Madonna Key 03 - Dark Revelations
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“It’s not her friendship with you that matters. What matters is that she’s one of your kind. Get the tiles to Catrina,” he reiterated. “The manuscript, too. She’ll help you hide them—and yourself.”
“Do I need to be there today?” Old habits die hard.
It was a question I frequently asked with assignments.
A train didn’t seem feasible, given the bulk of the tiles in the trunk. And an airport was out of the question.
Leaving Italy by plane would be like waving red flags in front of the polizia and begging to be arrested. To keep a low profile and carry that kind of bulk, the best mode of transportation was by automobile. That would take a good day’s drive if I stuck to the Autostrada del Sol. That would take longer, but the rural pathways would be safer for me if I needed to disappear, and I usually did.
“You don’t necessarily have to be there today, but the sooner, the better.” He pulled the door lever and it opened wide.
“You’re not coming with me? Where are you going?”
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He flailed one hand toward a small villa ahead, barely visible in the first rays of sunlight. “I have connections.
It’s best we separate so you don’t slow me down.”
I rolled my eyes at the old man. Always thinking he could do anything and refusing to consider the possibility that he couldn’t. I liked him for that.
“I have a man on the inside, Aubrey. He has my full authority to do whatever he must and he knows more about you than you yourself know. He’ll know how to delay Simon. I’ll do what I can to give you some time, as well.”
“To get to Cat’s. And she’ll know what to do.”
He nodded. “Right. There are others like you.” He shrugged. “Not thieves but…I need to find them. Quickly.”
“What others? I don’t understand.”
“You’re all descendants of some of the most powerful women in history. A few of you have tried to come together over the centuries. Before, you’ve failed. This time, you can’t let that happen.” He paused for a second, his gaze faraway in the dimness. “It’s a shame that you and Matthew didn’t have a child. It would have been a child of destiny. One under special protection from the higher powers.”
I held my breath and said nothing.
Myrddin stepped out of the automobile, onto the muddy roadside, and then peered back through the open door at me. The words caught in his throat as if he had already decided we’d never see each other again. Then he added, “The child would have had a double bloodline. Matthew, too, was descended from your kind.”
Chapter 8
Every few kilometers I caught a glimpse of a black Saab behind me, just at the edge of my vision. At first I’d thought it was a shadow, a cloud passing between the sun and Earth. I didn’t recognize the automobile, but the driving patterns were familiar. The distance from the center of the road, the way the automobile hugged the curves. The reason I never carried a cell phone. The reason I changed automobiles frequently. The reason I cut my deals in currency and numbered bank accounts.
Interpol agent Analise Reisner.
As much as I hated to admit it, she’d saved my life back in France. After I’d saved hers. Simon had sent me to follow her and find a Black Madonna statue she supposedly had, but in the end, we wound up working Lorna Tedder
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together to destroy Simon’s electromagnetic device, which several strong Adriano henchmen had been very determined to fire off to cause a massive power outage in Europe. I’d left the scene battered and limping, my knee twisted in pain and promising an end to my physically active career in artifact acquisitions. We’d left that confrontation in a draw, but we’d both known that she had no choice but to come after me later.
I yawned, trying to unplug my ears and rid myself of the vague ringing. The radiological electromagnetic energy Myrddin had spoken of still played havoc with my senses. The last time my ears rang like this was during the fifth week of the six-week Joan of Arc seminar. Was there a connection?
If Reisner caught me red-handed with centuries-old tiles and a relic proving Joan of Arc had a twin, Interpol would declare it a mighty victory. It would be one thing for Reisner to arrest me based on an alleged history of art thefts, but I’d never be able to explain how a manuscript worth millions had legitimately fallen into my possession. I owed the athletic blonde a grudging respect for her abilities, but not enough to spend the rest of my life wearing a bland prison uniform.
In my rearview mirror I watched the Saab appear and then disappear on the horizon. Reisner was closing in too fast and she knew it. She didn’t plan to confront me on the open road, where I could outdrive her. No, she’d wait until I was on foot, on my unsteady knee. That’s where she had the advantage. That’s where she’d act. And the fuel in my rented Mercedes was dangerously low.
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Must ditch my auto, I reminded myself. Sooner than planned.
I glanced in the mirror again. Still there. Lurking.
Waiting. She’d take her sweet time for the right moment. I couldn’t keep my gaze off the Saab in the reflection. I was absolutely certain I would tangle with Reisner again. My best hope was to lose her in the next city.
The next city wasn’t huge, but it was big enough to get lost in. I parked and slipped down a narrow street between stone buildings and waited in an alcove with a fresco of Mother Mary and Child painted on the wall, watching over me—I was glad someone was! Glass jars of red candles burned at its base. Some no bigger than tea lights burned on white trivets.
I lost myself quickly in the market-day crowd. Young lovers on the street corner kissing passionately. An elegant businessman with a cell phone to his ear. Nuns walking side by side. A dark-haired girl in a white apron listening to her iPod as she swept the sidewalk in front of her father’s shop. Several elderly women haggling with a street vendor over a small white ceramic tile stamped with a red image of Mother Mary in prayer, a tile that seemed to be in popular demand as a coaster, trivet, candleholder and the like.
After a latrine visit, I gathered a loaf of bread, some cheese, fruit and several bottles of water and pomegranate juice in my arms, purchased them and headed back to the car. With Interpol agent Reisner hopefully several kilometers away by now, I fell into the driver’s Lorna Tedder
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seat of the Mercedes and dumped my purchases into the seat beside me.
There it was again, coming from the far side of the automobile—that mewling sound I’d thought was the old man’s stomach. Then soft crying.
I twisted to look in the backseat. A blanket? I hadn’t noticed it before. Not in the dark. A deep, sleek navy-blue with a small crimson emblem embroidered at evenly spaced intervals. Two columns and a star behind them.
The Adriano family logo.
It was more than a blanket, though. More like a silken slipcover over a goose-down comforter. It exuded luxury. Owing to its dark color, the blanket hadn’t been noticeable in the night. Myrddin must have brought it with him.
Then it moved. Someone was under it!
Without thinking, I reached for my keys to form a bear-claw weapon, but the Mercedes key was nothing more than an oblong chunk of black plastic over a computer chip. No metal.
Before I could scramble for any other makeshift weapons to defend myself, a pair of tiny hands gripped the upper edge of the blanket and pulled downward. The biggest puppy-dog eyes I’ve ever seen stared up at me.
Benny. The littlest Adriano. The heir to their philanthropic empire and more.
Oh, God. I pressed my fingers to my lips. What the hell was the child doing in my car? He’d been playing hide-and-seek with Eric. He couldn’t possibly have 138
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gotten into my car by himself. It was too long a way for a child so small, especially at night. He wasn’t even big enough to lug that blanket by himself!
He spoke softly in Italian, someth
ing about his mother. Benny sniffed a few times, then realized I was the “pretty lady” who’d spoken English with Eric. “I want my mother. I want my mother now. ”
Realizing I’d frozen at the sight of him, I shook myself. I left the groceries in the passenger seat and quickly scrambled into the back with him, gathering his tiny body to mine.
“It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay.”
He nodded as I stroked his brown hair. He was so tiny, so innocent. I remembered those days with Lilah, the way she was always underfoot and clinging close to me for fear of strangers and monsters. Poor Benny was unaware that he lived among the monsters.
His body went stiff against mine. “Want my mother.”
“It’s okay, honey.” I let him get a good look at my face. “I was just at your mommy and daddy’s house last night. Remember? I was the nice lady with the juice you didn’t like?”
I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. He nodded and relaxed against me. “Still want my mother,” he whimpered, his voice catching.
“I know, sweetie. I know. It’s okay. I’ll get you back to your mommy.”
What was I promising? Take him back? The Adrianos would shoot me on sight. But I had to. Tagging along with me was no place for a frightened little boy.
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Or any little boy. Or any child at all. In my line of work, I had no business being around children at all.
I took a deep breath and bit into my bottom lip. God, what now? If Myrddin hadn’t bailed on me, I could have sent him back with the child or at least gotten close enough to the palazzo to bribe someone into taking Benny back to Josh and Pauline.
“Look, Benny…sweetie…I’m going to see if I can find someone to take you back, okay?” Maybe I could find a courier. Pay them well. Well enough, anyway, to deliver the boy unharmed.
“No, you take me back. You take me to my mother.”
“I—I can’t!” How could I explain to him? Though he was destined to grow up to be as ruthless as Simon, he was a little boy, an innocent, with no concept of danger. Certainly the Adrianos knew already that I was gone, that Myrddin was gone and that their precious artifacts were gone. Once they realized Benny was no longer on the premises, they’d do the math and know he was most likely with me. If I returned to the palazzo, they’d shoot first and ask questions later.
Surely they’d know by now that Benny was gone.
The Adrianos loved their cameras, as at least one sex scandal had proven. They weren’t fond of paparazzi cameras and they preferred to stage their photo-ops for their philanthropic galas. They no longer liked cameras in the bedrooms, but I had the distinct impression Caleb had secretly videotaped his carnal pleasures with me, probably so he could watch over and over how he technically had taken my life and given it back to me.
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The only place I hadn’t seen cameras in the palazzo was in the vault itself and in the passageway that Myrddin had led me down. Simon had told me once that no one was allowed inside the vault and that not even his security team knew what was inside. I knew, of course, because so much of the contents was acquired by me personally, but he didn’t trust his own security team. Their job was to watch the vault entrance, not to admire its contents. The fewer employees who knew exactly what was stashed in that vault, the better.
As for the passageway, it made sense that it, too, was without cameras. Especially if Myrddin was right that no one there knew about it.
Once they’d realized their heir was missing, the Adrianos surely would have checked the security cameras and would know Benny had made his way to my car somehow. They’d know he was with me. Never mind the priceless artifacts I’d taken from their vault—even if they were mine or partly mine—kidnapping their most precious treasure would be grounds for immediate execution.
The Adrianos guarded their pedigree with a ferocity that led back to a bloodline of kings. The family had little use for daughters. Maybe for a political alliance.
Sons were preferred, imperative. Legitimate sons.
Rumor had it their bastards were killed at birth—if they lived that long.
If an Adriano could bear at least three legitimate sons, even better. One became the heir to the Adriano empire. Another son was often planted with unscrupu-lous leaders in the Church or the government with the Lorna Tedder
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intent that he could gain some control that would benefit the family as a whole. All the other sons were spares in case of foul play or unforeseen circumstances.
Aaron, Simon’s eldest, had died. Unnatural causes, of course. Adrianos rarely died of old age. Simon had then chosen as his heir the son who fathered the first grandson—in this case, Joshua. Caleb didn’t have a solid place.
That’s where Caleb, much to his dismay, fit into the family structure. A spare. Of course, he was angry. He had something to prove. He was too much of a playboy for a life with the church and too likely to cause another scandal for a career in politics. He didn’t fit well anywhere within the Adrianos’ fifty-year plan and had fallen out of favor with his father in the past year. Joshua was now the perfect son—reliable, responsible, appro-priately behaved—and he’d produced a perfect heir with Pauline. Caleb’s real worth was only if Benny died and he could produce another heir before his brother did.
“Want my mother,” Benny blubbered into my velvet dress.
I stroked his hair. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’ll get you your mommy.”
Though it was hard for me to imagine any child wanting Pauline as a mother. She’d always seemed so cold, so distant, so intent on her social life and her place in the Adriano household. Then again, I suppose some people might see me as cold and distant for not being with my daughter. Didn’t mean I didn’t love her.
Pauline, for all her faults, would certainly be devas-142
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tated to find her baby boy gone, though possibly more so because he was an insurance policy that kept her position safe. I’d heard a black-eyed servant girl—she’d had a thing for Caleb—talking once about the possibility that Benny was not Joshua’s son but Simon’s. I never saw that servant again.
I hugged Benny to me. I couldn’t just leave him in a strange city with strange people. Maybe I could sneak back, hide the car and take Benny up the hidden stair-case to the vault and leave him there with his blanket.
He’d be safe in the vault for a couple of hours. They’d find him after I had a chance to escape a second time and all would be well. Except this time they’d be watching for me. Probability of success was nil.
But what else could I do? I could feel the gears of my priorities grinding, chewing me up. I had to keep Lilah safe—as a mother, that was always my top priority. Second to that, I had artifacts that I’d been told couldn’t be allowed back into Simon’s hands. And third, there was my own future. Getting away from the Adrianos, starting over, reclaiming my life, having a second chance to live as an honest woman among honest people. And now a little boy was asking me to help him. I couldn’t just toss him aside and run off to the nice, safe life I yearned for. How could I do that and ever look in the mirror again?
“Sweetie? Are you hungry?” I reached into the front seat and grabbed an orange. “Would you like some fruit?”
He nodded enthusiastically while I opened a bottle of water and offered it to him. He gulped the water, and Lorna Tedder
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after seeing the backwash in it that children tend to leave, I decided to let him keep the bottle. I peeled the orange and fed him half the slices, eating the other half myself, and then wiped his sticky face.
“I want you to be a big boy for me,” I encouraged. “I’ll find someone who can take you back to your mother.”
“No!” He shook his head and poked out that petulant lower lip. I recognized a faint resemblance to his uncle Caleb. “Want you to. You take me to my mother. Not supposed to be wid strangers. My father says.”
Benny made a face and I knew what he wanted. I’d have to find a latrine for him. Any café would want me to stop and buy a cup of coffee at the very least. I’d done that once already and didn’t want to call further attention to myself by going back, this time with a child I hadn’t had with me before.
I sighed and looked around the alley, finally spotting a small chapel in the corner beyond the Mother Mary fresco. A priest who looked older than Myrddin stood at the door and nodded to me when I caught his gaze. I knew just enough Italian to ask for directions to latrines, gas stations and airports and I would have to fuel the car soon.
With as many assurances as I could make, I sent Benny to the priest to ask for help and smiled sheepishly back at the elderly man. He listened to Benny’s Italian—
which was much better than his English—then closed his eyes and nodded. The priest disappeared through the chapel doorway with the child.
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I ducked back into the car for a bottle of pom juice and as I reemerged—half standing, half bent to keep from straining my knee—I came face-to-face with Eric Cabordes.
Chapter 9
For the third time in less than a day, he held a gun on me.
I dropped the bottle. Plastic, it bounced and skittered under the car. Neither of us looked down. Neither of us breathed.
He pointed the revolver at my heart but kept the weapon low, hidden between himself and the car door so no one else could see it. He stood closer to me than a lover. With all the people passing us on the street, all going about their daily lives, none of them knew how much trouble I was in at that moment.