The Lost Concerto

by Helaine Mario

  “No, no, mio. Think. Father will—”

  “You will protect me from Father, Vito. You always do. Hurry, come with me.”

  She had taken his hand. And he had followed her out the door and over the garden wall.

  But I didn’t protect her.

  Orsini shook his head and gazed down at the CD of music gripped in his fingers. A young woman, raven-haired and beautiful as a Botticelli, stared back at him from the cover.

  He turned the CD over and read the list of titles he knew by heart.

  Paganini, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky. Tartini. By her early twenties, she’d mastered all the great violin pieces.

  She’d had two degrees in Music, been compared to Perlman, Heifetz. Won the prestigious international competitions, the Menuhin Competition, the Sibelius. Even the Tchaikovsky in Moscow. His sister had been one of the very few who could hit that high note at the end of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major and give it that amazing vibrato… in just one fifth of a second.

  Orsini’s eyes dropped to the reviews. “Hair-raising pizzicato and bowing passages. Grueling, double-stop trills. Marvelous tonal quality. Technical artistry.”

  The Paganini notes spun in the room around him, making him sick and dizzy.

  He dropped the CD to the table as if it burned his fingers. Yes, it was all so beautiful. Until it all went wrong.

  Ravello, 1985. So many years ago. A soft summer night. His sister only twenty-five, radiant, standing on the starlit stage, lifting her beloved Stradivarius—given to her by their father before his death—to her shoulder. The beat of hesitation, and then the storm of notes.

  His boss, the Admiral, had arranged the performance. He could still hear the words, spoken so long ago in the small CIA office, in that scraping voice. I want to meet your sister.

  I did it all for you, il mio amore. For your music.

  Orsini fingered the heavy gold cross that hung from the chain around his neck. She’d been supposed to play the Paganini, it was printed in the program.

  But at the last minute she’d substituted the Tartini. The Devil’s Trill. Why? Who had told her to make the switch? Was it a signal?

  As he’d stood, listening to the opening chords, the unthinkable had happened. He had looked across the theatre and seen the tense, familiar faces. Faces that should not have been there. A hand signal. Two men hurrying away from the stage. Away. Not toward.

  The flash, the terrible thunderclap of the explosion, the searing heat, black smoke. The smell. His body, thrown violently backwards into the seats.

  The keening sounds of a man screaming her name over and over.

  Bianca.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  LE REFUGE. AFTER MIDNIGHT, JULY 11

  Dane made his way past the ticking grandfather clock down the shadowed, quiet hallway of Le Refuge.

  Access to the well-protected vineyard had been ridiculously easy. He’d stolen the keys from Celeste’s purse some months before, copying and replacing them without her knowledge. He’d waited for the guard at the gate to complete the hourly rounds. The dogs, of course, knew him. But where, he wondered again, was Bartok? Probably with the kid.

  His fingers clenched around the knife. He was prepared if the Doberman gave him any trouble.

  His gloved hand eased open the door to the master bedroom suite, just an inch, and he stood, listening. Darkness, and faint breathing. Sleep well with your Gideon, little Lapin.

  The boy’s room was at the far end of the hall. He moved toward it.

  A sound!

  Dane stopped. A crack of lamplight appeared beneath the door on his left, and he pressed himself against the wall. The guest room. Are you sleepless tonight, too, my Juliet?

  Bedsprings creaked in answer, then settled.

  He stayed pressed against the wall, listening in the shadows, picturing her ivory body on the bed, her beautiful hair on the silken pillow. Not tonight, but very soon, I promise you.

  Tonight, he had to take care of the kid.

  Soundlessly he moved down the hall toward the last doorway.

  * * *

  Maggie stood at the open window, gazing into the scented darkness. To the south, black clouds sailed across the heavens like great ships, promising more rain, but now the room was lit by the last curve of moon that dropped like a silver scythe from the vast night sky. Cheshire Moons, her son called them.

  When the sun rises, she told herself, I’ll wake Zach and tell him about Brian. He deserves to know about his son. He needs to know. And so does Brian.

  Before anything else happened. Because she had called Simon, and now he knew she was certain that the child called TJ was Thomas James Orsini. Her godson.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered into the shadows. For once it wasn’t dreams of her husband that kept her sleepless, but worries over an urchin-faced little boy.

  Her head came up. Another sound in the hallway? She waited, body very still, listening. Only silence. Then, a footstep. TJ? In the quiet of her room, Maggie was overwhelmed by an inexplicable sense of urgency.

  She was reaching for her robe when the voice, as soft as the whisper of the pines outside her window, stopped her.

  Maggie.

  She swung around.

  Johnny? Desperately her eyes searched the shadows for her husband’s face.

  Take care, Lass...

  Was that a door closing? She turned her head toward the hallway, straining to listen. TJ can’t cry out for help, she thought. She had to go now.

  Johnny, I don’t want to leave you, but TJ needs me.

  She opened the bedroom door, losing the connection to her husband as she spoke.

  Maggie-mine...

  His voice was fading with the night, barely audible now in the shadows. She ran into the hallway, flinging the words over her shoulder as she ran. Knowing she was losing him.

  I will always love you, Johnny.

  A sharp bark, somewhere in the house. Then silence.

  Something was wrong. She ran faster, down the long, dark hallway. Away from her husband.

  The door to TJ’s room was closed.

  The doorknob turned under her fingers, and she moved into the stillness of the room. “TJ?”

  No movement. In the dawn’s half-light, toys and clothes and the bright red kite were strewn on the floor. The bed was empty.

  Don’t panic. She forced herself to search the room.

  The closets and bathroom were dark and silent.

  Another sound, this time from the direction of the music room. Thank God!

  She ran across the hall and swung open the door. “TJ?” Her breath caught.

  The long lace curtains caught the moonlight and billowed like silver sails through the wide open French doors that led to the terrace. On the floor by the grand piano, surrounded by scattered sheet music, the dog Bartok lay crumpled and still.

  There was no sign of Tommy Orsini.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  AIX-EN-PROVENCE. MORNING, JULY 11

  Dawn, but dark with billowing clouds. Another storm was coming.

  Maggie glanced up at the slate sky as she ran through the cloistered courtyard of Simon Sugarman’s hotel in the old town of Aix. Soon hard rain would sweep down from the mountains to thrash against the ancient cobblestones.

  Zach and Celeste were still at Le Refuge, frantically searching the house and grounds for the child. But she’d known TJ was gone.

  What if he was all alone, somewhere, when the storm hit? There had been no answer in Michael’s room when she’d called. Nor did he answer his cell. Now Simon was her last chance. She ran up the narrow stairs, unwilling to wait for the lift. She couldn’t get the fear on Zach’s face out of her mind.

  Fourth floor. Her eyes searched the gloomy hallway for Room 41. There, on the left. She rapped sharply with her fist. “Simon!”

  She knocked again, harder. “Simon,” she hissed. “It’s Maggie. Open the damned door.”

  The door
opened and Beckett stood facing her. Confusion and an unexpected sense of safety flooded through her. “Michael,” she whispered, “what’s going on?”

  One hand touched her lips gently for silence while his other hand closed over her arm and drew her into the shaded room. Quickly he locked the door behind her.

  “What is it?” she whispered, suddenly afraid of the expression in his eyes. “Why is it so dark in here?”

  “Try to understand, Maggie.”

  “Understand what?” Over his shoulder, she saw Sugarman, head bent and powerful shoulders bunched with tension, talking quietly into the telephone.

  “You’re both scaring me. Why—”

  She stopped speaking as she became aware of the soft breathing behind her.

  Knowledge hit her like a sudden punch, and she took a step back, away from him. “Not you,” she said, looking into Beckett’s unflinching eyes, suddenly knowing what she would find when she turned her head.

  In Sugarman’s large bed, Shiloh was stretched lengthwise on the blanket, his wary eyes keeping watch over the tiny body pressed up against him. With one thin arm curled tightly around a small stuffed bear, Thomas James Orsini was deeply and peacefully asleep.

  * * *

  “They have your son.”

  Dane’s voice.

  Victor Orsini gripped the phone. “Tell me what you know.”

  He closed his eyes while Dane described Maggie’s visit to Le Refuge and his suspicions regarding the colonel.

  “Where is Gideon now?” interrupted Orsini.

  “Out with the dogs, searching the grounds.”

  “TJ won’t be there. Gideon would have no reason to suspect the O’Shea woman, but I know she is responsible for this.” Orsini’s voice rasped with rage. “Taking my son is her own wild justice.”

  “What justice, Victor?” asked Dane. “Why is she a threat to us?”

  “All you need to know is that Magdalena O’Shea has family on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Use that against her, make the calls, do whatever you have to do. Just find my son.”

  Orsini disconnected and then, very slowly, walked across the room to the violin stand where the del Gesù, stolen by his father decades earlier and now so beautiful in the light, still waited to be played.

  Grasping the neck tightly, he raised the instrument high above his head and slammed it against the wall.

  * * *

  “TJ! Thank God he’s okay.”

  Maggie moved to the edge of the bed and looked down at the sleeping child. The Golden raised his head to her, but refused to leave the boy’s side. She turned on the two men. “He is all right, isn’t he? Simon?”

  “Of course he is,” interrupted Beckett. “I would never risk harming a little boy. Lucky for us he’s a deep sleeper.” There was an expression she’d never seen in the gray eyes.

  “You’ve kidnapped a child, Colonel!”

  “We’ve saved a child, Maggie. It was the right thing to do.”

  She touched the soft bear cradled in TJ’s arms. Michael kidnaps a child, she thought—and takes the time to bring a stuffed animal along. None of it made sense. “And Bartok?”

  “Who the devil is Bartok?”

  “The Doberman.”

  “The kid’s dog?” For the first time, Beckett smiled. “Animal tranquilizer dart. Right now he’s happier than a beaver dreamin’ of a pine forest.”

  She shook her head in weary disbelief and dropped to the edge of the bed. TJ stirred beneath the bedclothes, and she put a gentle hand on the child’s back. She fixed her eyes on the two men towering above her.

  “Just what the hell is going on?” she demanded.

  Beckett wore his “I warned you I’m no damned choirboy” expression as he leaned against the wall with his hands pushed deep into his pockets. She deliberately turned her back on him.

  “Simon? Talk. You got me into this.”

  “Okay, Doc. You’ve earned the right to know. We’re not the bad guys.”

  “You lied to me, Simon. Right from the beginning.” The anger shivered like glass in her voice.

  Simon began to pace. “Not true, Maggie. I just never told you all of the truth.”

  “Then tell me now. Or I leave this room and go straight to the authorities.”

  “We are the authorities. We’ve been working with the French all along. It all comes back to terrorism, Maggie.”

  Suddenly sickened, she waited in silence, watching his face.

  “You know Americans are the target of choice for terrorists these days,” said Simon. “Your husband was writing about it when he died.”

  Maggie winced, then nodded. “Go on.”

  Simon moved to the window, stared down at the shifting treetops. “So many terrorist groups,” he said. “But they all have one thing in common, Doc. They need money. Explosives, weapons, false identities, inside information, traveling expenses, ways to communicate. Those services don’t come free.” He turned to look at her. “That means financing. We’re talking millions. Hell, billions.”

  “You need to know where the money comes from.”

  “Money is a weapon, the one thing indispensible to terrorists. It’s the financiers—the Money Guys—who are the most dangerous terrorists of all. They call themselves facilitators—a nice, innocuous word. But they finance the bastards who plan and commit the violence.”

  “Johnny called them ‘The Orchestrators.’”

  “Your husband understood. He wrote that terrorism is a monster. He was right. But to kill a monster, Doc, you gotta strike at the heart of the beast. Or cut off the head, so the body will die.” Simon locked eyes with her. “These financiers are not ordinary men. They have wealth, ambition, power, connections. Hurting innocent people means nothing to them. It’s my job to go after them. To stop them.”

  “And Victor Orsini is one of your monsters.” Her voice was barely audible as another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

  Finally, Beckett spoke. “Orsini is especially dangerous to us because when groups come to him, asking for help, he’s been deliberately choosing the terrorists who focus on American targets. He’s been supporting groups that want to embarrass the US, especially the CIA. The attacks not only hurt Americans, they’re planned to make us look guilty in the eyes of the world, to create distrust among our allies. Destroy our relationships. Orsini knows all the players. The high rollers, the clients, the bank accounts, the investors. The extent of the networks, the identities of terrorists planting the bombs. And where they plan to strike next.”

  “So it’s these names and accounts you’ve wanted all along.”

  “Quite a list, huh, Doc?” said Simon. “And Sofia found it all. In her husband’s journal. It’s why she died. Now only the kid knows where his mama hid that evidence. And he ain’t sayin’.” He looked down at the sleeping child. “This kid is sitting on one enormous friggin’ secret and if we can just—”

  Simon’s cell phone buzzed. He took the call and listened without saying a word. “Gotta go,” he announced, terminating the call and heading for the door. “Mike can tell you the rest.” The door closed behind him with a firm click.

  Beckett and Maggie looked at each other across the blanketed shape of the little boy. He stood very still, with his hands in his pockets, waiting and watching her. The bed was like a vast un-breachable river between them.

  “I trusted you,” she whispered. “I can’t believe that you deceived me.” Beckett’s eyes asked her to understand. “I had no choice, Maggie. Orsini is an animal. He’s financed attacks all over the world. Hundreds dead, including kids. Like Sugar said, he’s focusing on Americans.” He shook his head. “It’s so damned personal. I can’t help but think it’s about vengeance. But whatever it is, something else is going to happen soon. There’s a brutal killer out there and you—”

  “You think I know him.” She finished the sentence for him in a low, dead voice. A man with a wolf’s smile and frightening yellow eyes.

  “You and I do know him, Maggi
e. Not his name. But we’ve seen his face.”

  It hit her all at once. Her body began to tremble.

  “You should have told me.”

  “Dammit, Maggie, do you think I wanted to hurt you? Every time I look in the mirror, I ask myself the same impossible questions. What is right, what is wrong? Do I risk one life to save many? What is the honorable choice?”

  “Michael—”

  But he rushed on. “I’ve seen a little girl sobbing outside her burning house. But we bombed that village, Maggie, not the enemy. I’ve put a bullet in the throat of a man who aimed a machine gun at my men. But I see that man’s wife in my dreams. I see his kid. Knowing mine was the bullet that left them alone.”

  His breathing was harsh in the quiet of the room. “Like Sugar says, you do what you have to do,” he said at last. “You just need to find a way to live with it.” Beckett looked at the sleeping child on the bed. “How the devil do I live with myself if I just walk away?”

  It was the fierce grief in his voice that reached her, somehow, through the shield of her anger. She stared at his face, at the dark, frightening core of him that burned in his eyes, and, finally, she understood.

  She moved slowly around the edge of the bed until she stood in front of him.

  “You’ve lost a child of your own.”

  His hand was over his eyes. “You asked me once if I’d ever trusted anyone enough to get really close, to get inside.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  He took a jagged breath and looked down at the little boy. “I had a son. Sam. Sam Houston Beckett. He was four. I was in South America on assignment, and he got sick.” The deep-set eyes glistened blindly down at her. “I was in a remote part of the world, caught up in the thrill of the chase. I didn’t make it home in time. My wife was never able to forgive me.”

  “But illness is no one’s fault,” whispered Maggie.

  He blinked at her. “I should have been with him,” he said. “I should have held my son in my arms and said goodbye.”

  She took his hands and held them tightly. The tears ran unheeded down her cheeks. “We both have to learn how to forgive ourselves,” she said.