If he was going to prod her memory, they needed a new safe house where they wouldn’t land in a trap.
And it had been a trap. Vadim knew about the safe house. The suspicion of a leak tied a knot in Jack’s gut.
“Hey, man, this Italian sun getting to you? You’re sweating.” Leoni climbed onto the dock from a police launch. He carried two plastic evidence bags.
Jack was sweating, all right, but not from the climate. “You don’t know sun until you’ve spent a summer in Florida.” He ignored the trickles down his temples. “What d’you got?”
“IDs on the shooters.” He handed Jack the bags.
As Jack had thought, Vadim’s agents. One bag held a charred Cleatian passport in the name of Petar Smryczk, and the other an EU driver’s license for Guido Mazza. “Is there enough left of these guys for forensics to do a positive ID?”
Leoni shrugged. “With DNA maybe. I saw you discussing things with De Carlo. What gives?”
Jack’s respect for Leoni had risen several notches since that first day. The ATSA officer might appear lazy and uninvolved, but a sharp mind hid behind his sleepy eyes, and he could move fast when necessary. His efficient organizing had lined up the official boats in the canal block.
“Debris from the boat looks like a gas can exploded,” Jack said. “Could’ve been hit by bullets. Or they had the can stored too close to the motor.”
“An extra gas can? If you’d made it into the safe house, they could’ve smoked you out with one hell of a bonfire.”
A muscle in Jack’s jaw knotted. “Vadim doesn’t fool around.” He knew from past experience.
Leoni dug a gum packet from a jean pocket and offered it. When Jack refused, he unwrapped a piece and popped it into his mouth. “De Carlo must see how important the Rinaldi woman is.”
“He sees what he wants to see. He doubts I’ll get information from her, but he’ll go for protecting her. I have to check with him on a new safe house.” The CO was putting Jack off on that. Why was the question.
“Did you warn him about a possible leak?”
“You’d think I’d offered him poison. He blamed the Venice polizia for assigning us a safe house known to locals. Guido Mazza had connections and could’ve sniffed it out. From De Carlo’s attitude, I thought he suspected me.”
“Like you’d set yourself up to be shot at.” Leoni squinted against the sun’s rays as he stared across the canal. The salvage boat was heading toward them. “We’re about done here. And speak of the devil, here comes De Carlo.”
The commissario might be height-challenged, but he didn’t lack for arrogance. As he sauntered from the air-conditioned Palazzo Balbi, his gait contained a distinct swagger. After dispatching Leoni to write his report, he turned to Jack.
“Officer Thorne, the task force will not authorize another safe house. Too risky. You are better off hiding the woman somewhere away from Venice.”
“What about backup?”
“The terrorist Ahmed Saqr has been located in England, in a South London flat. Vadim’s phone records show multiple calls between his villa and the number there. Scotland Yard will hold off arresting Saqr so we don’t warn off Vadim. I need all available officers to find Vadim and confiscate that uranium. Backup? Non è possibile.”
Jack had picked up enough Italian to grasp the man’s last words. Even if he’d translated incorrectly, the control officer’s stern look said Jack was on his own with Sophie. He had to ask anyway. “So I get no one?”
A thin smile cracked De Carlo’s face. “Only the lovely Signora Rinaldi. Keep in touch with Leoni by telefonino, uh, cell phone, as you Americans say.”
By the time Sophie climbed into the powerboat, she’d recovered from the effects of the chase. The prescription pain pill and a bottle of water had revived her so she could go on.
She would never get over seeing the terrified looks on those men’s faces just before their boat exploded. She knew they’d intended to kill both her and Jack, but no one should die like that. A shudder quaked through her.
She had to do whatever she could to stop the madness, to find her memory of Vadim and his secrets. But being cooped up in a safe house would be unbearable if her laconic guard reverted to his initial cold-eyed demeanor. In unguarded moments, pain burned in his eyes.
He had secrets. Secrets he shared with no one.
Before the attack she’d glimpsed another man inside his hard shell, a man who could enjoy the beauty around him and laugh with ease. A man she could be comfortable with, a friend. She shouldn’t, but she wanted to see more of that man.
“You okay?” Jack asked as he started the boat motor.
“Fine. Are we going to the safe house now?”
“The safe house isn’t so safe after all. Vadim knows about it.” He flicked toggle switches and examined dials.
“Oh. Of course.” She wondered how Vadim had found it and them but said nothing.
“That’s it? ‘Oh.’ Don’t you want to know about that or where we’re going?”
Sophie smiled at Jack’s trademark scowl. He questioned everything. “I do. I suspect you don’t know how Vadim knew about the safe house and you’ll tell me where we are going soon enough.”
“You always so amenable?”
His cynical tone said he wondered if she’d gone along with whatever Vadim had asked of her. She wondered, too. Questions ate at her. Sometimes they crushed her chest with pain, the hidden answers ticking away in a memory time bomb. “Jack, I’ve given you my trust and I’ll do all I can to solve the mystery of my lost memory.”
He regarded her for a long moment, then nodded. “I’ll try to merit that trust. I nearly blew it today.” He lifted a hand as if to reach for her, but instead gripped the steering wheel. “We have some time before Vadim can regroup. As far as we know, the explosion eliminated his only agents.”
“There, you’ve just used that word, agents. And you’re an officer, not an agent. Explain your spookspeak, please.”
His mouth quirked. She swore he almost laughed but couldn’t see his eyes to be sure. A laugh was probably too much to ask.
“An agent isn’t official, someone outside the government paid to do a job for an official operative, like me.”
“Ah, an agent might be a spy inside a terrorist cell or a foreign government.”
“That’s it.”
“Why are the FBI called agents then?”
He turned to look at her. He wasn’t smiling, but his gaze softened. “You got me there. But they are ‘special agents.’ You’ll have to ask a Feeb sometime.”
“The very next time I meet a Feeb, I will.”
As if wiping off a grin, he swiped a hand across his mouth. He slid the map to her. “Think you can direct us back to the mainland?”
“Assolutamente! If you trust me to do it.”
“Go for it.”
A hedged answer. Sophie wanted him to trust her for more than that, but she’d take what she could get. She hardly knew if she could trust herself.
She scanned the map. Ah. Jack wouldn’t mind a tiny detour. She hoped. “Go back the way we came a little bit. We can follow a smaller rio south to the Canale della Giudecca. It leads to the lagoon.”
They followed the Canale Grande to the rio she’d chosen. The narrow waterway passed a church on the left and then approached another palazzo.
One red-gold eyebrow shot up. “More sights to see, Sophie?” He cut the motor to an idle.
There were, but not this one. She felt the heat of embarrassment on her cheeks. “No, I didn’t know about this building. Oh, but look at that staircase!”
Constructed of tan bricks and accented with white arches and balustrades, the spiral staircase curved up the side of the palazzo in an open tower. A sign on the dock said in five languages that the staircase was open to the public.
Sophie’s gaze rose to the fifth story of the staircase. “Oh, look, a family up there. The children are waving to us.” She waved back, but noticed Jack looked away, h
is mouth tight. His hands gripped the steering wheel with equal tension. Was he thinking about their ordeal earlier? Or did something about the family upset him?
“Got your guidebook? You might as well tell me about it,” Jack said as he flexed his fingers.
His gruff tone meant the stern fed had returned. How would he react when he saw where she was taking him? She gave a mental shrug. Too late now.
After flipping some pages, she found the entry. “‘Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo with a snail-shell staircase,’” she read. “Bovolo means snail.”
“A major feat of engineering,” Jack said.
“Engineering, boh. Venetians love decoration. It’s way cool and beautiful.”
Jack shifted to forward, and Sophie directed him to turn left. “Keep going straight. Sempre diritto.”
“Now you sound like a native Veneziano. Go straight, go straight.”
Sophie grinned. “Then you know we won’t get lost.”
Off to the right, above the buildings, she spotted a distinctive tower. If he saw the Campanile, he’d know where she was taking him. So far, his eyes stayed on the waterway.
“But they don’t go straight. Not the streets. Not the canals,” he protested. “Look at this canal, a jig here, a jog there. Nothing diritto.”
The next sharp right made by the rio proved his case. When the boat pulled even with the massive gray-stone basilica set back in a broad square, Jack stared in disbelief.
“Piazza San Marco. Remember, all roads lead to St. Mark’s,” Sophie said. She held her breath as she waited for his reaction.
Jack did something she never expected to witness. Tiny lines formed around his blue eyes as they crinkled with amusement. His mouth twitched. A great fountain of laughter gushed from him as though it had been bottled up since birth. He tilted back his head and let the laughter flow.
Enjoying the deep timbre of his delight, Sophie, too, laughed at her joke on him. This interlude kept her fears at bay and gave her strength for what might come. She’d coaxed to the surface the man she could talk to.
She wished they had time to walk around the piazza. Lighting a candle inside the basilica might bring her another piece of memory, but she wouldn’t ask.
As if he’d read her mind, Jack said, “We need to reach Mestre and a car before dark. It’s getting late.”
“Do you know? Have I visited St. Mark’s?” She couldn’t help the plaintive tone.
“Tell you what. When this is all over, I’ll bring you back here. You can stay as long as you want.”
Ignoring the twinges in her sore body, she turned to reach across the space between them. As she curled her fingers over his scarred ones on the steering wheel, she felt his strength and heat surge into her.
And more. A rush of awareness that surprised her.
She withdrew her hand. “Thank you. It’s a deal.”
He appeared to regret his offer, but merely nodded.
As the boat continued on, Sophie glimpsed the two gruff red lions that guarded the basilica’s left flank. It was said that St. Mark’s was the soul of Venice, and she felt the power of its spirit as her gaze followed its silhouette.
“Where are we going, Jack?”
“I thought you’d never ask. A place Vadim won’t suspect. A place I hope will help you remember. Tuscany.”
As they reached the car park in Mestre, dusk turned the sky myriad shades of pink and mauve. Driving west on the A4 Autostrade in the subcompact Fiat assigned to them, Sophie had to close her eyes against the glare of the setting sun.
Did she imagine it or did her hand still tingle from contact with his? Attraction to Jack Thorne? He did have the bluest eyes, a brilliant blue that seemed to burn from within. When he’d laughed, his deep voice had resonated through her.
She opened her eyes and stared at his hands on the steering wheel. He wore no wedding ring, but that meant nothing. “Jack, are you married? Do you have a family?”
His hold on the wheel slipped, and the car lurched to the right. He gained control fast and righted their direction.
“Jack?”
“No. I have no family.”
The dispassionate and deliberate way he said it broke Sophie’s heart. She yearned to know more, to know what had happened to him. But the amber light of the setting sun cast his features in a hard mask and stifled her next question.
A bump in the road jarred her senses. What was she thinking? She blinked at the lowering sun.
Sophia Constanza, this man is not for you.
Some past tragedy had wounded him deeply and had hardened over all softness. He suspected her of working with a criminal. Without her memory, she couldn’t be sure of the truth. Of the woman she really was deep inside.
Of anything.
Even if her memory returned tomorrow, she had no time for a man. Figuring out a direction for her life took priority. An identity separate from other people who would depend on her, a life of her own.
And she certainly wouldn’t choose a man like Jack. No strong, silent types for her.
Well, strong was good, but she needed a man who would share more than a few words with her. A man who would share his dreams and delights and disappointments.
Definitely not a man immured inside a thick shell. Definitely not Jack Thorne.
Chapter 6
Jack should never have offered to take Sophie back to Venice. Her wistful tone had yanked on his heart, and his mouth had opened before he could think. Once he had the information he needed, he ought to get far from this woman.
Personal involvement with her or any woman was impossible. Vadim would die one way or another. He would take no chances on the scum escaping into yet another alias.
Jack would forfeit his future, his life if he must. If the takedown resulted in a firefight with a righteous kill, well and good. In that case, even if Jack survived to continue in ATSA, he had no business putting another woman in jeopardy.
Danger in the job spilled over. The ones you loved could get killed in the crossfire.
Images of twisted metal and mangled bodies rose in his mind as if he’d come on the horrific scene yesterday. Hatred raked his chest and grief gripped his heart. Nothing would interfere with what he must do.
Not even a beautiful and vulnerable woman who touched him as no one had for a long time.
In the meantime, he would remain professional. Her flowery scent teased him, not perfume but a heady brew of shampoo, soap and Sophie. Her voice and low laughter were a siren song. Her dark mane invited touching.
Professional control was a tough job in the confines of a roller-skate-size car that crimped his knees up around his Adam’s apple. Fate and De Carlo had thrown them together for the foreseeable future. Alone.
Jack gritted his teeth and drove. On the Autostrade the drive from Venice to Tuscany would take only three or four hours. Speed was not his aim. Disappearing was.
He stayed on the four-lane major highway as far as Padua, where he exited onto a secondary road. “There’s a road map in the glove box. Think you can navigate through the mountains?”
The urban sprawl of Padua was disappearing behind them, and rolling green hills led into the central mountains.
“You bet.” Sophie retrieved the map and a small flashlight. “After Venice, highways are a piece of pizza.”
The exhaustion lacing her voice punched him in the chest. But her words lightened his mood. Lord, she always made him smile. “Pizza? I thought the saying was ‘piece of cake.’”
“But we’re in Italy, silly man.”
Chuckling, he helped her open the map.
She quickly found their location. “So if we’re headed to Tuscany, why take this country road? More sightseeing?”
He shrugged. No reason to hide his strategy from her. “Off major routes and away from cities, we have more options. Places to hide.”
“Didn’t you say we had some time?”
“There’s no sense leaving a clear trail. Vadim’s connections make recruit
ing more thugs, even a pro, easy. I want to make finding you as hard as possible.”
He cut a glance her way. In the fading daylight he could tell from her tight expression she’d grasped what he meant by pro. She seemed to collect herself, then suggested he turn right at the next intersection.
They wound through picturesque mountain villages, back and forth on switchbacks and narrow roads, but always heading in a southward direction.
In one town the central square contained a fountain and bronze statues. A fortresslike medieval castle dominated another. And each boasted a majestic church, some medieval, some Gothic in style.
As Sophie guided and commented on the sights, Jack could tell from the increased strain in her voice that they needed to stop for the night soon.
The day’s drama had taken its toll on her. She needed rest. So did he, he had to acknowledge.
In the next village—one of many with castello in its name whether or not its castle was still standing—he said, “I see a restaurant ahead. We’ll have dinner and ask about a place to stay.”
Out of habit, Jack chose a parking place on a side street. Nobody should know the car, but he’d take nothing for granted. He pried himself out of the driver’s seat, then opened the door for Sophie.
He noticed her moving more stiffly, the binding on her injured shoulder seeming to drag on her. Should he offer his arm in support? Remembering the awareness that had sparked between them, he kept his hands to himself.
The trattoria was small and basic, with a selection of menu items posted on a white board by the doorway. Outside, two young couples nursed espressos at postage-stamp-size tables. Inside the long, narrow room, diners at white-linen-covered tables lining the side walls turned to stare at the strangers. Family groups, couples, a few single men.
All appeared to be locals.
Ceiling fans stirred aromas of brewing espresso and spicy foods that made Jack’s mouth water. Their hostess, a well-fed woman swathed in a snowy-white apron, hustled toward them.
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