A snippet of one conversation with her cousin came back to her.
“Can you believe it?” Mimi had said as they chatted. “We both carry sketchpads in our bags. How many other aspects of our lives are similar?”
“Similar, yes. But not the same,” Cleo said. “Your sketches reflect your work as an interior designer. They’re real. Mine are only reflections of dreams unfulfilled.”
“What are those dreams, Cleo?” Mimi asked.
“Making it as an artist, but sometimes I’m not sure.” But her cousin’s question had forced her to think. For three years she’d been running from the restrictions and directions her father imposed. But what was she running toward? She’d gotten some of her tempera scenes into a small gallery, only baby steps. Was her dream only a mirage?
Arriving shipboard yesterday, she’d played the airhead, claiming to have forgotten the location and number of her stateroom. Like just now, Security helped her, and she’d hunkered down and used room service for what meals she could choke down. Solitary confinement. The decor’s bright colors mocked her. The mini-suite boasted a sitting area with a sofa and a balcony from where she sketched the coastline.
She picked up Mimi’s sketch pad from the counter. Everything reminded her of what happened to René and Mimi. And fearing what could happen to her seemed such a cowardly betrayal. What had René done? Why did he have that necklace? It couldn’t be the real one from Cleopatra’s tomb. She shook that thought out of her head. But somehow he’d gotten mixed up with criminals, and it had gotten him killed.
And Mimi. But that death was on Cleo. She’d pressured and wheedled until Mimi caved and left the ship to visit her all the way across Italy. And because Cleo ran like a coward, waiting too long to call the police, the killers…
On a sob, she sank onto the floor and hugged her knees. She could do nothing for René and Mimi now. All she could do was hide on this ship while she figured things out.
Dwelling on it all hurt like a noose squeezing her throat. Unbearable. She so needed freedom, fun, forgetting—if only for a while. Working on a new project always spirited her away. But she’d lost her easel and paints, left in the flat with an unfinished watercolor. The sketchpad and a few pencils didn’t cut it. Getting off the ship for a shore excursion would have to substitute.
When she hadn’t found tickets for the shore excursions the ship’s TV channel touted, she called Security about opening the safe.
Now she collected everything from the safe and spread them out on the queen bed. Tickets for guided tours at all the ports, including today’s, for Naples. Just as well she missed that one and the city’s major garbage problem. But she found tickets for the next ports, including tomorrow’s Palermo tour. Also in the pile were printouts for Air France between Barcelona and Toronto. Canadian money.
After locking up everything but the excursion tickets, she showered and blow-dried her hair. In the closet, she selected mint-green linen capris and tunic that smelled of her cousin’s lilac fragrance. More chic and expensive than the entire wardrobe she’d abandoned. Her vision shimmered.
Dammit, now she felt like a thief. She was a thief.
Oh, Mimi, I’m sorry, but you would want me to be safe. Wouldn’t you, sweetie?
As she stood at the closed door, she summoned her grandmother’s courage. Grandma Marie had defied her Quaker parents and married a soldier, Cleo and Mimi’s grandfather. Not the same thing as pretending to be someone else but it was all she had.
Trying not to jump at every voice, every sound, she found her way to the elevators and down three levels, where savory aromas guided her to one of the main dining rooms. She would remain anonymous—yes, really—but at least she’d be among other people. Life.
“This way, madame,” The young Asian hostess led her down a curving staircase.
Cleo had the impression of glittering chandeliers in arched ceilings, potted palms dividing the cavernous space, and story-high posters of ocean liners from glamorous by-gone days. Families and couples laughed and chatted and clinked wine goblets. Waiters whisked by with loaded trays.
As she followed the hostess toward the back of the room, the two women at the table directly ahead looked up from their menus with smiles of recognition on their faces.
The tall, slim blonde in the hot-pink sequined tank top shot to her feet. “Mimi! Stacy and I were just talking about you.”
Just her luck. Of course Mimi would’ve made friends on board. She stretched her lips into a smile and spoke to the short brunette in conservative black. “All good, I hope, eh?”
The hostess halted and spun on her heels, expectancy on her face.
Stacy’s eyes widened in mild alarm. “Oh, totally. We were wondering about your side trip to Venice.”
The blonde bobbed her head in agreement. “You can tell us all about it if you join us for dinner.”
Cleo had no excuse now that she’d left her locked cell. Carrying off her impersonation had easy parts. Like the hair, the makeup, the clothes. But she could do little about other, more subtle differences.
Like her voice, huskier than Mimi’s. And the accent. Though she’d lost her South Carolina honey-chile, the only Canadian she could manage was an occasional “eh.” Mimi was friendly but more reserved than Cleo. People tended to see what they expected to see, hear what they expected to hear.
The two women gazed at her with welcome and, yes, curiosity.
Cleopatra Marie, you can do this.
Definitely. Probably. Maybe.
“Fabulous!” She winced inwardly at her un-Mimi-like effusive tone. “I’d love to.”
***
Munich
At the trill of his mobile phone, Marco Zervas stopped beside a concourse window on the way to his flight gate. Ricci. He barked a greeting and listened intently to the report.
Nedik and Hawkins waited nearby. The bodyguard shifted from foot to foot, watchful but nervous without a weapon under his shoulder. Hawkins clutched his laptop case and chewed his bottom lip.
“You failed? Chandler still lives?” Zervas spat into the mobile.
“Yes, and no, signore. It is a long story,” Ricci said.
Another long story. He summoned patience. Ricci had failed twice, no three times. The forger died without revealing the necklaces’ hiding place, and Ricci’s trigger-happy flunky had shot the girlfriend before she could be questioned. The idiot possessed the smoothness of day-old scotch. And no initiative. Finally, he’d needed detailed instructions before he could proceed to ensure she never woke up and spewed all she knew about the necklaces to the police.
Incredible. He’d failed at that simple task too?
“Be clear.” He lowered his voice. “You were to take care of this matter Friday night. It is now twenty hours later. Did the cops detain you? Is Chandler dead or not?”
He heard Ricci drag in a deep breath. “The polizia did not find me. Chandler lives. But I did not fail. The woman in the hospital is not Cleo Chandler.”
Announcements about flights drowned out Ricci’s next words. He cupped a hand over the mobile. “Details. Did you go to the hospital?”
“Si, I wore the white jacket and trousers of the staff. Nobody suspected. I went at the late shift change. A man was inside her room. He talked to her but she did not answer. Still unconscious, I think. I stood there too long and the man heard me. He opened the door and I ran. Some nurses chased me but I escaped.”
Zervas pressed two fingers to his forehead to ease the headache taking root there. “But you say the woman in the hospital isn’t Chandler. A police decoy then?”
“No, but I did not know the truth until later. I did not want to ring you until I had more information. This afternoon when things seemed safe, I returned to the piazza bar. Everyone was talking about the intruder. The man in the hospital room saw my face but he was not in the bar. He looked tough, ugly. Like a boxer.”
“An inside guard? Venice police?” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“N
o uniform. The nurses said he’s an American. Private security.”
Zervas gripped the mobile tightly. One of Devlin’s Special Forces team now connected to DSF fit that description. But so did lots of security types. “Name?”
“No name but there is now a second man. Also American.”
“Description.”
Ricci paused, as if checking his notes. “I did not see him. This is from the nurses. They fanned themselves when they talked about him. Tall, handsome, in command. They thought he was the other man’s employer or a family member.”
Zervas’s skin prickled with suspicion. Thomas Devlin.
“What about the woman?”
“A nurse heard the second American say he knows Chandler and that woman is not her.” Ricci’s laugh was shaky, his voice choked with relief. “Do you see, Signore Z, I could have shot her and we would not have known it was the wrong woman?”
If the idiot wanted praise, he was shit out of luck. The news would have gotten out, but too late to do Zervas any good. The police, Interpol, and DSF would’ve been days ahead of him. “Then who is she? And where is Cleo Chandler?”
“I have discovered both.” Excitement pumped Ricci’s voice like an over-inflated tire about to blow. “On the hard drive from her computer.”
***
Shipboard
“Nothing. Shit.” Thomas had only one more try before the light went permanently red, locking him out. Cleo would return anytime now from her shore excursion.
He had made it onto the Emerald easily enough. Mara had arranged for another passenger to receive word of an emergency at home. And like magic, a suite opened up for him, the only person on the cruise waiting list who could actually board in Palermo. Mara’s miracle was like sausage; better not to know the ingredients. When this was over, he’d have to give her a raise or a promotion. And confirm reimbursement for the booted passenger.
He glanced up and down the stateroom passageway while he reset the electronic lock decoder. A housekeeping cart sat at the stern end, but he saw no white-coated steward. An elderly couple shouting at each other in German came toward him.
He slipped the decoder in his pocket, and turning away, faked a sneeze. For good measure, he blew his nose on a handkerchief as they passed him.
When the couple turned into the central section housing the elevators, he checked again. Still no sign of the steward. Only the cart. All clear. A silent whistle escaped him. Running DSF from his office had made him soft, slow, too jumpy. Cleo needed him sharper.
She was probably safe in the shore-excursion group. Home of the Mafia, Sicilian towns were safe. As long as Centaur didn’t hire some mobster to snatch her from her tour. His pulse thumped. Nah, no reason for concern. They couldn’t have had the time to organize such a grab, even if they traced her to the ship.
He withdrew the lock decoder. When his tech department supplied Lucas with the device a month ago, they’d insisted it would open any door that required a key card. Not strictly legal but one of the high-tech gadgets for the occasional Interpol gigs DSF did. Thomas had wanted Lucas to have every possible advantage pursuing Centaur.
And Marco Zervas. The small-time thief had gone big time. Zervas escaped the CTF’s raid on his London townhouse, but in his haste, he left behind a single print. The way Centaur operated, with total secrecy, now made sense. Thomas’s former weapons NCO had trusted no one in their team. Being paranoid about his teammates didn’t make for good morale. Even if the man hadn’t crossed the line, Thomas would’ve had him transferred.
He tapped in another code from the list. Universal-code cards used by hotel staff and ship stewards were designed to override the unique door codes. The decoder used the same principle but with a pad for keying in the universal codes.
His last chance. It had to work. He pushed Enter.
The tiny light above the stateroom number changed from red to green.
He yanked down the handle and stepped inside the room. As soon as he closed the door, he smelled her. Light scents of lilac and lemon, but also Cleo herself. Feminine yet full of zest.
Or else it was his imagination. And just the ship’s soap.
Cosmetics littered the counter beside the closet. Clothing draped chair backs and hung on the closet door. He’d seen the same disarray when he used to hang out with her brothers. Cleo Chandler had moved in.
No time to waste. He stared at the tracking button in his hand. Wafer thin and sheer, virtually invisible. He could track her using an app on his phone. But where to plant it so he could follow her tonight, figure out the best time to approach her? He dreaded her reaction. God, he’d hurt her so badly.
Since her sixteenth birthday, he’d tried to stay away from her. He was ten years older and a soldier, disciplined, hard and tough. Shit, hard was the truth. He’d stayed that way from the moment he came home on leave and saw her in a miniskirt. She was his buddies’ little sister, for God’s sake, the kid who followed them around with Andie. How could he lust for her like a stag in rut?
She was attracted too. That was the rub. When he’d joined Special Forces, she used the banter from her favorite author as a joke. Whenever he called her Babe, she mocked him with Ranger. She knew damned well Delta Force wasn’t the Army Rangers. When he protested, she only laughed. They teased and laughed but he’d kept his distance otherwise.
Until a few years later before he left for Iraq, when she’d come on to him strong. And hell, horny idiot that he was, he responded, laughing with her, flirting with her, looping his arm around her shoulders. They rode her brother’s motorcycle. He could barely straddle the cycle’s seat with her breasts snug against his back, her thighs tight against his, and her arms wrapped around his waist.
That night their two families—her parents and his dad—put together a send-off barbecue. Too many toasts and wishes for a safe deployment fogged his mind. But something must’ve happened between them that she interpreted as an invitation. He didn’t remember returning to his room over his dad’s garage. He didn’t remember getting into the shower. But he sure as hell remembered stepping out buck naked and finding Cleo in his bed and wearing nothing but a sheet.
The shock sobered him in a nanosecond. But not enough. He should’ve been diplomatic. He could’ve let her down easy. Instead he told her she was like a kid sister and he wasn’t interested. He ordered her out of his room. Her face flamed nearly as red as her hair but she didn’t cry. She nearly ripped her blouse and jeans getting dressed so fast. Then she called him a jerk and punched him in the gut before stomping out. When he looked for her in the morning to apologize, her mom said she’d gone to visit a friend and wouldn’t be home for a few days.
So for the last ten years, he’d alternated between kicking himself in the butt and wondering what crawling into that bed with her would’ve been like.
Well, hell, enough reminiscing. He’d attached a few tracking buttons to random bags and pockets but mostly he just spent five minutes reminding himself what an asshole he’d been. If Cleo showed up now, she could order him out of her room, like he did to her. But he preferred to have their first meeting in public so she would listen without slugging him.
His gaze hit on a sketch pad. No help there but he was curious. He leafed through a few pages. Some of furniture layouts and wall treatments. Mimi’s, he guessed. The next ones were totally different in every way. Not Mimi’s. Bold, sweeping strokes captured the drama of the Italian coast and the busy port of Naples.
He’d known for years Cleo had talent but not like this. Even in black and shades of gray, the sweep and passion of the sketches moved him.
No time to ponder that. He dropped the pad. How could he figure out what shoes, what clothes, what bag she’d choose tonight? Too many possibilities. He was about to give up and try to find her later when he spotted the white square of paper beside the hair dryer.
A seven-thirty reservation at the French restaurant.
Chapter 7
CLEO TORE HER gaze from the stairway. Sh
e’d caught only a glimpse of him. No, it can’t be.
“Join us for the show tonight, Mimi,” Deidre held the elevator door open.
“The acrobats are supposed to be amazing,” Stacy said from behind her friend.
“Maybe.” Cleo blinked away the image. “I’ll see how I feel after dinner. I’m pretty tired.” True enough. Her feet hurt and her head swirled with the mosaics and frescoes of Palermo’s Royal Palace and the Archeological Museum. But mostly what had exhausted her was sustaining a cheerful yet reserved demeanor. She waggled her fingers in farewell.
As the elevator door closed, she looked at the stairs. Four people with DayGlo-yellow T-shirts reading “McCoy Family Reunion” and a woman wearing a swim cover-up and flip-flops were descending. No one going up. No rangy man charging up two steps at a time. Her heart still scrambled from the shock.
She’d glimpsed only the man’s back. Khaki pants and green polo. Nothing unique there, but worn like a uniform? And the tilt of his head, the set of his broad shoulders, the aura of power. She’d thought she was over him, over the infatuation and the humiliation, but the sense of recognition had lashed her like a whip. The stinging blow still burned inside her.
Probably the stress of the last few days. Tommy Devlin on a cruise ship? No way.
***
That evening the Cuisine d’Argent hostess led Thomas to Cleo’s table. The first sight of her stole his breaths. His blood rushed harder and his heart found a new rhythm. Or the rhythm he’d missed since the last time he saw her.
He took the seat opposite her and waited for the explosion. But seeing him turned her to stone except for the myriad emotions flashing across her sea-green eyes—shock and anger, and maybe fear.
He stared right back, drawn to the flame that was Cleo Chandler. Her elfin features seemed more defined. A ruddy flush highlighted her vivid coloring. Strange to see her in something other than jeans and a T-shirt, but of course she wore Mimi’s clothing. She’d tied her hair back. A tempting thought, reaching across the small table to free her fiery curls from their ribbon. He spread the snowy white napkin on his lap.
Cleopatra's Necklace (Devlin Security Force Book 3) Page 6