Nomad (22 page)

“He is gone, that is all I know.” Giovanni slumped onto the bench. He put his face in his hands. “I called the police yesterday, before you arrived, but they have more on their hands right now.” He looked up at Jess. “Perhaps I should call them again, tell them I have you. That might get them back here.”

Jess let go of the metal bars again, retreated a step on her crutches. “No, don’t do that.”

Stuck in an Italian jail, interrogated for terrorism? As much as it didn’t make sense, she believed what Giovanni was telling her. But if the police took her now, she’d never get out. She glanced at the brightening sky. How much time was left? She needed to get out of here.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Giovanni demanded, getting to his feet. “Tell me everything. No more lies.”

“Christ, Giovanni, I don’t know what’s going on.”
Think, come on, think,
Jess urged in her head. “The people you brought here, for security—is anyone else gone? Who could have taken Hector?”

“Nobody else is gone.” Giovanni took a step toward the door, toward Jess. “I sent Leone to follow Massarra, your new friend that drove you here…and Enzo, we sent him into Rome to collect some things, but we haven’t—”

“Enzo?” His face flashed in Jess’s mind. When their things were stolen. Half-glimpsed, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure before. But now Giovanni was saying that Enzo was in Rome?
Sent
by Giovanni? “Did you send him? He’s the one that stole our things.”

Giovanni took two more steps to the door, his face inches from Jess’s. “Why would he do that?”

Enzo had creeped Jess out the moment she met him. Something in his eyes. Still, a creepy feeling wasn’t proof of anything. Then she remembered his eyes, staring at her in the staircase, when she came down from the observatory. Jess cursed. “He heard me, when I was talking to you, saying that Nomad was coming.”

“In the observatory?”

“Yes.” Jess nodded emphatically. “After we talked, I came down the stairs, and he was there.”

She hadn’t made much of it at the time, but the enormity of it now weighed on her. Revealing that death and destruction was coming, but keeping it a secret? “Did you talk with him about it later?” she asked Giovanni.

“No.” He shook his head. “You said not to tell anyone. I closed the castle, made preparations and asked Hector’s mother and father to return, but I didn’t tell any of the staff, not except for Nico.” He pointed to his right. “He’s the only one I trust.”

Jess followed his hand and peered into a dark corner of the courtyard to see Nico sitting on another bench. She hadn’t seen him before. She looked back at Giovanni. “You closed up the castle after I told you about Nomad? And you didn’t tell Enzo why? Don’t you think he might have…I mean…”

Nico stood. “I’m afraid Jess might be right.”

Giovanni’s head spun to look at him. “What? Why would Enzo attack Jessica?”

“He might not be stable.” Nico walked toward them. The sun broke over a mountaintop on the horizon, spilling bright light into the valley. “Your father hired him as a favor to a friend. Enzo was in jail. A new start is what your father was trying to offer him.”

“Why did you never tell me this?” Giovanni slammed the door with his fist.

“Your father asked me to keep it a secret, but I’ve been watching him. For the past three years, he’s been perfectly faithful and reliable…but now Jess is saying he attacked her in Rome.” Nico joined Giovanni at the door. “I believe her. And Enzo hasn’t returned our calls since he left.”

“Rome is a mess,” Giovanni countered.

“Yes, but I did some digging on Enzo when we hired him. He doesn’t come from where he said he did.”

“And you never told me?” Giovanni’s face reddened.

“Your father, he died, and I promised…”

Giovanni closed his eyes. “Hector is the last in an unbroken line of a thousand years of the Ruspoli family. We
need
to find him.” He turned to Jess. “Excuse us, I need to talk to your mother, confirm something.”

Giovanni put an arm on Nico’s shoulder. “Could you get Jessica something warm?”

Nico nodded. “Of course.”

Shaking his head, Giovanni walked away, past the twisted branches of L’Olio, and up the castle’s exterior staircase.

“I am very sorry,” Nico said as they watched Giovanni disappear into the main building. “This is just…”

Jess shivered. “Crazy, I know.”

23

C
HIANTI,
I
TALY

A FLY BUZZED through the cool morning air, darting between the bars of the stable door to zigzag above Jess’s head. Slumped against the stone wall, sitting on a cold wooden bench, she watched the fly climb toward a spider’s web bejeweled with dew drops that dazzled in the slanting rays of sunrise.

One wrong zag, and the fly ensnared itself in the web, ejecting a spray of droplets. The spider appeared, darted forward and sank its fangs into its hapless prey. In a moment, the struggle was over, the spider wrapping its prize to eat later at its leisure. The fly never realized a predator lurked in its midst—not in such a beautiful, quiet space.

Metal scraped against metal. Ancient hinges groaned. The stable door opened and Giovanni’s grimacing face appeared. “I am very sorry, I must apologize—”

“I told you never to apologize.” Grabbing her crutches, Jess stood. “I would have done the same if I were you.”

Even so, relief washed through her. And it was the truth. If she'd been him, she might have done worse—if someone stole her child in the middle of these strange coincidences piling up. How would she react? Violently, if she had to guess.

Giovanni tried to offer her a hand. “Yes, but…”

Jess ignored him and swung forward on her crutches, letting the brown woolen blanket Nico had given her an hour before fall to the hay-strewn floor. Exiting the dark and damp into bright sunshine, Jess shivered. What a relief to get out of the overpowering stench of horse manure. Two nights in these clothes. She stank, her hair a matted and tangled mess.

His head hung low, Giovanni backed away. He took off ahead of her and jogged up the stairs to the main building. “This way. Your mother is waiting.”

“So you believe me now?” Jess followed and grabbed onto the stair’s railing to hop up. “What about the text messages? You didn’t send them to me?”

“No, I didn’t.” Giovanni stopped at the top of the stairs. “My phone was stolen. It must be Enzo.”

“And that must be how he found me.”

“How he found you?” Giovanni frowned.

“I texted you the address where I was staying,” Jess explained.

A part of her could see how Enzo might be angry. Jess would be angry too, if someone hid a deadly danger and lied about it. She’d want to lash out. Maybe that’s what this was. It made a certain sense. Jess hopped the last step onto the patio, straight into the arms of her waiting mother.

“Are you okay?” Celeste hugged her, pulling a woolen sweater around Jess’s shoulders. “This has all been a terrible misunderstanding. Enzo must have taken Hector, and—”

“I know.” Jess gently pushed her off, smelling strong soap and perfume. Her mother hadn’t quite gotten the same treatment she did. She smelled like she just got out of a shower, and that was just what Jess needed.

Behind Celeste, under an oak tree on the stone patio, was a picnic table laid out with a red-checked tablecloth, its surface filled with breads and cheeses. Her mouth watered. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. Food before shower.

Giovanni followed her eyes. “Do you want to eat first? I’ll run you a hot bath in one of the guest rooms, and after that I have a little surprise.”

Jess swung forward three paces on her crutches, leaned onto the table and sat heavily. She stuffed a lump of cheese into her mouth. “Not sure I want any more surprises from you.”

She chewed. The cheese was incredible, a pungent burst spreading across her tongue. She stuffed another wad into her mouth and sighed. Glancing over the table, the valley below glowing green, the sky painfully blue, the lines and angles sharp and detailed. Everything felt sped up, all her senses amplified and sharpened. Every breath became more precious now that every breath was numbered.

Celeste came up behind Jess, put her hands on her daughter’s head. “Oh, I think you’ll like the surprise Giovanni has for you.”

“What kind of car is this again?” Jess asked.

“Maserati.” Giovanni coasted to a stop on the gravel road beneath the spreading branches of a thicket of juniper trees, their trunks knotted like muscles. Downshifting into neutral, the high performance engine whined high.

“Why don’t you show me what it can do?” She loved cars, and despite the ordeal of the night before, she’d struggled to contain her excitement when Giovanni turned on the lights in the downstairs garage and illuminated two rows of glittering machines. Even with the convertible’s top down, the interior oozed the scent of polished leather.

A dusty cloud enveloped the car as they crunched over the gravel to a stop at the intersection. Giovanni revved the engine, glancing left and right on the main road. “What do you want to see?”

The sun was hot on Jess’s skin. She couldn’t see Giovanni’s eyes through his dark sunglasses. “Fast, show me fast.”

Giovanni revved again, glanced left up the road and nodded. “Okay.”

Stomping on the accelerator, the car lurched out of the intersection, tearing up gravel, then rocketed off in a blue haze as it hit the pavement. Squeezed against her seat, Jess smiled, the wind ripping at her hair. A tiny thrill was just what she needed.

Giovanni still hadn’t revealed where they were going.

A surprise.

Where did he want to take her? Jess had resisted, but her mother gently insisted. With Hector missing, Jess couldn’t imagine what could be so important that he needed to show her, right now. Despite cleaning up, she was exhausted after barely sleeping in two nights.

Perhaps he wanted to illustrate why he’d been so harsh?

He didn’t need to do that, not with Hector kidnapped. She understood. They’d called the police again, left an offer of a huge reward. After talking to Hector’s father in Africa—they couldn’t get flights back—Giovanni even contacted the local mafia. Old family connections, Giovanni had explained.

After eating, Jess soaked in a hot tub of water in an ornate bathtub, washed her hair twice, luxuriated in drying herself with thick white towels. On the bed in her room she found a collection of summer blouses and slacks. From Giovanni’s mother, Celeste had explained. Jess had never even asked about his mother. She didn’t like to pry, and he hadn’t ever spoken of her. She was sure her mother knew the whole story, but that could wait. The clothes fit perfectly.

Celeste tried calling Jess’s father, Ben, to tell them where they were. Frustratingly, his phone was off again. They left voice messages, and then email messages telling him they were back at the castle and safe. They tried calling the ESOC at Darmstadt directly, even using the emergency number Ben gave them, and Giovanni managed to find a contact that got them through to the overloaded main desk. But the receptionist only said that yes, Dr. Rollins was at the facility and she would try to get him to contact them.

The car hugged the road, Giovanni saying nothing as he expertly piloted it through olive groves and lines of vines sagging under loads of purple grapes, workers hunched over in the rows between them. They crested a ridge, moving from the shade of the junipers into bright sunshine. Emerald pastures dotted with the dark green spikes of cypress trees and spiky stubble of vineyards stretched to the horizon.

Jess felt like they soared across the countryside, the frustration and tension of the last two nights ripped away by the air streaming through her hair. They’d find Hector. Jess figured Enzo just wanted money, and Giovanni had enough of that. Everything would be fine. She leaned forward to turn up the satellite radio tuned to BBC World News.