Cleopatra's Necklace (Devlin Security Force Book 3)

by Vaughan, Susan

  When the taxi settled from its rocking and rolling and set out again, the thin line of Cleo’s mouth said she was waiting for his answer.

  “I’m certain none of the Centaur thugs followed us from Santorini, but by now they know we’ve left the island. A good bet Zervas figures we’ve come to Venice searching for the necklace. He’ll have his goons look for us here.”

  She folded her lips between her teeth while she thought about that, and then her shoulders sagged. “So he could have men staking out the Ospedale Civile as well as my flat and René’s studio.”

  “Right. My take on it exactly.” Maybe not yet but he wouldn’t take the risk.

  “We’re in enough danger without me upping the threat level. Or endangering Mimi again.” Her lush pink lips curved. “Did not issuing an order put a twist in your boxers?”

  He lowered one eyelid in a slow wink. “I admit I had to stifle myself, but the boxers are tight for another reason.” Her sputtered laugh made him grin. “So am I forgiven for last night’s transgression?”

  She executed a saucy flip of her dark-copper braid. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Tell you what. It may not be safe for you to call my sister, but doubtful Zervas has Mimi’s mom’s number. After we get settled in the hotel, you can phone her.”

  “Whoa, a compromise. I’ll take it.” She curled up on the seat sideways and peered out at the buildings lining the canal.

  Off the port side rose a church square and the municipal casino but he’d rather admire the curve of her ass in the slim jeans. He dragged his gaze away and returned to his vigil.

  Damn. The green boat. Hanging back, but following. Or was he paranoid? The Grand Canal was the main thoroughfare.

  Chapter 16

  “CLEO, I DON’T want to scare you—”

  She huffed. “What now? Is our driver the Centaur leader or something?”

  Her bravado made him smile. He swung across the narrow aisle to sit beside her, wrapping his left arm around her shoulders and nudging her against him. “The dark green boat behind us has stayed with us since the mainland. I didn’t see it when we left the Questura, but it caught up again.”

  She peered astern for a long minute. Color drained from her cheeks. “Oh, God, not again.”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “Little chance of a high-speed chase in this traffic. And I doubt they’d risk gunfire. But yes, I think they’re tailing us. Take a closer look. See if you recognize any of the guys from Santorini.” When she began to move toward the back, he added, “Stay down. Don’t let them see you.”

  She slid around the seats until she had a clear view out the stern. After a few minutes, she returned, staying low.

  “Two men. A slender, gray-haired man. He could be the driver. And a big, tough-looking guy with dark hair. I think he had a scar down his cheek but they were pretty far away. I don’t recognize either of them.”

  “Not Ricci then. The scar-faced guy fits the description Del Rio sent me of Zervas’s bodyguard. Name’s Nedik.”

  “We have to lose them, don’t we? So they don’t find our hotel?” If she abandoned sarcasm, she was terrified.

  “Right.” Thomas chose his next words carefully. “I’d do this but our driver doesn’t speak much English. We need him to lose them. If they’re back there by coincidence, they won’t follow and we’re clear. If they stick with us...” He held out a palm in a gesture conveying the obvious conclusion. “You can tell him I’ll double the fare.”

  She nodded and stepped up to the cockpit. Smiling, the driver moved aside to give her room.

  While he listened to their rapid exchange of Italian, they approached the Ca d’Oro. Now the central post office, the landmark palace’s blond façade and lacework balconies gleamed in the sun. Damn close to where they would enter a smaller canal to port and head to the hotel. The driver would have to power fast in the other direction.

  A booming laugh jerked his attention back to the cockpit. The man grinned ear to ear and gestured broadly. He shook Cleo’s hand and she stepped down the companionway.

  As soon as she sat beside him, he felt the boat veer to starboard. They entered a side canal at a faster speed. “So he agreed.”

  “No prob. He said it was like an American movie. He’d always wanted to hear the words, ‘Lose those guys.’ He’ll take us through a maze of tiny rios in San Polo, then back across the Grand Canal when he’s sure no one is following.”

  The green boat turned in behind them. A muscle tightened in his jaw. “They’re tailing us all right. Look.”

  The narrowness of the rio forced a leaden pace, a contest between a turtle and a snail.

  Apparently the offer of a double fare had motivated their driver to ignore the speed limit and the danger of collision. When their wake rocked a gondola loaded with Japanese tourists, the passengers cried out and grabbed the gondola’s sides to avoid being tossed in the murky green water. Thomas held onto the safety handle beside him and kept Cleo plastered against him with his other arm. The gondolier waved his fist and shouted.

  The water taxi driver ignored the complaint and swung into the next, even narrower rio. The green boat had dropped back but stayed the course.

  Thomas considered leaving the taxi and going it on foot. Being in the open and on foot could be riskier. Cleo was safer here. As long as their driver knew his stuff.

  The rio made a sharp turn. The driver shot off into another side waterway. Straight ahead, a barge, its cargo of building stone already unloaded onto the adjacent dock, began to turn around. If it pulled out farther, it would block their way and the green boat would catch up. Then all bets were off on whether Nedik would use a gun. Thomas had had to leave the borrowed pistol on Santorini. He had no weapon.

  The driver pushed the throttle forward and the engines growled in response. He swerved to starboard. Ahead loomed a narrowing gap between the barge’s stern and a concrete retaining wall.

  The taxi shot through the slot.

  The barge reversed the rest of the way. It blocked the canal. And the green boat.

  Furious shouts and the whine of a down-throttling motor eddied across the water.

  Slowing, the water taxi driver made three more zigs and zags. Insurance. Thomas couldn’t argue with that. He relaxed his grip on the safety handle but kept Cleo close.

  The driver bent and called something down to them.

  “He thinks they’re gone,” she translated, edging away to wave to the driver, “but he’ll take some more detours before recrossing the Grand Canal toward our hotel.”

  Pink-cheeked after the chase, she looked excited and something else he couldn’t put a finger on. “He said more than that.”

  “What makes you think so?” The pink in her cheeks deepened to rose. She looked both vulnerable and sexy.

  “You.”

  She heaved a sigh. “Before, he asked if those guys were police. I said no, that we’re newlyweds and the man following us is a rejected lover.”

  Cleo’s ploy should’ve had him reaching for a hazmat suit but, hell, she wasn’t serious. For long term she’d want a man closer to her age. The thought chafed like a blister on his heel. “Good call. And now?”

  “He said a real man knows to accept no and move on.”

  “Our driver is a wise man.”

  Beside their taxi, laundry hung outside a blue house. Shirts and slips fluttered on a line from one window to another. A man strained to wheel a laden cart up the shallow steps of a bridge. Maps in hand, three women wheeled suitcases along a cobbled walk.

  No sign of the green boat or their pursuers.

  Cleo also kept watch. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.

  In this maze, their tail could find them again by chance. Leaving matters to chance all too led often to disaster. Chance and impulse. He had to curb his impulses where Cleo was concerned if he wanted any relationship with her beyond this mission. He surprised himself that he did.

  He didn’t want to be the reject
ed lover having to accept no before the affair ran its course. As they always did.

  ***

  Seeing the joy on Cleo’s face at whatever Trudy Ingram was saying on the phone told Thomas he’d done the right thing. He relaxed against a corner of the sofa. Instead of a single room, this time he’d booked a mini-suite with a king bed and a seating area.

  The desk clerk had greeted Thomas by name but kept his gaze gaze glued on Cleo. She’d chatted with him in fluent Italian, rendering him her slave. The bellboy hopped to, faster than he’d done for Thomas alone. Hell, he’d been glad to finally get her alone. Safe, behind locked doors.

  She finished her call and handed him her phone. “Thanks so much. Mimi’s mom says she’s still about the same. Some movement of her hands. She mumbles words sometimes too.” She blinked and swiped away a tear.

  He pulled her into his arms and soothed circles on her back.

  “Damn. Here I am weeping in your arms again. Soaking your shirt.”

  In his arms was the key part. Hold her. That’s all, Devlin. The next move is hers. “But she hasn’t awakened yet.”

  “Trudy’s hopeful. More than before. I was afraid she’d hang up on me. Blame me for what happened to Mimi.”

  “Like you blame yourself.”

  “She was happy I called. Said she couldn’t wait to meet her niece.” She raised her head. He wanted to kiss away her remaining tears, but she backed away.

  “One more thing,” she said, her brow creased in thought. “Trudy said Mimi keeps muttering Lucas’s name.”

  “Interesting,” was all he could find to say. Lucas had a thing for Mimi, begun even before Thomas had arrived to point out she wasn’t Cleo. Reactions to his intimidating appearance had made Lucas wary about women. But lonely. Interesting, yes, to see how this might play out.

  ***

  Early that evening, they left the hotel by a service door and grabbed a quick pasta meal at a trattoria two streets over. The sky, a black blanket draped over the city, allowed no stars to peek around the clouds to compete with city lights.

  Cleo zipped up the lined jacket she’d bought earlier in anticipation of the cool night air. Well, Thomas had bought it, had insisted. Another way of protecting her. Or managing her. Aside from the search, she needed to pack her clothing and then she’d never return to that flat. Maybe to Venice. In spite of everything, she loved the city.

  A water taxi motored them to the Santa Croce district. From there they traipsed a maze of calli, narrow side streets, and rios, Thomas always vigilant.

  In René’s studio, the overhead lights glinted off his tools and remnants of beads and silver. Cleo wrinkled her nose at the odd smell of the fingerprint powder left behind by the polizia. Overseen by the impatient landlord, they picked through the tools and a file box of design sheets and contracts. After an hour with nothing to show but specifications of the Cleopatra choker, they thanked the landlord and left.

  Another series of twists and turns took them to the flat, their last hope. She crossed her fingers they’d find more of a clue than whatever René had mumbled when he died. The building that contained her flat was one of a solid wall of dwellings, some with ground-floor shops. Hers housed a small stationery shop beside the entrance to the flats. Across from her building, Thomas backed them into a recess. The dark nook smelled of stale cigarettes and the fresh mortar binding the stones beneath their feet. He tucked her behind him while he observed. After a few minutes, he hustled her across the calle.

  “Security?”

  Seeing his skeptical glare at the wooden door, she bit back a smile. “No keypad or alarm. Only a passkey and nosy neighbors.”

  “Someone could’ve cleaned you out. Let’s hope you find something left in the flat.”

  “Their guy followed our water taxi, so wouldn’t they expect we’d come here?” she whispered as they entered the lobby. “Why are they hanging back?”

  The outer door closed behind them. Familiar smells and sounds calmed her nerves—the aromas of buttery sauces and roasting chicken, the emotion-filled voices of a popular TV drama, and the hungry wail of the Fellinis’ two-month-old son.

  “Zervas may be a sociopath but he’s a smart sociopath. His street muscle not necessarily. But to answer your question, I don’t know. Maybe waiting to see what we come up with.”

  “Waiting for us to find the necklaces, you mean?”

  “Right. Letting us do the work.” He jerked a nod toward the hall. “What’s back there?”

  “Storage, the trash room, the furnace. And a rear exit.”

  He made no comment, only eyed the narrow, dimly lit stairway with suspicion. “I’ll go up first.”

  She stayed close behind him, trying to ignore how sexy he looked in his jeans and body-hugging black polo and how the muscles in his butt and thighs flexed as he climbed. When they reached the fourth floor without incident, he stepped aside to let her join him on the landing.

  When she’d obtained the key from her landlady, the impact of returning didn’t hit her. The sight of the new lock, replacing the one the killers mangled, triggered roaring in her ears. As she inserted the key, her pulse jerked and her palms went damp.

  He reached around her and opened the door. “Wait here, Cleo. I’ll go in first, turn on lights.”

  She nodded, focusing on his clean scent rather than memories of blood and death.

  All too soon, he returned. He opened the door wide, letting the living room light spill out. “All clear.”

  One step inside. Another. Queasiness swirled in her stomach and her gaze shot to the sofa. Gone. Only the square imprints of its feet remained on the carpet, a ghost of the death that soaked it in blood. She wouldn’t have to see the ruined cushions. The flat smelled only of dust and her paints, and the fingerprint powder, thank God. Her pulse slowed.

  “You okay, babe?” Thomas’s hands, strong and warm, closed on her shoulders. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. No one tailed us or came ahead of us. You left your phone off so they can’t find you that way. No one knows we’re here.”

  She forced herself to breathe. Realized she’d been swaying on her feet. “It’s not that. It’s just coming back to this place.”

  “Not surprising. Just take it slow.” His eyes gentle as if he feared she might shatter, he gestured toward the window, its curtains pulled tight. “Stay back from the windows.”

  She ventured one step inside, then another and another, until the initial horror faded. Cupboard drawers left open, their contents strewn on tabletops. Books—her art books and René’s collection of detective fiction—torn from the shelves and left on the floor. She shook her head at the disarray. “Why did the police tear the place apart? Were they looking for the necklaces?”

  “Doubtful, but the two killers had time to search before the cops arrived,” he said, probing the wood along the bookshelves. “Did René have any hiding places here?”

  “None he told me about. Obviously he was keeping secrets, so maybe. If the police and the killers didn’t find anything, how can we?”

  “You never know.” Coming from the bathroom, his voice was fainter.

  She wandered into the kitchen. The smell of lemon cleanser drifted in the air. The pot she’d left on the stove sat upside down in the sink drainer. Empty fridge, no food packages on the shelves. Not the cops, she thought, but her landlady, beginning to ready the flat for a new tenant as soon as Cleo cleared out her belongings.

  “Nada in the bathroom. Anything?” Thomas’s wide shoulders took up the doorway.

  She couldn’t get enough of looking at him, his straight black brows framing his dark-gold eyes, his hard, square jaw.

  Amusement crinkled his gaze. Damn, he knew she’d been staring, that she wanted him still. She cleared her throat. Finishing their search, packing her things and getting back safely to the hotel meant moving quickly, not indulging in a round of hot sex. No way did she want to make love with Thomas in the bed where she’d lain with René.

  She shrugged. “N
othing. But René hardly ever cooked. If he hid anything, it’ll be in the bedroom.”

  She whisked past him, through the living room to the bedroom. No hot sex in here anytime soon. Mattress stuffing poked up from slices in the bedding, puffs of foam dribbling over the discarded covers. Clothing, her paints and René’s toiletries lay strewn beside the upside-down drawers. The scent of his Borsari cologne wafted up from the floor. She gaped at the mess, a sense of violation creeping over her.

  “Feeling nostalgic?”

  “Some. But mostly the thought of those creeps handling my stuff makes my skin crawl.”

  He squeezed her shoulders gently. “Don’t blame you. Take only what you need for tonight. The rest can be replaced. I’ll look through René’s stuff for anything that might help us. Not a hard job. The searchers piled everything on the floor.”

  Nodding, she dragged her other small suitcase, a soft-sided shoulder bag, onto the ruined mattress and began sorting through her remaining clothing. In case René had stashed something in her belongings, she searched pockets and trinket boxes. “Nothing but wrinkles and lint.”

  “Same here,” he said, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “Looks like René left you with the only clues.”

  “We might as well have nothing. That’s what his mumblings are worth.”

  After packing underwear—which she absolutely would wash out by hand tonight—and a couple changes of clothing, she picked up a discarded sketchbook and eyed her easel.

  “Don’t think we can take that.” He grinned. “But I like the scene you started.”

  She’d tried to capture the sun in a narrow courtyard as it spotlighted a carved door and a tabby cat sleeping among the flowers in a window box. “Thanks. I still have the preliminary sketches in this old sketchbook. Maybe I’ll try again sometime.”

  “You said you were starting to sell. In a gallery?”

  She dropped in the sketchbook and zipped up the bag. “The Calle della Vida Gallery, not far from the shop where I worked. I still have five paintings there.” She snorted. “Unless the signora sold them. If she thinks I’m dead, she probably doubled the price. Dead artist, you know. She’ll rake in all the profit.”