Tailwinds Past Florence

by Doug Walsh

  Tom, Edward thought. That’s right. “He’s the one who got me into this, maybe he knows someone who can help me out.”

  He shook the doubts from his mind, turned on the phone, and called Tom. “Pick up, pick it up,” Edward urged, after three rings went unanswered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tom, it’s Edward—”

  “I know who it is. You’re aware it’s not Thursday, right?”

  “Yeah. Tom, listen, I need your help.”

  “I’m busy right now, Ed.”

  “It’s Kara. She’s missing. I think she’s in trouble,” Edward said, struggling to keep his breath.

  “And what do you expect me to do about it?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m in Florence. Italy. And—”

  “I know where Florence is,” Tom interrupted, sounding like he might hang up.

  “Right. Of course. I was hoping you might know someone who—.”

  “If you think she’s in trouble, call the police. But if you’re worried she might be shacking up with some Italian playboy, then get used to it.”

  Edward recoiled from the verbal sucker punch. “Get used to it?” His head swirled with nausea as the images he tried to keep from forming in his mind took shape. Kara, an anonymous other, his hands on her body, kissing, feeling …

  Edward paced as he tore at the cuticle of his thumb, the fresh sting distracting him from the tryst in his mind.

  “Half the guys in the office are divorced, and the rest should be,” Tom said, with the casualness of a waiter announcing the daily special.

  “You’re not helping.”

  “I’m just telling you how it is. Jobs like ours make it easy to attract the prettiest birds, but they sure do fly away quick if you leave them alone long enough.” Tom laughed as Edward raged quietly. “Now, how about an update on your office search? I expected some info from you by now. What the hell’s taking so long?”

  Edward held the phone away from him and silently screamed at the night sky.

  “Edward, you better not be trying to stall—”

  As he squeezed the Blackberry in his hand, feeling the plastic case buckle in his grip, Edward wished it was Tom’s neck. “Stall? I called you worried about my wife! You think I give a shit about office space? Go to hell!” Edward shouted.

  He stuffed the phone in his pocket, hating Tom more than ever, despising him for revealing what Edward should have seen long ago.

  Edward stirred beneath the hand on his shoulder. It had landed with the heft of a fog settling before the dawn. He opened his eyes to the darkness, waking to the rain-blurred letter dissolving in his hands, to the puddled divots carved by the heels of his shoes.

  He couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few minutes. But still?

  A thought came to him as he sat slumped in the chair, in the moments before he rose to shed his blanket of suffering, relieved to feel what was surely Kara’s hand. He imagined himself as she saw him then: pathetic.

  There was no question of forgiveness. It was he who needed to apologize. If she cheated, it was because he had strayed first. If she wanted a divorce, it was his actions that drew up the papers. Tom’s comments helped him see this now.

  He turned in the chair slowly, like a second hand swinging to the bottom of the hour, buying time to find the words that would set them straight.

  But the hand that roused him glowed blue. Hiromasa.

  “You?” Edward knocked the chair over as he rose and grabbed him by the shirt. “What are you doing here? Where’s Kara?” He shook him. “Where is she?”

  “With Alessio,” Hiromasa said, cringing. His left eye was swollen shut and puffy. Blood leaked from a gash in his brow and streaked down his rain-soaked face, glistening in the faint light.

  Edward surged with rage as he jostled the smaller man. “Where are they?”

  “He brought her to an apartment across the river. He couldn’t get in. He’s crazy. I tried stopping him.”

  Edward relaxed his grip, but didn’t let go. It was the one thing he felt he had under his control. “Stop him from what?” His mind ran with possibilities he hadn’t before imagined, not truly believing Alessio posed a threat other than to Kara’s fidelity. But seeing Hiromasa in his bludgeoned state changed everything.

  “He plans to kill her, so they can be together.”

  Edward’s face froze in paralyzed confusion as his body strained to act. The words were slow to penetrate, like an axe bouncing from an elm log before finally biting, splitting the grains of Edward’s understanding.

  His lips trembled as he recalled the worst of everything he’d ever said and done in their relationship. Of it all, nothing compared to tricking Kara into coming to Florence. He bunched his fists in Hiromasa’s shirt as his breathing intensified, stoking his determination. He couldn’t live with himself if anything happened to her. He’d risk everything to keep her safe.

  Through the din of the myriad questions shouting in his mind, he noticed Hiromasa struggling to speak, and released him. Once freed, Hiromasa massaged his throat, catching his breath as Edward interrogated him, demanding an explanation, a location.

  “Alessio was wronged a long time ago by a woman named Sylvia—”

  “What does this have to do with Kara?” Edward interrupted.

  “He believes they’re the same person. That Sylvia’s soul is alive in Kara.”

  Edward gnashed his teeth, growing impatient, but let him continue.

  “Sylvia broke his heart. She tricked him. And now, Alessio thinks by killing himself and Kara, he and Sylvia can return to the past. Together.”

  A chill rippled through Edward as he recalled Alessio’s comment in the gardens. He said he’d release her. “What do you mean the past?”

  “Alessio and I …” Hiromasa shook his head, then abandoned the effort. “You won’t believe me.”

  Edward wasn’t about to press for details. Whatever madness the two had shared wasn’t his concern. “You said he couldn’t break into an apartment. Where else would he take her?

  “I’m not sure. When we couldn’t get into the apartment building, he grew hostile, then mentioned a place in Oltrarno.” Hiromasa hesitated as he spoke. Whether truly uncertain or playing coy, Edward couldn’t tell. “He wanted me to join them. But when I tried to untie her, he attacked me.”

  “She’s tied up?” His eyes bulged at the realization.

  “Her wrists,” he said, dropping his gaze.

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “No polizia. It’s too complicated,” he said, shaking his head. Hiromasa looked at his watch. “But we have time. Alessio plans to wait until 3:23.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “That’s when we returned to Florence.”

  Edward let the comment sail by, another in a series of remarks that made little sense. It was almost three. “Think! You’ve got to know where he’s taking her.”

  Hiromasa scrunched his face in thought, causing the cut on his forehead to pulse a fresh trickle of blood. “Maybe to Santo Spirito. It’s where I woke. Not far from here.”

  “Good. Let’s go,” Edward said. Then, surprising himself, he thought back to the bar in Montana, when the ranchers asked him if he was packing a gun. He couldn’t have imagined needing a weapon back then, but now he understood.

  “There are things I must know about you and Kara.”

  “Later.”

  “It cannot wait. I must know what happened in February.”

  Edward stiffened, not caring for the reference to his losing his job. “What did Kara tell you?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t guess. I swear,” he added, perhaps sensing Edward’s rising temper. “But I have a theory we must discuss.”

  “Then we’ll talk on the way. First, show me where you keep your tools.”

  Chapter 28

  Sunday, June 21 — Florence, Italy

  Edward’s nerves vibrated like piano strings as he led the way down the hill into the slumbering city. Charcoal clouds hung
overhead, soaking up the city’s ambient amber light, wringing themselves empty.

  Hiromasa talked incessantly, inquiring about Edward’s marriage, the bicycle tour, and the events of that February day. He appeared to slot the information into an equation only he could see. That was, until Edward told him about the baseball, getting fired, and his cowardly offer to take the bike trip.

  “That’s it,” Hiromasa announced. “That must have been the trigger!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He grinned with the satisfaction of a man who’d solved the impossible. “It’s what brought us back. Your offer to take the trip broke the cycle. You avoided the rejection that Alessio and I could not.”

  “What rejection?”

  “My friend,” he said with somber compassion, “that was the day Kara intended to divorce you.”

  The revelation plunged into Edward’s gut like a shovel, lifting and doubling the void he felt without her. Could it be? Hiromasa continued talking as Edward’s attention returned to that fateful afternoon in their Seattle apartment, when he thrust the map and champagne at Kara the moment she got home. But her hands were full with a gym bag in one, a manila envelope in the other. He thought it was junk mail.

  “I’ve been so blind.” But it didn’t matter now. He licked the rain from his lips and turned to Hiromasa. “How much further?”

  “Just past the bridge,” he said, crossing the street. “We need to move fast, though, it’s almost time.”

  “About that—”

  “Alessio and I woke at 3:23.” He gave Edward a sidelong glance, as if to check he was paying attention. “I had no way of knowing the time, but Alessio saw a clock and remembers it vividly. He thinks it holds significance.”

  “And what do you believe?”

  Hiromasa rubbed his chin. “I think Kara is in grave danger. We should hurry.”

  Edward quickened his pace, following behind Hiromasa as he jogged. It was already past three, and the bustling streets of Florence had been soothed to sleep by the early summer rain. That they were in a well-lit part of town was both blessing and curse. The street lamps would make Alessio easier to spot, but he didn’t want any witnesses if it came to blows. Or worse, he thought, feeling the weapon shift in his rear pocket.

  Movement flashed up ahead, on Ponte Vecchio. He pointed.

  “Come. Quickly,” Hiromasa hissed, ducking into the shadows on the darkened downstream side of the bridge.

  “I see you,” the voice called out. “You disappoint me, Hiromasa.”

  Edward stepped from behind the corner of a jewelry shop. Any lingering hope that this was all a misunderstanding, or that Kara was somewhere safe, vanished in a blink. Alessio stood alongside a stone column near the center of the bridge, holding a knife to Kara’s throat.

  “Edward,” Kara yelled, her voice shattering the night, as she tried to twist out from Alessio’s grasp.

  “Let her go. Now!”

  Alessio laughed and pulled her closer. “Why? You’re going to lose her either way.”

  Edward shook his head, knowing he’d never let it happen. Not again. He’d stake his life on it. “Dying won’t bring you back,” Edward said, surprising himself by giving into Hiromasa’s story.

  “He’s right, Alessio, it won’t work,” Hiromasa shouted.

  “You know nothing. Neither of you! You’ve no concept of the suffering I endured for years because of her. Because of you,” Alessio snarled at Kara, shaking her by the neck.

  Edward advanced, but Alessio froze him with a threatening look. “You don’t get to win. Sylvia was mine. I lost her, but God himself has granted me this chance!”

  “What’s he talking about? Why is he calling me Sylvia?”

  Edward saw the confusion in Kara’s eyes, and the terror she fought to suppress. He stood fifteen yards away, close enough to read the panic on her face and to see her knees trembling, but too far to comfort her, to whisper that he loved her—that he was sorry for everything.

  “We’re connected,” Hiromasa said. “All of us. And maybe many others. You and Edward are soul mates, Kara. As were we once.”

  Edward snapped his head in Hiromasa’s direction.

  “I knew you as Isabelle. In my time, four hundred years ago. And to Alessio, you were a Florentine woman named Sylvia. For others, you were …” he shrugged.

  “Claudette,” Kara said, her voice barely audible.

  Edward recalled the gravestone they’d found in the woods, the French-Canadian who flirted openly with Kara as if he knew her. He thought of all the encounters he’d had on this trip, replaying the journey back to the body of the Blackfoot.

  Was he the first? Or did the bond stretch even further back in time?

  “Alessio,” Hiromasa called out, “You must face the truth. Sylvia married another because you abandoned her. You chose Malta and your gallery over her.”

  Alessio looked away in denial, and Edward took two quick steps closer.

  “And Isabelle bid me farewell because my heart belonged to God.” Hiromasa turned to Edward and lifted his chin, encouraging him.

  Edward inched forward, his eyes locked on his wife. “And Kara, you wanted to divorce me because I wasn’t there for you.” He swallowed, trying to moisten his dry mouth. “But then I lost my job.”

  Kara struggled against Alessio’s grip. “What does this matter now?”

  Edward motioned for her to remain calm, afraid what Alessio would do if he got nervous. “Hiromasa thinks that by taking the trip, we broke some sort of continuum—”

  “This makes no sense.”

  “I know, babe, I know. But we should believe him. He says our souls have fallen in love countless times throughout history. We’re meant to be together, but each time …” Edward choked on the words, unearthing the truth buried in the absurdity. “I didn’t know how lonely you were.”

  Kara looked to Edward, her eyes moist with understanding, as she mouthed the words I still love you. And he knew right then that he was going to undo this. He’d get his second chance.

  And he was almost within range.

  “Enough!” Alessio checked his watch, then whispered in Kara’s ear. Her eyes went wild as she struggled again to break free, but Alessio tightened his grip, dimpling the hollow of her neck with the knife’s tip.

  “It’s not going to work, Alessio.” Hiromasa cried out. “Death is death. There’s no returning to 1845. You’ll only be murdering an innocent woman. And yourself.”

  Alessio laughed his response.

  Edward spotted a security camera above Alessio, beyond an awning dripping with rain, but couldn’t tell if Alessio was in view. If the police had seen him, they were on their way.

  “Two minutes,” Hiromasa whispered.

  Edward strafed right, attempting to flank Alessio, to bait him into the camera’s view. But Alessio shifted away, sidling around the corner of the shop, keeping the wall behind him and Kara.

  Alessio shifted from foot to foot, fidgeting with the knife, seemingly fighting his own inner doubt. Though Hiromasa pleaded for Alessio to abandon his plan, Edward’s focus was on Kara, the knife, and what he must do.

  Holding her gaze, he mouthed the word butterflies.

  Kara looked confused, so he silently spoke the word again and bulged his eyes for emphasis, willing her to close her eyes. At last, Kara understood.

  Edward pulled the cold metal cylinder from behind his back and spun it in his hand. He sprang forward, raising the weapon, as his finger squeezed the flimsy trigger—but nothing happened. The plastic resisted, blocked by the safety tab.

  Alessio opened his stance and readied himself to slash at Edward. But the tab gave way in time, and a stream of hornet spray shot from Edward’s hand, jetting straight at Alessio’s face. He shrieked and clawed at the foaming poison now drenching his face, blinding him, filling his mouth as he screamed. In his fit, he seemed to lose track of Kara, but Edward couldn’t take any chances.

  He lunged, tackling Alessi
o away from Kara and knocking the knife from his grasp. Edward maintained his assault, squeezing the trigger with all his might, as his adrenaline armored him against the stinging backsplash and filtered the fumes from his awareness.

  Alessio choked and writhed, but Edward wouldn’t stop.

  He plowed forward, driving Alessio back as he emptied every ounce of hornet killer into the face of the man who threatened to murder his wife. Alessio struck the bridge railing off-balance, hitting the waist-high stone wall clumsily. Before Edward could react, before it could be prevented, Alessio’s momentum carried him backward over the railing.

  And then he was gone.

  A moment of silence, then a splash.

  Alessio was dead before he even hit the water.

  Chapter 29

  Sunday, June 21 — Florence, Italy

  Gasping for air, Edward leaned against the bridge’s stone railing, dizzy from the poison he’d ingested. His swollen tongue tasted of dental fillings and citronella, and his stomach bubbled with nausea. A searing heat engulfed his face, as if the toxic backsplash had ignited, scorching his nose and eyes.

  Yet, as he stared at the inky waters flowing beneath him, trying to catch his breath, he could only think of the light. For in that fleeting moment before Alessio hit the water, a tremendous flash blinded him. A singular blue strobe so intense it knocked the wind from Edward as it washed over him—into him.

  Edward dropped the empty canister over the edge and stood in silence. Beyond the dripping of the rain and a motorcycle’s distant whine, Florence was quiet. No cry of sirens or shouting, no slapping of a policeman’s shoes on wet paving stones.

  He’d remember this forever. The moment he killed Alessio. The night he saved Kara’s life.

  Kara!

  Edward hurried to her side. Ignoring the fear of what she’d now think of him, having seen what he’s capable of, he pulled her into his arms.

  “You’re safe,” he said, summoning a calm tone, as much for his benefit as hers.

  Kara choked on her words as she interlaced her fingers in his. Never before had Edward felt as relieved as when she buried her head in the nook of his shoulder. Her love was like a string-tied balloon that nearly floated away, and he gripped her tighter than ever as he reeled it in.