in the opposite direction the van was headed.

  He'd apparently bought the bait. Thinking they were headed to the Hyatt, he was travelling to meet them there.

  Sabrina leaned back in her seat. She wasn't resting yet, however. This guy was good. She wondered if he'd been the one who'd actually sniffed them out in Sand Hill, not Darrel as he'd boasted.

  At the Hyatt, Sabrina allowed Vincenzo to register, which he did with high good cheer. He may not have complained about their previous accommodations, but it was clear that, given a choice, he'd opt for first class all the way.

  No sooner had they installed their luggage in the two luxurious rooms than Sabrina had him down in the lobby again, renting a car.

  "Are we going to see Mrs. Miller now?" Vincenzo gazed down with disapproval at the suit he hadn't had time to change, and which was still rumpled from the long airplane ride. It was not his off-the-rack suit, however. He'd conveniently 'forgotten' that behind.

  "No. We can't afford to be traced," was Sabrina's disingenuous reply. She hustled him into the car, getting behind the driver's wheel herself.

  "I see. Of course." Thank God for his good nature; he climbed into the car with no argument at all.

  It had been some time since Sabrina had been on a Los Angeles freeway, but it came back to her without much fuss. Joe had insisted she learn her way around all the major cities.

  "Why don't you tilt your seat back?" Sabrina suggested, observing her companion launch an enormous yawn. "We're going to be driving for a while. Maybe you can get some sleep." He'd emerged from his motel room back in Sand Hill that morning looking once again like hell warmed over. Guilty conscience, Sabrina had told herself. It was exactly the sort of thing that produced insomnia like Vincenzo's.

  "Oh no, I slept on the plane." Even as he made this claim, however, Vincenzo displayed another huge yawn. "It is easy to sleep when I am not alone."

  Sabrina shot him a sharp glance, but he didn't appear to hear his own innuendo. "Maybe you oughta get a dog," she suggested.

  To her surprise, he appeared to give this idea serious consideration. Then, brows drawn, he shook his head. "I do not think a dog would be adequate."

  Sabrina cleared her throat, struggling not to laugh. "I wouldn't think so."

  For the next two hours they switched from freeways to surface streets and back again. By the end of this, Sabrina was still in Los Angeles county, but in one of those lost pockets that seemed specially created for fugitives from the law.

  She pulled into the weed-strewn parking lot of a dingy motel. The paint was peeling from the siding and some of the eaves looked as though they were too tired to hang onto the roof any more. She turned off the motor.

  Vincenzo stared out the windshield at the missing middle number of the motel room door across the parking lot. '2 9,' it read. "What are we doing here?" For the first time, there was doubt in his tone.

  "We're checking in, assuming they take cash, of course." Sabrina opened her car door and stepped out.

  Vincenzo, looking dark, simply watched her. "What about our rooms at the Hyatt?"

  "That's where Vincenzo Nicolazzi is staying. Here we're John Jones and Mary Smith. Come on out of the car."

  He got out, reluctantly. Closing the car door, hard, he looked about, mumbling a soft, sing-song complaint in Italian. "I do not even have a razor."

  "No problem. I had pity on you. While you were signing the car rental agreement, I paid one of the bell-boys to get our luggage and put it in the trunk of the car."

  Vincenzo turned to stare at her. "Farsighted."

  "Yes, I thought so." Swinging her purse higher over her shoulder, Sabrina started for what looked to be a front office.

  It was a tiny corner of the building, unwashed and unventilated. A man who looked just as unwashed emerged from a back room, dark stubble covering his chin. Instant speculation rose in his eyes as his gaze went from Sabrina, with her upswept hair and linen suit, to Vincenzo.

  "We want two rooms," Sabrina said, "for two nights."

  Again, the greedy, speculative gaze went from one to the other, calculating. "Two rooms," he repeated.

  Vincenzo's eyes started to narrow. "This is what the lady said."

  There was a faint smirk on the motel owner's face. "Uh huh. I heard her. Two rooms." He rolled his tongue in his mouth. "That'll be two hundred and forty dollars. Up front cash."

  Sabrina opened her purse, but not in time.

  "You are charging sixty dollars a room for a hovel such as this?" Vincenzo burst out. "It is outrageous! No. We pay twenty-seven dollars."

  Twenty-seven. Sabrina didn't know how he hit on that number but it seemed to ring a bell with the motel owner. His eyes lit with gladiatorial interest. "Forty-five," he countered.

  Vincenzo sneered impressively. "Thirty, and that is my final offer." As he said this, he reached into his inside jacket pocket for his wallet. It was a new wallet, not the one Sabrina had stolen. Oddly, Vincenzo had never asked for that back. Neither had Sabrina offered to return it.

  The motel-owner, sniffing money, made no further protest as Vincenzo laid a hundred and a twenty on the counter.

  "I was trying to remain inconspicuous," Sabrina muttered as they left the office.

  "Sixty dollars," Vincenzo scoffed. "A Nicolazzi does not suffer getting cheated."

  "Heaven forbid we offend the family honor."

  Vincenzo opened the first motel room door for Sabrina and carried her one small bag inside. The place was on the gloomy side, with only a single overhead light. There were two narrow beds covered in matching, faded spreads. The carpet was thin and stained. As Vincenzo set Sabrina's bag on the counter, the toilet started to run.

  "I've seen worse," Sabrina claimed.

  Vincenzo made a disagreeing sound. He stood by the vinyl wood dresser, looking around. His gaze seemed to point out the hole in the wall plaster and the water stain on the ceiling.
"This is an evil place." He stated this with firm conviction, as if he knew all about such things.

  "I suppose some mischief has been done here," Sabrina mildly agreed. "It's a cheap motel, after all."

  "I do not like it." Vincenzo paced toward the bathroom in the back. The toilet was still running.

  "It'll serve its purpose." Sabrina hoped this was true. She'd seen no evidence they'd been followed, but she'd been wrong before. If she were being honest, though, she'd have to say she didn't like the place much, either.

  Vincenzo grunted. "Two nights," he muttered, peering into the bathroom.

  "We'll visit Mrs. Miller in the morning," Sabrina offered, hoping this would appease him. She wondered why he didn't go fetch his own suitcase from the car.

  Instead he paced back to the front window. Flicking aside the dark curtain, he glared at the unkempt parking lot. "We are in the middle of nowhere."

  "That's the idea."

  Letting the curtain drop, he turned back to her. His regard carried a hint of suspicion. "Why?"

  Sabrina dropped her gaze to her nails. Curling her fingers, she inspected them closely while her brain raced for something convincing. "Vince, you are planning to steal a valuable piece of property. I know you believe that the Madonna della Montagna belongs to you—"

  "To my town," he corrected.

  Sabrina inclined her head. "To your town." Right. "But that's not the way it's going to look in the eyes of the law. We need to sever the connection between Vincenzo Nicolazzi and the man who walks off with a five-hundred-year-old painting that belongs to a war widow."

  He seemed to consider the notion, his dark eyes watching her.

  Squirming under the unexpected power of his gaze, Sabrina told herself she'd spoken at least half the truth. Hopefully, he couldn't guess the other half—that she suspected they were being followed by people who, once she'd stolen his five-hundred-year-old painting for him, intended to walk off with it themselves.

  "Bene," he said at last. "Va bene. You are right."

  Sabrina relaxed.

  But he made no move to leave the room.