The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series)

by Carrie Bedford

  Just as we sat down to dinner, Claire called. It sounded as though she was in a restaurant or at a party. Glasses clinked over a loud hum of voices. I was relieved to hear from her and happy when she said she’d be home the next morning. She gave me her address.

  “What is it that Ethan gave you to bring over?” she asked.

  “A book…” I trailed off. I didn’t have the book any longer. “Some papers,” I said, deciding not to go into it on the phone. “Has Ethan been in touch with you?”

  “Not since, let me think, Thursday. We spoke then. Why?”

  “He told me he’s coming to Florence, but I don’t know when.”

  “Oh, okay. I’m sure he’ll call before he turns up.”

  It worried me that Ethan hadn’t contacted her, but she didn’t seem very curious about why he was coming to see her. We agreed to meet at her flat in the city center at eleven in the morning. After that, I’d get a shuttle to Pisa for my afternoon flight to London.

  Over dinner, Dad asked me about my job and how things were with Josh. He liked my boyfriend, which made family get-togethers easy.

  “I’m glad you’re back at work,” he said. “I was worried when you took that time off. Your boss isn’t the most understanding type.”

  “It’s going well,” I assured him. “Alan’s being quite decent, and I’ve been promoted to the sustainable design team. We have a major proposal out to a company called Randall Development. It’s my dream come true, Dad, to collaborate on a project with a developer who’s as highly regarded as Randall is. So keep your fingers crossed that they accept our proposal. We should hear in a week or two.”

  Dad patted my hand. “Your mum would have been proud of you, sweetheart. I know I am.”

  For a few seconds, my voice caught in my throat. I missed Mum every day but, wanting to avoid upsetting Dad, I smiled and promised to keep him updated on how the project went. He insisted on serving me a second helping of the delicious risotto and we stopped just short of licking our plates clean.

  Over espressos and thimble-sized glasses of grappa, he raised the dreaded subject. “Do you still see those aura things?” he asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  He frowned. When I’d first told him about them, he’d been distraught, unwilling to accept something so bizarre and abnormal. It didn’t fit with his worldview at all.

  “You feel well?” he pressed. “Physically, I mean? No headaches, nothing like that?”

  I poured us both another centimeter of grappa. “I’m completely healthy, I promise. Anita measures my blood pressure practically every time I see her.” I laughed at his skeptical expression. “Honestly, you wouldn’t believe how embarrassing it is when she takes my pulse in public.” She’d only actually done that once, but I wanted to jolly Dad out of being worried about me. “If I have a zero point one percent uptick on my cholesterol count, Anita will catch it. There are perks to having a doctor as your best friend.”

  He smiled. “That’s good then. You know I worry…”

  “But you don’t need to.” I finished my coffee. “It’s getting late. Do you mind if I go up?”

  With Bianca panting alongside me, I climbed the stone stairs. My bedroom was cozy and familiar, with sunny yellow walls and white curtains that fell in silken cascades to the tiled floor. When I rummaged in the drawers for an old T-shirt to sleep in I was glad to see I had a small stash of underwear, socks, a cream shirt and a clean sweater stored there too. I was still upset that my bag had been taken, and the loss of the book bothered me.

  Silence settled around me. The only sound was of Bianca snoring softly as she lay on the floor next to my bed. Usually I slept blissfully in the comforting embrace of the old house, but tonight I lay awake, rehashing the events of the last twenty-four hours. By one in the morning, I was up and pacing the room, jittery and apprehensive. What if the thief had in fact been after the book? What if he realized he didn’t have the key and came looking for it? What if I’d led a criminal to my father’s house? I glanced at Bianca, who was snuffling in her sleep. She wasn’t exactly a fierce guard dog. The best she could do would be to lick an intruder into submission.

  A noise outside made me jump. My heart pounded. Was someone breaking in? The dog raised her head. She’d heard it too. With the lights still off, I eased open my balcony door and peered out. Bianca trotted over to stand beside me, her nose wrinkling as she sniffed the air. The moon was high, glazing the gardens with silver. And, in the center of the lawn, a robber in a mask looked up at us.

  The raccoon was squatting on the bird table, chewing on birdseed. Using his long-fingered forepaws, he scraped the seed into a neat pile before eating it. Our presence didn’t seem to bother him until Bianca gave a low growl. Then, with one last bite, the little thief jumped down to the grass and ran into the shrubs.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I slept sporadically for the rest of the night and jumped out of bed as soon as dawn lightened the room. I showered and dressed, and by the time I’d dried my hair, the fragrance of coffee drifted up the stairs. With Bianca following close behind, I hurried down to join Dad in the kitchen.

  Over breakfast, we made plans for Easter weekend. Josh and I planned to come, as did Leo, with Olivia and the boys.

  “Invite Ethan and Claire,” Dad said. “I’d like to see them again.”

  I would, I decided, assuming that Ethan ever called me back.

  Dad stood and took a pair of secateurs from a drawer. “The camellias are blooming. I thought you could take some over to Claire’s.”

  Just after ten thirty, I knelt to hug Bianca before getting into Dad’s car. Her shining brown eyes gazed into mine as though she’d known me her whole life. I wondered if she knew that I was different, that I had this strange ability to see auras. I’d read that dogs could sense the presence of ghosts. I shivered. What if Bianca could see auras like I could? Did she see one over me?

  I gave her an extra hug and stood up. I was being ridiculous.

  The drive into Florence didn’t take long, only ten minutes to the Lungarno, where Dad let me out in front of the Biblioteca Nazionale. Most private vehicles were banned from the city center. I gathered the flowers from the back seat where he’d put them and watched as he drove away. It was sad to say goodbye, but I’d see him again in a couple of weeks. And Bianca would keep him company.

  The walk to Claire’s house took me through the Piazza Santa Croce. As I crossed the square, I felt the emotions that Florence always stirred in me— a mix of delight in being there and frustration at having to share it with thousands of visitors from all over the world. A large group of Americans milled around the entry to the church, following a young woman holding a yellow umbrella. The steps in front served as seating for young people taking selfies, and the square teemed with street vendors hawking scarves and leather bags. Still, I loved it all.

  I checked my watch and picked up my pace. It was almost eleven. Claire lived on Via Dei Pepi, so I left the piazza and walked up Via Petripiana, past the post office, which had to be one of the ugliest buildings in Tuscany. The crowds thinned in the more residential areas where parked mopeds and shuttered shops lined the pavements; most Italians would still be in church or at home preparing lunch. And the shops didn’t open on Sundays. Here and there, I caught tantalizing glimpses of the russet dome of the cathedral framed against the blue sky.

  Cradling the flowers in one arm, I checked in my shoulder bag yet again to make sure that the leather pouch was still there. I wondered what Claire would make of all this. I no longer had the book and there’d been no word from Ethan. It seemed I was on a fool’s errand.

  Number 40 was a four-story town house stuccoed in cream, symmetrically arranged around an arched front door with a weathered brass handle. I scanned the panel set into the wall and pressed the bell next to Claire’s name. After a long pause, she answered. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Kate.”

  “Third floor. Come up.” That was the Claire I remembered fro
m school. A little imperious, expecting others to do her bidding, which of course, we did. Intelligent and pretty, she had all the boys at her beck and call. Even back then, she’d been several inches taller and several pounds lighter than me, but I’d been willing to forgive her anything in return for her friendship— until the day she stole my boyfriend. He hadn’t exactly been my boyfriend, but at the age of seventeen, I’d thought I was in love with him. When I confided in Claire and asked for her help in getting him to invite me to the end-of-year school party, she’d promised she would. Then she’d turned up at the party with him. Unable to control my teenage emotions, I’d decided I hated her and would never trust anyone ever again. Over the years, the rage dissipated. I certainly didn’t hate Claire, but there remained a coolness between us. It was so subtle that I doubted that Leo and Ethan ever noticed.

  A loud buzzer sounded as the lock on the front door clicked. I pushed it open and stepped into a narrow entry hall lined with black mailboxes. At one end, a long white marble stairway swept upwards like a snowy mountain slope. After a short climb, I found Claire waiting for me on a small landing on the third floor. When I’d last seen her, at her father’s funeral six weeks ago, she’d been pale and distressed, dressed in black, with her hair pulled back into a tight knot. Today, she looked amazing. Tight designer jeans, ballet flats, a green top that matched her eyes. Her red hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders.

  The only flaw was the aura that circled lazily around her head.

  The shock made my legs wobble. How could both Claire and Ethan be in danger?

  I held out the flowers. “They’re from my dad’s garden.”

  Her expression held a hint of disdain, but she took them before leading me into a spacious living room decorated with comfortable-looking furniture and an antique Persian rug on the wooden floor. A single picture hung above a dresser, an oil in a gilt frame of a beautiful Madonna clasping a chubby baby.

  For a few seconds, we stood awkwardly, facing each other. “Is Ethan here?” I asked.

  “No, not yet. Is there a problem?”

  “You haven’t heard from him?”

  Her eyes widened at the urgency in my voice. “What’s going on?”

  I dreaded telling her, but it had to be done. “It’s complicated.”

  “Come with me then and I’ll make us an espresso while you tell me everything.”

  She led me into a compact kitchen and gestured to a chair at a tiny breakfast table where I sat while she measured coffee into an espresso machine. The flowers lay on the counter and I felt a faint surge of irritation that she hadn’t said thank you or acknowledged my father’s thoughtfulness.

  “So what’s happening?” she asked.

  I recounted the events of Friday night, starting with Ethan leaving in the taxi, the directions to the safe and my discovery of the book. My cheeks flushed warm when I described the attack on my cab on the road from the airport. I left out the part about Ethan’s aura. And hers of course. The story was wild enough already.

  “Ethan’s missing? Oh my God.”

  “You’re sure you don’t know where he might be?” I asked. “The text said he’d be here.”

  She shook her head, the color draining from her face.

  “Let’s not worry yet,” I said. “He didn’t say when he’d be here. He’s certain to be in touch soon.”

  In fact, I was panicking. To hear nothing from Ethan for so long scared me.

  “Had you seen the book before?” I asked, trying to focus on other parts of the puzzle. “It was a leather-bound version of Alberti’s Della Pittura.”

  “I never saw it, but I’d heard about it from Dad. And then Ethan told me he’d retrieved it from the bank. My father had a will— he was very organized— but even so it took a while to put his affairs in order after he died. A week ago, Ethan got authorization to access Dad’s bank account and his safety deposit box. He told me the box had the Della Pittura in it, as well as some jewelry for me from my grandmother.”

  She set down the cups she’d been arranging on a tray and sank into the seat opposite me.

  “It’s too bad you lost the book. Now we’ll never know why it was so important to my father.”

  I shifted on my chair, embarrassed. “It was stolen,” I replied. “Anyway, I managed to hold on to this.”

  The pouch felt soft against my fingers when I took it from my bag and gave it to her. She undid the thread and opened it, tipping the key out into the palm of her hand.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, tracing the engraving of the flames and the letter C with her finger. At once, her aura started moving faster. I leaned forward, staring at the aura to be sure I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t. That was interesting. It implied that the key was the source of the threat to her.

  “What do you know about it?” I asked. “Why did your father store it in a safety deposit box?”

  “I only know what little he told me. Apparently, an Italian man sent the Della Pittura to my grandfather a few years after the Second World War. When Grandpa died of a heart attack just after Dad was born, my grandmother stored the book in the attic where it stayed for the next sixty years. My dad found it when she moved to a nursing home a year or so ago. He told me about this key, which was hidden in a cut-out inside the book, right?”

  I nodded.

  “He intended to write an article about it,” she continued. “But then he… well, there was the car crash. Thank you for coming to the funeral, by the way. It meant a lot to us. Anyway, Dad was researching the history of the book and the key.”

  “Did he tell you anything about his research?”

  Claire’s eyes filled with tears. “No. We were supposed to spend an evening together in Florence the night before he died, but in fact, we had a bit of a row.”

  She put the key back in the pouch. “He phoned to say he planned to come to Florence and he wanted to take me out for dinner. I was excited to see him, and I splurged on an expensive new dress. We’d planned to meet at the station, but then he called to tell me he needed to change his plans, that he had to go to Rome for a meeting. Something to do with his work. We argued on the phone because I was mad that he canceled on me.” She sighed. “My reaction was stupid and irrational. He was an investigative journalist, after all, and often changed plans on short notice to follow a story.”

  She stopped talking, holding one hand to her throat. “Then he had the accident the next day, on the journey home from Heathrow airport.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. We sat in silence for a while. Sounds from the street drifted up and a bell tolled somewhere nearby.

  “What do you think the key opens?” I asked finally.

  “No idea. But I wonder if the meeting my father had in Rome was related to this key somehow.”

  “It’s possible, although he didn’t have the key with him. It must have been inside the book at the bank in England by the time your father went to Rome.”

  She frowned and then nodded. “I see what you mean. Dad never got home so he couldn’t have taken them to the bank after that meeting.” She clasped her hands together and rested them on the table. “So why did Ethan want me to have them?”

  “Probably to keep them safe until he gets here. I’m sure he’ll be able to explain it all when he arrives.”

  We both fell silent again, and I guessed we were thinking the same thing. Where was Ethan?

  “I hope to God he’s okay,” Claire said.

  I leaned forward and squeezed her hand, which was cold. “It’ll be fine.” I did my best to sound reassuring.

  She disengaged her hand from mine and stood to finish making the coffee, placing little cups of espresso on the table. I was already caffeinated from my early breakfast at home, but I drank it anyway. The energy rush would keep me going.

  Claire sat again. She glanced at the clock above the window. “I have to go into the office for a couple of hours this afternoon,” she said. “We have a team of art historians coming in for a visit
tomorrow and I have to be prepared.” Stirring sugar into her cup, she raised her eyes to meet mine. “What about you? Can you stay until I get back?”

  “I have a flight in four hours.” I checked my watch. “Actually, I should get going.”

  “Please will you stay until Ethan gets here?” she asked quietly. “I’m worried. If anything has happened to him…”

  Her voice broke. I felt a familiar sense of the inevitable. I had to be at work on Monday morning or risk Alan’s wrath, which would undoubtedly descend on my head all the way from the Great Wall of China. But Ethan’s absence disturbed me, and Claire’s aura was like a magnet drawing me in. I wasn’t good at walking away from auras. And although it wasn’t rational, I felt responsible for what had happened, particularly the theft of the book.

  “I’ll stay until tomorrow morning,” I said. “I expect he’ll turn up by then.”

  “Thank you.” She got to her feet. “There’s a sofa bed you can sleep on tonight. I’ll run into the office and get back as soon as I can, then we’ll have dinner together this evening and catch up. It will be like old times.”

  Obviously my version of old times and hers were rather different, but I smiled and nodded, trying to ignore the warning sign flashing in front of my eyes. Don’t screw up and miss work again. I blinked a few times until the sign faded.

  “I’ll go for a walk,” I said. “It’s been a while since I played tourist.”

  “Good idea. I’ll call you if I hear anything from Ethan.” She gave me the key. “Take care of this until he comes. I don’t want it.”

  I didn’t either, but I put it back in my bag.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Before heading out, I rang the airline to see if I could fly back to London first thing in the morning. They offered a flight into City airport that would get me into the office by ten, thanks to the one-hour time difference. I booked it, trying not to worry about the triple-digit charge to my credit card for change fees. When I’d finished the call, I began to dial Dad’s number to let him know I planned to stay for another day. Then I decided it would raise too many questions. I’d call him once I was back in England tomorrow.