Blonde Ops

by Charlotte Bennardo, Natalie Zaman

  “May I have one?” he asked, eyeing the bottle.

  I handed him the one I’d just retrieved, grabbed another for myself, and then went out into the common area. Finding a large table where I could spread out, I sat and started sorting through the receipts. Serena’s were up first. I sorted the papers into piles: travel, tips, food … One caught my eye. Primo Electronica for ninety-eight euros.

  Serena bought some cables, ports, and other equipment. Not much, and not very significant—although I could think of a few unconventional uses for most of the things she’d picked up. What would she need with them—especially since she wasn’t exactly known for her technical expertise? She had trouble retrieving her voice mail.

  I felt eyes on me. Head down, I peered through my bangs—and was surprised to see that Taj had joined me. Why was he staring at me? I could see him looking in my direction but our eyes didn’t meet. It was a bit unnerving, but I tried to ignore him.

  “Do you have a thing against Candace?” he asked finally, his voice deep and smooth.

  I lifted my head and looked him in the eye. “Excuse me?”

  “You looked almost angry talking to her.” He slowly spun the mostly empty water bottle in his hands, his elbows on the table.

  I had to be careful; he was very friendly with Candace and I was an outsider. The last thing I needed was for him to have a good long sit-down with her about “what Bec said.” And I didn’t like the idea that he was able to read me and I couldn’t do the same to him.

  “She pops up when I least expect it. Takes me by surprise. Bosses do that.”

  His eyes were directed right into mine. “And you don’t like surprises.”

  I stared right back. “No.”

  He smiled, easing the tension a bit. “I don’t either. And Candace is full of surprises.”

  Tell me.

  I merely nodded. Finished with his water bottle, he crushed it—and put the bottle in his courier bag. What was he, a hoarder? Or maybe he thought someone would take it and sell it on eBay for a small fortune—him being who he was. Ha! If there was one thing I had already learned in my few days abroad, it was that these fashion types were crazily delusional when it came to their own importance.

  Odder still was the twinge and flutter I felt in my stomach when he glanced my way with those intense brown eyes. Okay, it’s just a normal reaction to a guy you find intriguing, even if he is strange. Get over it, Bec.

  “Are you doing an article on one of the designers in the shoot?” I asked before I said something stupid.

  He leaned back, casually crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m doing a three-part post on the First Lady: her style, her favorite designers, and finally, what she hopes to contribute to Fashion Fights Famine. I’d made arrangements with Parker to talk to her between the shoots and interviews for Edge. I’m lucky Candace agreed to honor that request—all things considered.”

  I nodded grimly. “You really like all that? Fashion, I mean.” I couldn’t imagine spending day in, day out thinking about clothes.

  He smiled faintly. “It’s nonstop drama, controversy, and excitement.” He tilted his head. “It’s true that ‘clothes make the man.’ Or the woman. Take a guy who works with his hands, like a plumber. Give him a custom-made suit, a designer tie, and thousand-dollar shoes, and people look at and treat him differently. Anyone can be anything with the right clothes, and fashion is accessible to almost everyone.” He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on my pink hair and then on my eyes. “You have a … unique sense of style. Betsey Johnson meets Alexander McQueen.”

  “How’d you get started in this business?” I asked.

  “I wrote an essay about a designer for my tutor and he entered it in a magazine contest.”

  “And you won,” I cut in. Guys like him always did.

  He made a wry face. “Actually, no. But the magazine editor sent me an e-mail saying that I had a good eye for style and I should follow it—when I got older. I decided not to wait and started my blog. Word got around. Boring story.”

  I was impressed, in spite of myself. Thankfully I was saved from keeping the conversation going by the sound of Dante’s Vespa outside. I glanced at the clock. Almost exactly on time. A few seconds later Dante strolled to the front desk. I leapt up to meet him.

  “Hi Dante,” I said.

  “Hi Bec!” He leaned over sideways to glance behind me. I turned to find that Taj had followed me. The two of them leveled measured glances at each other, then shifted their sights to me. Was it me, or was there a crackle of tension in the air? Francesca was just hurrying back to her desk, her face beaming at Taj.

  Dante turned his attention to her. “Ecco,” and tapped on the envelope.

  As she signed for it and handed back the receipt, Dante started to say, “I talked to—”

  “So how are your cousins?” I blurted, and grabbing his hand, pulled him outside as he pocketed his pen. I didn’t want Taj or anyone else listening in if Dante had info on Parker like he promised.

  He looked confused. “My cousins?”

  “I didn’t want to talk inside, this is private,” I explained in a low voice. “This isn’t the time or place. Tell me later. Dinner, my treat. Pick me up when you finish work.” Giving him a quick peck on the cheek, I hurried back inside, leaving him baffled and speechless.

  TRICKS AND TIPS FOR THE EDGE-Y GIRL

  Save the professional wear for the professionals. Unless you’re a doctor, nurse, or EMT, skip the scrubs and rubber clogs.

  14

  Going2 eat

  At five p.m. I typed in the text and hit send. Candace had left the office shortly after Dante made his delivery, escorting Taj out. I didn’t know her plans, but I assumed they would include the First Lady in some way.

  Surprisingly, the message that came back was almost Momlike.

  Fine. Back at hotel b 4 10

  Really? Ten p.m.? A junior high curfew?

  I was sixteen—almost seventeen—

  —and in a foreign country and going out with a boy who hadn’t met my parents. Gift horse—shutting up.

  “Dante’s here,” said Francesca in a bored voice. He’d come back for me after his last delivery and was waiting patiently.

  I gave him the thumbs up. “Let’s go!”

  Taking the extra helmet he passed to me, I looked left and right before putting it on. No agents. Thankfully, Sophie was gone too, on some errand for Kevin who was cloistered upstairs in a meeting with Serena. I hadn’t told Sophie about my dates with Dante. I didn’t know if she was interested in him, and I didn’t want to find out by her catching me with him before I could talk to her about the situation. Then again, she seemed starry-eyed over Taj, more so than over Dante. Maybe I was stressing over this too much. If she was interested in him, wouldn’t she have said something when she introduced me to him? Pushing it off my mental list of Things to Worry About, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and leaned over to whisper, “If you see any of the agents, or Candace, or Varon, we have to lose them.”

  “Easy,” he said, his mouth crooking, making him look mischievous. He was up for some cat and mouse—Italian style.

  Cinching the helmet straps, I hopped on the back of the scooter, ready for action. We zoomed away. No way could anyone catch us on foot.

  Dante zipped through the streets, dodging traffic, pedestrians, potholes, and food carts. We flew over a pretty bridge into a newer part of the city, with broader avenues, more modern umbrella-decked cafés, small boutiques, and more cars. Every so often I’d glance in the rearview mirror, but I always saw a different car or motorbike. So far, so good.

  The traffic thickened and the cars seemed to come within inches of the Vespa. More than once I held my breath, but Dante easily maneuvered us out of danger. Suddenly, over the buzz of traffic, I heard an engine rev. Hard. Peeking into the sideview mirror, I saw a small white car dodge in and out of traffic. Whoever was driving was in a hurry.

  In seconds, the car was behin
d us, and I could see the driver more closely. He was tan, lean-faced, with dark hair and shades. He got dangerously close to the rear wheel, then unexpectedly zipped alongside of us. I clutched Dante’s middle tighter. In the days since I’d arrived in Italy, I’d been with crazy drivers, but on the back of a motorbike, I felt exposed and vulnerable.

  Dante glanced to the side, saw the car, then swerved between lanes of traffic as the white car slid into our space almost before we vacated it.

  My heart leapt into my mouth as he steered the Vespa between moving cars as if they weren’t lethal tons of metal and glass and rubber flying over the road but eight-bit blocks in a video game. He sped up, then darted down thankfully empty but narrow side streets where no cars could follow. I was ready to drop down and kiss the ground when we putted to a stop.

  He turned to me and flipped up the visor of his helmet. “Pazza driver! He could have killed us!”

  No kidding!

  For the rest of the ride, we stuck to the less-traveled lanes, away from nut jobs with a license to kill.

  The Santo Pietro Hospital was a sleek, modern building that stuck out in the middle of Rome’s old-world charm.

  Dante found a place to park and put the kickstand down. We locked the helmets onto the back and I followed him inside, smoothing down my dress. The place bustled with activity: nuns, nurses, visitors, and staff.

  “I’ll find Nunzio. He can sneak us in, but only for a few minutes, si?”

  “Okay.”

  We slipped through the crowds, Dante holding my hand. Good thing he knew his way around because I couldn’t figure out what section of the hospital we were in or where we had to go. We passed little plaques screwed into the wall giving directions, but they were all in Italian. Maybe I should have spent more time with a copy of Italian for Dummies instead of trying to decipher menus and checking out delivery guys.

  “Cugino!” A tall man, a little older than Dante, walked toward us.

  “Nunzio! Come sta!” They hugged and back-slapped, grinning like they hadn’t seen each other in a long time, even though Dante had to have talked to him to set this meeting up. They whispered in Italian, Nunzio giving me pointed looks. Dante pulled me closer.

  “This, my cousin Nunzio. Nunzio, this is Bec.”

  I smiled at Nunzio gratefully. “Grazie, Nunzio.”

  “I’m happy to help you, but—” He quickly glanced around before pulling us over to a far wall, out of the way of passing people. His voice was hushed. “Before I take you up, I warn you…” He paused, and I felt needles of unease shoot up my spine. “If the signora upstairs is the person you’re looking for, she’s hurt. Very bad.”

  If? I suppose there was always the possibility that the person he’d found was someone else, but my gut told me it was Parker.

  “She was conscious when we bring her in, but the doctors, they give her sedative. For her own good.”

  Nodding, I tried to choke back the heavy lump swelling in my throat. Pull yourself together, Bec.

  Nunzio shook his head. “It make no sense. She was wearing her seat belt. The car, it was smashed from hitting a stone wall. I smelled smoke, but there was no fire.…” He looked at me grimly. “She looks very bad. Okay, we go. Follow me.”

  He led us to an elevator, waving and answering people’s greetings as he passed.

  Stuffed inside at first, we were the only ones left by the time it stopped on the fifth floor. The doors opened to a quiet hallway, but I heard hushed voices.

  At the nurses’ station, Nunzio stopped to smile and chat with the woman sitting behind the desk. He kept her totally distracted as he waved us on behind his back. Swiftly, and crouching low, we tiptoed by, Dante searching for a specific room number. With a furtive glance around, he opened the door to room 31, and we crept inside.

  None of Nunzio’s warnings prepared me for what I saw. I choked back the sob that had been growing inside me. On the bed, connected to tubes and wires and machines, lay Parker. Absolutely still, she looked like a wax figure: fragile, her beautiful skin lackluster, her brown eyes closed. Bandages swathed her head, starkly white against darkly bruised skin. I’d never seen anyone in such bad shape.

  With trepidation, I moved closer. A chart hung next to the bed, and I picked it up.

  “Don’t touch anything!” Dante whispered, but I was too busy trying to read to listen to him. All of the information on it was in Italian, and here and there were the pen strokes of a doctor’s scrawl. But the name at the top of the chart wasn’t Parker’s. It was Maria Castano.

  I looked at her face again, just to make sure it was her. It was Parker, no mistaking it.

  Leaning closer, I gulped hard, gripping the bed rail to steady myself. There were IV lines in her wrists and what looked like a drainage tube in her chest, held in place with surgical tape. Her hospital gown was open to accommodate the cyborglike equipment that snaked out of her body. Her chest was bruised and cut. I tried to look away, but I couldn’t, my eyes drawn to a dark purple and mottled patch of skin unhidden by bandages or hospital gown. Checking it from different angles—as the bandages allowed—I almost swore it had a distinct shape. Like a shield, with a circle inside it. What was that?

  I picked up her hand. It was cool to the touch, and I hated the way it felt so lifeless in mine. Fiddling with the plastic bracelet around her wrist, I caught sight of the name printed there. The same: Maria Castano.

  Suddenly, she gasped, and I backed up a step just as every machine in the room started beeping and blaring. Lights flashed and a thunder of footsteps came from the hallway.

  Three men and two women in scrubs burst into the room and crowded around Parker’s bed.

  “Uscire!” One of them shouted at us, then they all seemed to be barking orders to each other in Italian.

  “They’re telling us to get out,” said Dante, taking hold of my hand.

  I edged closer to him and stood fast. “What are they doing? What are they saying?”

  He watched them warily, shaking his head. We were supposed to be leaving.

  “They said something about her head.”

  One of the men pulled out a defibrillator and, tearing open Parker’s gown, placed the pads on her chest. I clutched Dante’s hand.

  “And her chest, something with her chest…” said Dante.

  I heard the hum of the defibrillator and then the buzz as the current jolted electricity into Parker. I saw her body jump.

  Would she … die?

  “Oh, God!” I clamped my free hand over my mouth, and one of the nurses turned and saw us.

  He squinted at me. “Chi sei?”

  One of the women looked over. “Cosa stai facendo qui?”

  “They want to know who we are and what we’re doing here,” said Dante. His hand felt tense on my back. He was ready to run out and push me along with him.

  “Maurizio! Philomena!”

  Nurses, doctors, and technicians rushed to Parker’s bed.

  “Quick!” Dante’s breath was hot on my cheek as he pushed me out of the room. “Security is coming!”

  The drone of the machines screamed in my ears and didn’t die away until we were far down the hall. Then I stopped. I couldn’t leave without knowing if Parker was okay.

  “Bec, we go. Now!” Dante said firmly, grasping my hand.

  I tried to wrangle free from his grip. “No! You don’t understand. I won’t go. Not until I know if she’s—”

  He held on tightly. “I do understand. But we have to leave before we get caught.”

  When he started walking away, I had no choice but to stumble after him. I didn’t want either of us to get in trouble. Any publicity and Candace would definitely ship me back to the States, maybe in handcuffs, ending my investigation. Besides, now that I knew where Parker was, I’d find a way to come back. Then it would just be a matter of getting past the nurses.

  Dante tugged me in the opposite direction of the nurses’ station and into a stairwell. We raced to the ground floor and out into
the lobby. All I could hear were fragments of Dante’s words.

  … head injury … chest injury …

  And that bruise …

  We barreled through the exit doors, out into the open air. I put my hands on my knees and bent over, breathing hard. When I straightened up, I saw Ortiz.

  She blocked my path, hands on her hips—and she didn’t look happy.

  TRICKS AND TIPS FOR THE EDGE-Y GIRL

  Don’t be a damsel in distress! Know how to take care of yourself. Fix a toilet. Change a tire. Be able to jump-start your car. Nothing is sexier than know-how.

  15

  How did Ortiz find me?

  Duh. She’s Secret Service. Of course the team would be checking on Parker. This was probably Ortiz’s shift, and when I set all the alarms off, she was notified.

  She fixed a cold eye on Dante. “Time to go home, Romeo.”

  Romeo?

  My cheeks burned with anger, but if she was letting him go, maybe it would end here and he wouldn’t get in trouble. Me, on the other hand …

  Nodding at him that it was okay, I gave his hand a quick squeeze. “See you tomorrow.”

  I followed Ortiz outside where a black sedan that screamed Secret Service car! waited.

  “Get in,” she snapped, pulling me by the elbow of my jacket. How much trouble was I in this time? I’d already bested the Suits once. They wouldn’t take too kindly to it happening again.

  We drove in silence for a while.

  I was ninety-eight percent sure: Parker’s accident was no accident. Whatever Candace said afterward, I knew what I’d heard in that warehouse. And Parker had been admitted to the hospital under a different name and far from the hotel or the magazine offices; there were at least two hospitals that were closer.

  Despite these precautionary measures, Dante and I had been able to find her and walk into her room without anyone even trying to stop us. It was a weak link in their security chain. But neither Candace nor her Secret Service sidekicks would ever admit to that. I was in the same situation as the hackers who got a bad rap and punished for exposing the screwups of the powers that be. Blame the whistleblower instead of the bad guy.