Betrayal (38 page)

He and Brooke made the connection; then Brooke placed the phone on the counter close to Noah, propped up so Darren could see and hear.

“It’s a flat leather band against his skin,” Chloë said. “Another leather band is overlaid on that and they’re stitched together. The studs cut through the top leather, so it’s safe to say there’s a wire underneath the top band that connects the studs and controls the mechanism.”

Darren’s voice came from the phone. “Noah, how are they going to kill you? Bomb or electric charge? Or laser?”

“Explosive,” Noah said. “On a timer.”

“Primitive, but effective,” Darren muttered; then he yelled, “Cut the stitching very carefully.”

For a brief, disgusted moment, Eli glared at Darren’s face on the phone’s screen. “I’m going to do this whole thing very carefully.”

“Right,” Darren said, a little more subdued.

Chloë moved out of Eli’s light.

Nonna turned away from the stove to watch.

Brooke crossed her arms, her gaze narrowed and intent.

Penelope covered her eyes, and then took her hands away; Noah knew she couldn’t stand to observe, and couldn’t stand not to.

The kitchen was deadly silent as Eli positioned the utility knife at the side of Noah’s throat, slid the sharp blade between the two leather bands, and cut the first stitches.

Nothing happened.

It was the best nothing Noah had ever experienced.

Relieved, frightened, angry glances were exchanged; then Eli continued slicing through the stitches, moving slowly, making sure he disturbed nothing lethal, until Noah finally snapped, “I haven’t got all day, Eli, and I mean that literally.”

“Right.” From the corner of Noah’s eye, he saw Eli’s hand tremble; then he moved swiftly to slash the stitching, top and bottom.

“Now slice the leather up and down so we can peel it back,” Darren said.

“Want me to take over, Eli?” Brooke asked. “You’re sweating.”

“So are you,” Eli said.

Brooke pushed her hair off her forehead. “Am I?” she asked distractedly.

Chloë circled Noah, examining the collar again. “Take the slice right there.” She pointed toward the middle of his throat.

The profound silence made her look around at their doubting faces. “Ask Darren if I’m right. Eli can’t cut at the back. Everything’s connected into the latch, which is the timer and the most wired part of this contraption. The farther away from that we get, the better we are.”

“She’s absolutely right.” Darren’s voice got a little wobbly. They could hear him still typing, still searching for some knowledge of how to fix the problem. “Not that there’s a good choice.”

No one appreciated his adding the last comment, but he was seventeen and a nerd, so Noah tried to sound as prosaic as possible. “This is going to turn out well, or it isn’t. So let’s get it over with.”

Nonna moved in with a kitchen towel and blotted Eli’s forehead. “I’d like to give it a try,” she said, her
voice as bright as if she were offering to take over a sewing project.

“Nonna, thank you, but you’ve got a bit of a tremor,” Eli said.

“That’s because I’ve got eighty-year-old hands.” Nonna held them out. “They’ve got arthritis in the joints. They’ve been used for a lot of things. I wouldn’t miss them much.”

Noah tried to smile at Penelope, but he couldn’t. His guilt and worry were too profound. Because Nonna expressed what they’d all been thinking: If the collar blew, it wasn’t only Noah who would lose. Eli’s hands would go, too.

“Nonna, when I get done with this, I’m going to want a meal. Please cook for me.” By that, Eli meant no, and he kept the knife firmly in his grip.

“You boys make me so angry.” Nonna stood with her fists on her hips. “I suppose I should be happy you’re not fighting anymore, but somehow, that’s not cutting it.” Turning, she whipped around and started banging pans, hard, on the stove.

She wasn’t really mad, Noah knew. She was scared.

Eli sliced at the leather and in a conversational tone said, “Noah, I didn’t quite understand why you decided to tell us now rather than fling yourself on a martyr’s grave.”

“He had no choice.” Penelope was chalky with tension, but her voice was firm and strong. “We’re having a baby.”

“But this morning you started your… Oh.” Brooke looked startled, then thoughtful. “Ohh.”

“Hey! Congratulations, Noah!” Darren’s voice was cheerful.

“My dears.” Nonna came to hug first Penelope, then
Noah. Her brown eyes were bright with joy, and heavy with added fear. Being Nonna, she spoke only of the joy. “You’ve made me so happy.”

“Good job, man!” Eli socked Noah in the shoulder.

“For Pete’s sake, don’t jostle him!” Chloë admonished.

Eli pulled his hand back. “Sorry!”

“The collar seems very stable. I’ve worn it for two weeks,” Noah said.

“Two weeks!” Eli smacked him again, more lightly. “What the hell? You couldn’t have told us sooner?”

“I was trying to do the right thing.” Noah watched Penelope with such warmth, she flushed, bringing some color to her pallid face. “It’s okay,” he said to her. “We’ll do this.”

She nodded as if she believed him, but her face was bleak.

She was recalling, he knew, the deaths that had previously broken her, and bracing herself for another future alone. She knew too much of sorrow, and his heart ached as he imagined her anxiety now.

Going to the stove, Brooke said, “Darren’s searching the net. Chloë’s helping Eli. I’m not doing anything, and it’s making me jumpy. Want me to peel potatoes or something?”

“Thank you, dear, but you’re supposed to drive Chloë into town to have her cast off,” Nonna said.

Waving a dismissive hand, Chloë said, “I can’t go.”

“Yes, you can,” Noah said. “I appreciate your solicitude, I truly do, but you can go to the doctor’s, get the cast cut off, and be back before anything is scheduled to… happen.”

Penelope glanced at her watch, then glanced at the clock above the door. “What time did you say…?”

Noah saw no kindness in keeping her in suspense. “Three thirty-seven p.m.”

“Right. You go on, Chloë. My eyes are good. I can examine the collar and give Eli directions.” Penelope got to her feet and stood beside Noah, her hand on his shoulder.

He was getting a lot of shoulder action today, but only Penelope stroked him, taking comfort as well as giving it. She seemed steadier with something to do, and he thought they all recognized it.

“See, honey? There’s always another female to tell me what to do,” Eli said to Chloë. “You’ve been miserable for six weeks. Get the cast off and come back. I’ll have the dog collar off of Rover by then.”

“Long-distance worry counts as support, too,” Noah assured her, then made a shooing motion.

Brooke pointed her finger at Noah. “I want to know the second Eli gets the bomb defused.”

Noah appreciated their certainty. “We’ll give you a call.”

Brooke and Chloë grabbed their purses and ran down the hall and out the front door, not to escape the situation, but so they could quickly return.

“I can’t quite get this vertical cut all the way through this leather,” Eli muttered.

Noah tilted his chin back.

Penelope bent down and looked. “The stitching is thicker there.”

The blade snagged on something.

Eli yanked it back, hard.

The point caught Noah under his chin, stabbed and slashed.

“Damn it,” Eli muttered. And, “Sorry.”

“No harm done. I cut myself worse shaving.” Noah reached for a napkin, pressed it against the stinging wound, and glanced at Penelope.

She stared at the blood, her eyes wide and despairing, her complexion bleaching to a terrifying white.

He looked to Nonna for help.

Nonna had already seen the trouble. “Penelope,” she said, “if I’m going to make a roast, I need carrots and potatoes. They’re downstairs in the wine cellar. Would you go get them for me?”

Penelope didn’t stir.

“Penelope?” Nonna said sharply.

“What?” Penelope started. “What? Carrots and potatoes. Sure. But I’m the one watching for Eli.”

“This’ll just take a minute.” Nonna rinsed a kitchen towel under cold running water and placed it on Penelope’s forehead, then draped it around Penelope’s neck. Handing her a wide metal colander, she said. “Fill that up. That should be enough to feed us all. Oh, and bring an onion and a head of garlic.”

Penelope nodded. “Potatoes and carrots. Onion and garlic.”

As she started down the stairs, Eli put down the knife and peeled back the leather.

“Man. Would you look at those wires,” he said.

Chapter 63

“S
how me,” Penelope heard Darren say. Then, in a horrified tone, “That’s awesome!”

Reeling with despair and horror, Penelope stumbled down the last two steps and landed on her hands and knees, then sank onto the floor and rested there, her forehead on the cool concrete.

She took long, deep gulps of air, trying to clear her swimming head.

She had sat in the kitchen, watching and listening, being absolutely ineffective as Brooke talked strategy with Darren, while Eli risked his life, while Chloë summed up the lay of the land with a few well-chosen words, while Nonna offered her hands for her grandson, while Rafe and Bao raced out to counterattack the people who wished to kill Noah and all the rest of the Di Luca family.

Penelope felt useless. She was useless. She wanted to save Noah, but she couldn’t even walk down the stairs
without collapsing. She knew it wasn’t her pregnancy that caused her weak knees. It was a gnawing sense of hopelessness. She had seen so much death, and now, on the day when she realized that life had bloomed anew within her, and Noah had affirmed his love for her, she also discovered the man she loved was doomed.

As she lay there, her cheek on the floor, facing the stairway, she wondered, What could she do to help? She had promised herself she would
live
again, and despite the horror of Noah’s revelation, she couldn’t hide from it.

A random thought popped into her mind.

The bottom step was built… oddly.

Unimportant, Penelope.

She needed to concentrate. There had to be
something
she could do to help Noah in his hour of need.

Her eyes narrowed. Her sense of proportion was offended.

The bottom step was wrong.

Not so wrong that anyone could tell there was a problem if they were standing upright. But for a design professional who was on the ground looking straight at it… the bottom step was too thick.

Lifting her head, she looked around, trying to see some other examples of
Alice in Wonderland
construction.

But no. The basement was long and wide, mostly bare except for bins of vegetables and a huge, old wine rack that looked like a wonderful instance of early-American construction.

The white-painted staircase itself was the essence of simplicity—wooden steps supported by two long wooden stringers down the sides. Every step was the same: a single
flat two-by-ten. Except the bottom step, which was four sturdy inches thick and probably fourteen inches wide with the extra inches at the back. There, where the step above it cast its shadow, the board had the slightest indent that ran the length of the smooth painted surface.

To Penelope’s trained eye, the top of the step looked like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle carefully fitted together.

But who would create such a thing, and do it with such craftsmanship that no one would notice no matter how hard they were searching…?

Eyes fixed on the step, Penelope walked her hands along the concrete floor, pushed herself into a sitting position.

Noah’s grandfather. Nonno. The inveterate builder, fixer, repairman. That was who.

And why would he do that?

To create a space to hide his precious bottle of wine, to keep it cool and in the dark.

Penelope forgot her nausea, her despair.

In a flurry of motion, she crawled to the step and felt along the barely visible seam between the wide front board and the narrow back board. Yes, they were definitely two pieces sanded and painted to resemble one step.

She dug her fingernails into the seam.

Nothing budged.

She sat back on her heels, her elation dying a little.

She looked again.

Felt the seam again.

No. She was right. Somehow, this came apart.

She walked around to the back, ducked under the stairway, and knelt there. Here she saw more clearly the
extra width of the step, and a notch above the step on the inside of the wood stringer. She lifted from the back—and the step shifted. Lifted. She slid it free.

And there, resting in a hollow box that ran the length of the step, was an old, very old, bottle of wine.

The
bottle of wine.

She placed her palm on the long, stretched neck and stroked it as if it were a living creature.

It was beautiful: green glass, tall, thin, with a long neck and a small, worn, faded label marked, M
ASSIMO
.

Then reality caught up with her.

She crawled out from under the stairs, jumped to her feet, ran around the stairs, and shouted, “Noah, could I see you?” Too emphatic. She should be calmer. She called, “Noah? I need to see you.” A moment.
“Really!”

Noah appeared at the top of the stairs.

Even from here, she could see the strips of leather Eli had dissected off his dog collar, and the confusion of tiny silver cables that encircled Noah’s throat.

But he smiled as if the sight of her gave him pleasure, and his voice sounded easy, cheerful. “Hey, what’s up?”

“I need you to look at something.” She didn’t know why she was being enigmatic, only that today the scent of danger hung around every word, every action.

He hurried down a couple of steps, frowning, his gaze fixed on her face.

Eli called, “Noah, come on; we’re almost there.”

Noah called back, “In a minute.” He ran down another three steps. “Penelope? You look as if you’re going to… What’s happened?”

Above in the kitchen, the phone rang.

Someone answered it.