Michelangelo's Ghost

by Gigi Pandian

  “I think you’re breaking up,” North said. “I didn’t catch that.”

  “I need a favor.” I scanned the area for another moment, then walked back into the garden.

  The voice on the other end of the line gave a sigh. “Everyone needs a favor these days. I believed us to be square, having balanced the scales.”

  “It’s not a big favor. I need you to tell me what you know about Triple Triangle. And, um, how to find the thief.”

  “Triple Triangle?” North repeated, pronouncing “triple” as “treble.”

  “I’ll text you a photo of the calling card. Give me your number.” North grumbled but obliged.

  “Ah,” he said a moment later. “You know.”

  “Yes. The calling card was left in my room. It’s not only about a theft this time. I think this thief is taking things to a whole other level—”

  “I can’t win,” North grumbled. “And I think I might be more frightened of you than of her.”

  “Her?”

  “I’d better put him on the line.”

  “Wait? Her? Him?”

  No answer. What was he talking about?

  “North?” I said into the silence. I desperately hoped I hadn’t lost the connection, since there was no way to call back the unlisted number. “Are you still there?”

  “Jones?” The voice on the line was different. It was the last person I expected North to put on the line: Lane Peters.

  Chapter 36

  “You’re safe,” I said, relief flooding through me.

  “It’s so good to hear your voice, Jones. You have no idea.”

  “You could have heard it a lot sooner.” Now that I knew he was safe, my relief quickly shifted to outrage. “You’re with North? I’ve been worried about you, and not only have you been ignoring my calls, but you’re with a man you swore you’d never work with again.”

  “Where are you? You’re all right?”

  “I’m fine.” There was time to tell him my own story after I’d heard his.

  “I have no idea how you found me, but—hang on one second.”

  I heard muffled voices. Lane and North were speaking, but I couldn’t tell if anyone else was there.

  “Hello?” I said after a minute. “Lane? North?”

  In the silence, I looked around the isolated garden. The only sound was the ghost winds, but I had the strongest sensation I wasn’t alone. A swirl of black fabric floated through the air above the stone fence. This time there was no mistaking it.

  I was about to leave the garden again, but I was startled by Lane coming back on the line.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Lane said. I could hear the rage boiling up in his voice. “I was set up. But now he says he doesn’t want you on his bad side, so I can tell you what’s going on.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” I regained my senses and rushed back to the only way out of the garden.

  “An unbelievable mess, apparently. Are you running?”

  “Not exactly.” I reached the gate. Again, the outer path was secluded. “Go on with your story.”

  “Three days ago, North came to me with a last-minute bit of news. He’d had a tip. But we had to act fast.”

  “Lazzaro Allegri’s paintings.”

  “What? No. This has nothing to do with that wild goose chase.” He swore. “Are you saying it’s not a wild goose chase?”

  “I’d better let you finish your story.”

  “You’re going after Lazzaro’s paintings?” He groaned. “The timing. I should have seen it. This was a diversion to stop me from helping you. But those paintings don’t exist. They can’t.”

  “If you knew what’s been happening here in Italy, you’d see that I’m not the only one who thinks the paintings exist. But we can get to that in a minute. What are you doing with North?”

  “North had a tip that a Caravaggio painting looted by the Nazis during World War II was being moved from a private collection. There was a limited amount of time to act to get the painting back. And based on the people involved, North thought it advisable to avoid communicating with the outside world while we pulled off the job in case we were being monitored. Part of the deal was disconnecting my phone. It was only going to be for a short time, three days at most.”

  I groaned. It had only been three days since we’d arrived in Italy. We’d packed in so much into that time that it had felt like much longer.

  “North joked that he called me because it was my namesake; he hated to admit he had a soft spot for repatriating paintings stolen for war crimes. I should have known it was a lie, because he wouldn’t get paid for this job. All we’d be doing was stealing back a piece of valuable art history that had been stolen.”

  Not many people knew that Lane Peters’ full name was Lancelot Caravaggio Peters.

  “And it was far too convenient,” Lane continued. “He knew how to push my buttons. He knew I wouldn’t feel enthusiastic about returning a painting to the wealthy descendant of a rich family, but that I would want to see a lost masterpiece that’s been kept hidden returned to the world. So he made up a history for this painting where there was no family claim on the painting, so we’d be turning it over to a museum.”

  “But it wasn’t a real job at all?”

  “Until five minutes ago, I would have sworn it was.” The anger in Lane’s voice came through loud and clear on the phone line. “I fell for it because it was an offer. I wasn’t being forced. It was too perfect an opportunity to pass up, so I should have known it was a trick. North’s M.O. is to come up with enough contingency plans so he can always get the results he wants.”

  “So much so that you’ll start to believe it was your idea all along,” I whispered. I remembered the feeling from my own experience with North.

  “That’s why he was always so good at his job.”

  “He made up a fake job to get you out of the way.”

  “It appears that way.”

  “So North is Triple Triangle.” I squeezed the apple tree I was standing next to, imagining I was strangling North.

  “Triple what?”

  “Have North show you the photo I sent him.”

  “Hang on,” Lane said.

  I tapped my foot impatiently while I waited. My stomach rumbled. My hair was becoming a rat’s nest in this wind. And my brother wouldn’t wait too much longer before coming to find me.

  The flapping wings of a bird landing on the medieval building that housed the kitchen caught my attention. Only it wasn’t a bird. It was something I’d seen at the Park of Monsters. Perched in between the gargoyles, a faceless figure stood in billowing black robes.

  The ghost.

  Chapter 37

  It wasn’t a ghost.

  It. Was. Not. A. Ghost.

  Of course it wasn’t. But the few seconds it took for me to convince my brain of that fact was long enough for the ghost impersonator to disappear.

  The figure didn’t actually disappear. At least I hoped not. The person must have seen me spot them and decided to slip away. I ran toward the building. The person hadn’t gotten down on this side of the building or I would have seen them.

  Holding the still-silent phone to my ear, I ran down the twisting garden path, cursing the inappropriateness of my heels for a chase. I followed the outer section of the stone fence along the side of the building. After a few seconds, I heard the sound of Mahilan and Raffaele laughing on the other side of the fence. If a ghost had dropped down onto the picnic table, they wouldn’t have been laughing. Where had the ghost gone?

  And what did it want? No, not “it.” He. She. They. But definitely not “it.” I would not let my subconscious get the better of me. I walked back to the garden, keeping my senses alert.

  Was the ghost impersonator spying on me for information? Or did the person want to scare me? Why? Wh
at did I know?

  On the phone line, I heard Lane cursing at North, followed by scuffling. North’s muted voice could be heard faintly in the background. I turned up the volume on the phone in an attempt to eavesdrop. “I swear she didn’t tell me why she needed the favor,” North was saying.

  “How could you not tell me?” Lane shouted in the distance. His voice was trembling at the same time.

  “What’s going on?” I raised my voice loudly enough that I hoped he’d hear me.

  “I can’t believe you kept this from me, North.” Lane’s voice still trembled, but there was a raw anger behind it.

  “Lane,” I shouted. “What’s going on? Please come back on the line.”

  “Jones,” he whispered. “Where did you find that calling card?”

  “In my hotel suite here in Bomarzo.”

  “I didn’t even know she was alive.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t believe she and North kept it a secret all these years. She must be after those paintings. Though I don’t know why she’d leave the card before—”

  “Who are you talking about? Who does this calling card belong to?”

  “Mia.”

  “Your ex? Your dead ex?”

  “Who’s not so dead, after all.” His voice shook with fury.

  “The ghost,” I whispered.

  “The what?”

  “Someone has been spying on me, in search of Lazzaro’s paintings. That’s why I was trying to get hold of you. They broke into my office to look through the sketchbooks, and they’ve been following me in Italy, pretending to be a ghost. But Lane, there’s more. She killed someone. Lilith Vine is dead.”

  “Mia wouldn’t—”

  “It was probably an accident. An organized thief who didn’t know Lilith was an alcoholic, not a cold-blooded killer who meant for Lilith to die.”

  “Trust me, she would never—”

  “You’re defending her?”

  “No. I’m simply telling you the truth.”

  “Can you send me a picture of her?” I thought back on all of the women I’d seen recently. My breath caught. The woman who’d spoken to me at the Park of Monsters. Would she really be so brazen to approach me like that?

  “Mia always hated having her photo taken.”

  “Oh no…No, no, no.” My mind raced. Mia was even more brazen than that. The timing of when she appeared. The questions she asked about me. The fact that she would never let Mahilan take her picture. “Amaia Veronique Alba.”

  “I told you her full name once, and you remembered.”

  “The initials, Lane. The initials. AVA. The symbol ^V^ on her calling card is a stylistic version of those letter. It’s my brother’s new girlfriend. Ava.”

  Chapter 38

  Lane said he’d hop on a flight from Germany to Italy that afternoon. He swore Mia—or Ava, as I knew her—wouldn’t have a hand in killing anyone, but he was biased.

  It was nearly fifteen years since they’d been involved, but those relationships from our late teens and early twenties could leave a big impression.

  “Is everything all right?” Mahilan asked when he spotted me.

  “A friend having love life troubles,” I said as I sat down at the open-air table. I kept my gaze focused on my brother and avoided making eye contact with Ava. If I did, I knew I’d give myself away.

  Mahilan tousled my hair like he used to do when I was a kid. “Still helping everyone except yourself.”

  “I also booked Ava and myself a spa treatment this afternoon,” I said. “Hey, where did all the food go?”

  “I told you she was coming back,” Ava said.

  “Sorry, JJ. You know I eat a lot when I’m stressed. Today has been a bit much for me.”

  “Me too,” I said. “That’s why I wanted to keep relaxing. Ava and I have been having such a good time getting to know each other, I thought this spa treatment would be a great way to complete the day.”

  “You’re not still worried about your boyfriend?” my passive-aggressive brother asked.

  “There’s nothing I can do, and I thought the relaxing session would help me work out what’s been going on. Remember to return the cane to our neighbor.”

  I winced as Mahilan kissed Ava’s forehead. He left a generous tip for the chef, collected my messenger bag and Ava’s designer purse to take back with him to the suite, and told us to have a good time.

  “I need to talk to my brother for a second,” I told Ava. “I’ll be back in a second. Don’t go anywhere.” I left Ava in the enclosed vegetable garden and chased after Mahilan.

  “I can manage to get your purses back to the suite on my own,” he said as the straps twisted around his helpless arms. “But seriously, what do women keep in their purses? Bricks? Gold Bars? Marble from that nearby quarry?”

  “Did Ava come after me while I was gone?” I helped him untangle the straps. “Fish, how was it possible for you to get our bags tangled in less than ten seconds? And my bag isn’t a purse.”

  “Ava? No. Why would she have gone after you?”

  “Oh.” Damn. Then she couldn’t have been the ghost. “You’re sure she was with you the whole time I was gone?”

  “I mean, she went to powder her nose for a couple of minutes. But I don’t see why that matters—”

  “See you in a little while.” I gave my brother a quick hug and kissed his cheek. He’d need a lot of taking care of after Ava broke his heart, so it didn’t hurt to get started.

  Ava was waiting for me underneath the apple tree with an unreadable expression. “We’re not going to a spa treatment, are we?”

  “Whoops.” I held my hand to my mouth and hoped my dripping sarcasm came through loud and clear. “I’m not as good a liar as some people.”

  Ava pressed her lips together but didn’t speak. She followed me out of the garden.

  “I thought we could talk on the terrace at the end of that path.” I pointed to the one I meant. “It’s far enough away that we won’t be overheard, and there’s a church in the valley beneath it. Maybe that will help you figure out you should clear your conscience.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean. My conscience is clear.”

  “Interesting.” I kept walking, and Ava kept up with me. “I just got off the phone with Lane.”

  A flash of surprise and annoyance crossed her face for a fraction of a second before her serene mask was back in place.

  “North gave you up,” I said. “He didn’t know he was agreeing to help a murderer when he agreed to this favor.”

  “A murderer?” Ava came to a halt. “Whoa. I don’t know what you think you know, Jaya, but whatever it is, murder is not involved.”

  Her chest heaved. She was clearly nervous. Was she freaked out at the idea of murder, or because I’d discovered her secret?

  “We’re still too close to the suites,” I said. “Come on.”

  Ava nodded, and we walked the remainder of the distance in silence. The terrace overlooked a sprawling forest. It seemed almost sacrilegious to spoil the majesty of the natural beauty that surrounded us with an airing of lies.

  A small stone chapel was barely visible through the trees below, a simple cross poking out atop the tiled roof. It was a secluded spot, but I wasn’t innocent enough to think the presence of a church would stop a killer from hurting me. I’d suggested a spa treatment as my excuse so Ava and I would have to leave our bags behind with Mahilan. It was only the two of us out there. My father had insisted I learn martial arts once he realized I wasn’t getting any taller than five feet. My jiu jitsu might not have had the best form, but I could hold my own against an unarmed woman.

  “I know it’s irrational,” I said, breaking the silence, “but I’m most pissed off that you’re going to break Mahilan’s heart. He wasn’t acting when he said he loved you.”
/>   “And I wasn’t acting when I said the same thing to him.”

  I snorted.

  “I’m serious, Jaya.” Her voice was pleading. “I’m grateful you brought me here to talk, instead of bringing this up in front of Mahilan.”

  She paused and pulled something from the back pocket of her jeans. The metal shone in the sunlight.

  Perhaps I’d miscalculated. A lot of damage could be done with something small enough to fit in a pocket.

  Chapter 39

  I automatically shifted into a fighting stance before realizing it was only her phone that she held in her hands. The phone case had a shiny metal border that had caught the light of the sun.

  “There are two men in the world I love,” Ava said. “My son Carey, and your brother.” She tapped a password into her phone, then held up the screen to show me a photograph of her with a smiling thirteen-year-old boy. “This is why I do what I do. For him.”

  “So your image does appear in photographs. You’re not the ghost of a dead woman.”

  That got a sad smile from her. And there was genuine warmth on her face as she looked at the image of her son. She put the phone back in her pocket. “It’s not easy pretending to be dead. It’s not easy at all.”

  “I’m so stupid for falling for this figment of your imagination. Who’s the kid who posed for this photo with you? Is it North you’ve been calling this whole time?”

  “Carey is real, and he’s my son.” The force of her words made me wonder if she was telling the truth. She thrust her phone in front of me and scrolled through a dozen photos of her with a growing boy.

  “He’s real,” I murmured. “You really do have a son.” A lump stuck in my throat. Carey’s age…

  “And I’m not working with North.”

  Her bitter words snapped me back to more pressing matters than whether Lane had fathered a child with Ava. Besides, I couldn’t imagine it was true. It was too big a secret for Lane to keep from me.