The Bone Chamber (19 page)

The force of his question stunned her, even more so when he closed what little distance remained between them, taking her chin in his hand, holding it, forcing her to look at him. “What do you want from me?” he whispered.

“I—” She couldn’t answer, could barely swallow as she looked up at him, saw the darkness in his eyes.

And then he said four words that started her heart pounding. “Don’t leave me tonight.”

The next morning, Sydney opened her eyes to the sound of bells pealing from the towers and cupolas of hundreds of Roman churches. A soft morning light filtered through the sheer curtains on the window. She stretched out, feeling relaxed for the first time in days. And frustrated, too. Griffin had asked her not to leave him. She didn’t. They slept together. Platonically.

Her senses had been on overload. She was attracted to him, but he apparently had no intention of taking it further, and she wasn’t about to push the matter. He’d just lost his friend, after all. But hell if she hadn’t realized how very much she’d missed sleeping with a man until last night. And how very much she missed having sex.

She sighed, got up, walked to the window, and looked down onto the waking city. An old lady was feeding spaghetti to some wiry cats, who were rubbing up against her legs in gratitude. In the house across the street, a maid was hanging some washing out the window. Iron grates creaked as shops were opened, horns hooted, alarms
shrieked. Then she realized just how quiet the house was. She looked around.

Griffin.
Tunisia?
“Son of a bitch. He left me here.”

She ran her fingers through her hair as she strode down the hall to see if anyone remained behind. Giustino was sitting at the desk, cappuccino in one hand, earphone held to his ear with the other. He glanced up, nodded a good morning, then turned back to the equipment. “They left before dawn.”

“He did that on purpose.”

“Did what on purpose?”

“Didn’t wake me,” she said without even thinking about what her words implied. The moment she realized what she’d said, she felt her face heat up, and hoped it didn’t show.

Apparently it showed quite well, because Giustino gave a quick grin, then swept it off his face as though worried it might offend her. She hurried out of there down the hall to the bathroom, where she showered and changed, then emerged to the scent of espresso, which Giustino had prepared for her in the kitchen, along with some fresh
cornetti
, crescent-shaped pastries. After breakfast, she walked back to the radio room. Now that she was awake, he had the radio turned up so he could listen without the headphones. No traffic sounded on the monitor. Adami’s office was quiet, just as it had been since last night.

“You make espresso
and
monitor radio traffic?” she said, trying to keep the conversation light as she set the plate of
cornetti
on the table. “A man of multiple talents.”

“So my wife tells me.” He waved off her offer of food. “You have plans, yes?”

“One part of me figures I should just fly home. The only reason I’m still here is Tex wanted me for his operation. And now…”

“Tex was a good man. The fault is not yours.”

“I don’t think Griffin wants me to stay regardless.”

“Perhaps why he left your plane ticket,” he said, just as the telephone rang. He glanced over. “If you could answer that. It’s the
Journal
office line.”

“I don’t speak much Italian.”

“This is no problem. The
Journal
, she is mostly for the American cover.”

Sydney walked to the desk, picked up the phone. “
Pronto! International Journal for World Peace
, may I help you?”

“I’m looking for a Mr. Griffin?” Female speaking English, no trace of an accent.

“He’s…on a business trip and I’m not sure when he’ll be available.” She glanced over at Giustino, about to ask if she should take a message, but then thought better of it, saying instead, “I’m a close associate. Is there something I can help you with?” She ignored Giustino’s bemused look, turning her back to him.

“Perhaps. My name is Francesca Santarella. Alessandra Harden asked me to contact Mr. Griffin regarding something she wanted him to have.”

“Alessandra Harden.” She glanced at Giustino, motioning for him to come over to the phone, then hit the speaker button. “As in Ambassador Harden’s daughter?”

“Yes. This number was in her note, saying I should call it when the package arrives. I would have called sooner, but I was away on a dig. The package has apparently been sitting here for about a week.”

Giustino held up his hands, as though to say he knew nothing about it, so she said, “And where is here?”

“The American Academy in Monteverde Vecchio.”

Sydney muted the speaker function, asking Giustino, “Suggestions?”

“Get the package,
immediatamente
.”

To which she asked Francesca, “Do you think we could come by to pick it up?”

“Alessandra did specify that I give it to Mr. Griffin, and only Mr. Griffin. I’ll know him when he gives me the code.”

Giustino grabbed a pen, wrote: “Get it.”

“As I mentioned,” Sydney said into the phone, “he’s away on a business trip. He has asked us to handle all his matters while he’s gone. This way, it’ll be here when he gets back, and you’re relieved of all responsibility.”

Judging from Francesca’s long hesitation, it seemed she recognized a line of bullshit when she heard one. “In light of Alessandra’s instructions in her letter, it’s a responsibility I’m willing to shoulder.”

“I’m a close associate of Mr. Griffin’s, Ms. Santarella.”

“Then you shouldn’t have any trouble relaying my message. Please have him call me as soon as possible.”

The dial tone filtered through the speaker when the woman hung up. Sydney dropped the phone into the cradle, bringing silence to the room. Before she had a chance to consider her next step, a bell sounded. Giustino checked the security monitor. “Your taxi is here,” he said, as he got up, walked to the door, and pressed the speaker button. “
Chi é?
”

“
Tassì!
” a voice answered.

“
My
taxi?”

“To the airport. Griffin ordered it before he left.”

“Always the efficient one.”

“Don’t take it personally.”

“No problems there.” She walked into her bedroom, stuffed the few things she had into her bag, glanced around the spartan room, then left.

Giustino stood as she walked out. He held out his hand. “I don’t think Griffin would have conveyed this, but our team, we are grateful for your assistance.”

“Thank you,” she said, shaking his hand. “And I’m deeply sorry about the way things turned out. I don’t know if there is any way you can pass that on. Let Griffin know…”

Giustino clasped both hands around hers, as though to let her know he understood. What he said was, “Signore Griffin. He is not an easy man,
signorina
, especially these last two years, but he is a good judge of character.”

“I’m guessing that means something profound?”

“I have worked with Griffin for a lot of years since this team formed. He is a good man.”

The taxi’s horn blared again, and Sydney picked up her bag, walked to the door, but, unable to shake Griffin from her mind, she asked, “Does he have anyone significant in his life?”

“There used to be a woman who—” He stopped suddenly, then said, “She is—was—He does not like November. That is all I should say.”

When nothing further was forthcoming, she started out.

“Your ticket,
signorina
.”

He walked over, gave it to her. She took it, thanked him, then walked down five flights of stairs, trying not to look back, not to think that if she were to stay, things might turn out different.

Perhaps because of the warmth from the sun through the car windows, she drifted off as the taxi got stuck in a traffic jam on Ponte Garibaldi. Hers was not a solid sleep, but one filled with images and bits of dreams that ran into each other. Griffin watching her, then Tex’s image, holding up a glass of iced vodka, which he dropped, and she watched the glass tumble down the cliff, to the water below, and when she looked in, a skull stared back at her, its eyes reflecting a pyramid. When Sydney turned to see where the reflection was coming from, she saw her friend Tasha saying something to her about the pyramid, then asking her not to forget her.

“I won’t,” Sydney said, surprised to hear it coming from her lips. She opened her eyes, tried to reconcile the sight of the tree-lined boulevard, the trams, and the milling pedestrians that she saw from the taxi’s windows with the images from her dream.

“Did you say something,
signorina
?” the taxi driver asked, looking at her in the rearview mirror.

“Do you know where the American Academy is?”

“
Sì, signorina.
On Via Angelo Masina; in Monteverde Vecchio.”

“Take me there, please.”

“What about your plane,
signorina
?”

“The plane can wait.”

“As you wish,
signorina. Fortunatamente
, l’Accademia Americana is just up the hill.” With these words, the cab emerged from the traffic-glutted Viale di Trastevere, turned sharply into Via Dandolo, and after careening around a
dozen hairpin corners, finally arrived at the iron gates of the imposing edifice of the American Academy.

Now all she needed to do was to convince Francesca Santarella to let her see what it was that the ambassador’s daughter had mailed to her just before she was killed.

Francesca Santarella stood at the massive windows
of her studio, located over the main entrance to the American Academy, watching as the electric iron gate swung slowly inward. Roberto, the gatekeeper, had just phoned to tell her an FBI agent was there to see her, something she assumed was related to the strange package that her friend Alessandra had mailed to her from the States. And though she was tempted to tell Roberto not to admit the woman, she wasn’t sure if she could. After all, FBI was FBI, even if they were slightly out of their jurisdiction.

If only she’d been able to reach Alessandra this morning. But she hadn’t, and then, before she could change her mind about this unexpected visitor, Roberto emerged from his cubbyhole, walked up to the gate to admit the woman, mid-thirties—about her own age—dressed in slacks and a dark blue blazer, with a soft-sided travel bag slung over her shoulder. Pointing up to Francesca’s studio, Roberto escorted the visitor around the massive travertine fountain and led her up the front stairs.

When Francesca heard the footsteps in the hall, she walked over to her desk, closed her laptop computer, then crossed
the polished terra cotta tiles to open the door, even before her visitor knocked.

Roberto hovered behind the woman, who flipped open a credential case containing an ID card and a gold shield. Her left hand was bandaged, and there were a few scrapes on her face. “I’m Sydney Fitzpatrick, Special Agent, FBI. And you’re Francesca Santarella?”

“Yes. Come in.” She glanced at Roberto, smiled, and said, “We’ll be fine. Thank you.”

Roberto, ever protective, nodded, then headed back down the stairs as she smiled at the agent. Even though Francesca had never come into contact with a federal agent before, she had no reason to doubt her visitor’s identity. Francesca might be American born and bred, but this was Rome, and during her prolonged stay, Francesca had rubbed elbows with famous scholars, notorious novelists, the embassy crowd—many of whom she suspected were spies—minor royals, even foreign ministers of hostile countries, whom she had guided on special tours of Rome’s ancient monuments. It was all part of what Francesca counted as “Roman experiences.”

Of course that didn’t mean she didn’t examine the ID; she did. And then she asked, “And what brings the FBI all the way to Rome?”

“Alessandra Harden.”

Francesca glanced over toward the package, still sitting on her desk, then back at the agent, stating the obvious. “You’re the person to whom I spoke on the phone this morning…”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Griffin’s associate.”

“Yes.”

She wasn’t sure what to make of the FBI’s interest in Alessandra, but she wasn’t about to make a decision about it until she’d had her morning tea. “Would you like a cup of tea? I was just on my way to the kitchen, when you arrived. The Academy won’t let us have hot plates in our studios. Might burn the place down, and where would we all be?”

“I’d love a cup.”

Francesca led the agent out the door, locking it behind them.

As they rounded the corner of the long hall, the agent gazed up at the forty-foot-high ceilings. “Amazing building. It reminds me of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.”

“Probably because it was designed by some of the same architects. A bit of a mystery surrounds them, in fact, because one was murdered. Stanford White,” she explained, as they walked past open bedroom doors where various Fellows of the Academy were lolling about. “Jealous rival. Trial of the century, circa 1906. Actually White was dead when this place was built a few years later, but his name was still used by the firm. Kitchen’s at the end of the hall. We can talk there, since most of the Fellows won’t be using it at this hour.”

The kitchen—another huge room with tall windows—was happily empty, and Francesca immediately filled a battered teakettle with water, then set it on the stove. Dishes, some washed, were piled haphazardly in the dish rack, others with congealing egg were piled in the sink. Francesca moved the offending plates with a clatter. “Sorry about the mess,” she said, filling a clean teapot with hot water from the tap, then setting it aside.

As the teakettle came to a boil, Francesca started rinsing some of the dishes in the sink. That done, she dumped out the water used to warm the teapot, then spooned in two heaps of Darjeeling. “So, what is it you need to know?”

“How did you and Alessandra meet?”

An odd question. But since she was curious as to where this was leading, she decided to answer. “We first met when she was visiting her father during spring break last year. The ambassador held a party—just across the street there; you can see the garden from the window—and invited some of the senior Fellows from the academy. My interest in ancient history and archaeology mirrored Alessandra’s own academic interests. Of course, that
wasn’t the only interest we had in common. We both held a distinct distrust for big government,” she said, pouring boiling water over the tea leaves to let them steep for a few minutes.

“As in government conspiracy?”

Francesca returned the kettle to the stove, glancing over at the agent, somewhat surprised. “Yes. How did you guess?”

“I spoke with her professor at UVA. Did she ever mention anything about any conspiracy that came from personal knowledge?”

“No. I think her suspicions had more to do with rigged elections and dicey world diplomacy.”

“And your suspicions. Where do they come from?”

“Thucydides—history,” she said, pouring the tea into two clean china cups. “A lesson for mankind, which since human nature tends to be rotten, mankind never learns. The present mirrors the past.”

Agent Fitzpatrick accepted one of the teacups, sipped from it as she looked around the plainly furnished high-ceilinged room with its old-fashioned stove, white Formica and wood table and chairs.

“Sorry, not much to look at,” Francesca said.

“But at least you have a view,” the agent replied, walking to the tall windows that looked across the street directly into a large square garden with manicured lawns and trimmed hedges. A shaft of morning sun peered through the parasol pines, powdering gold dust onto a large terra cotta urn in the center of the ambassador’s garden. “How long have you lived here?”

“I’ve been in residence for about two years.”

“Almost as long as Ambassador Harden?”

“I arrived a few months after he did.”

Agent Fitzpatrick sipped her tea, as though contemplating her next line of questioning. “So that’s the ambassador’s residence there, across the street. The one with the square tower?”

Francesca joined her at the window, wondering what was
really behind her visit. What had the FBI so interested? “Yes, you’re looking at his garden. The house is to the right. He’s not in residence now.”

“How can you tell?”

“The
carabinieri
vans are gone. They’re usually in that little alley, next to the garage. And the American flag is down.”

“Is the place secure now?”

“Always. There are guard dogs and caretakers, and when Ambassador Harden is in residence, the
carabinieri
guard both sides of the house. Some of the younger Fellows think it’s fun to try and engage them in conversation. Personally, I think those Uzis the
carb
s carry mean business, so I tend to ignore them when I go on my morning walks.” Francesca noticed a dark-haired man, clad in black, strolling up the hill under the tall umbrella pines, approaching the ambassador’s gate. When he stopped, she caught sight of the clerical collar as he pulled out a small book, the white paper reflecting the bright sunlight. “And there you have the typical visitors,” she said. “Pope’s business, I presume. Or morning tea,” she said, watching as he turned a few pages as though referencing something, perhaps an appointment. Glancing up and down the street, he returned it to his pocket, walked to the gate, and rang the bell.

“If the ambassador’s not there, why would he stop for tea?” Agent Fitzpatrick asked.

“Maybe he’s friends with someone on staff.” The
portière
came to the gate, and after a few words, let the priest in.

“That small gray car farther up the street,” Agent Fitzpatrick asked. “With the two men sitting in it. Is that part of the police detail?”

Francesca peered out the window in the direction indicated. “Hard to say. I saw it there yesterday, but since I was away for a couple of weeks, working down in the columbaria, I don’t know whether it was there previously.”

Agent Fitzpatrick nodded, sipped her Darjeeling, then glanced over at Francesca. “Why is it that Alessandra mailed this package to you instead of her father?”

She hesitated, not sure how much she should divulge,
since she had yet to decipher what the agent was searching for. “I think that there was someone in her father’s service whom she didn’t trust. A servant, assistant, maybe even a friend,” she said, as a woman wearing bottle-lensed glasses walked into the kitchen. Francesca tried to remember her name, couldn’t, then nodded in greeting as the woman made a beeline for the refrigerator. “For whatever reason,” Francesca continued, as the agent focused on the street below, “Alessandra thinks it’s important that this information reach Mr. Griffin, and until I hear otherwise from her, I intend to honor her request.”

Agent Fitzpatrick frowned, and Francesca imagined she was about to protest, about to attempt to persuade her to hand the package over. Instead, the agent stepped back from the window, set her teacup on the table, and asked, “This special detail to the ambassador’s residence. Have you ever known them to use sentries on the neighboring rooftops?”

Griffin opened the door of the safe house, taking in the aroma of freshly brewed espresso. Giustino drank the stuff like water, all day long, and sure enough, was sipping a cup when Griffin walked into the salon. He threw his keys on the table, poured himself a large glass of water, then sat, glad the morning was almost over.

“Did Marc arrive in Tunisia?” Giustino asked.

“Should be landing there any moment. How about our wayward FBI agent? She make it to the airport?”

“The
signorina
left in the cab about two, two and a half hours ago.” He glanced up at the clock. “The plane should be taking off any moment.”

“No trouble?”

“She gives many apologies,” he said, reaching over to adjust the controls on the monitoring equipment. “I think if she could, she would stay.”

“Pick up anything this morning?” Griffin asked, not wanting to think about what Sydney was involved in the past few days. Truth be told, he was relieved that she’d left. Less to worry about.

“
Niente
. Unless one counts the fax.”

“Intercept it?”

Giustino nodded toward a paper on the table. “A catering menu. Commendatore Adami must be having another party.” Griffin reached for the menu, curious to see what a multimillionaire ordered for his guests, when Giustino added, “But we did receive a call on the
Journal
line. From a Professoressa Francesca Santarella. She speaks of a package and some code. Signorina Alessandra mailed it to her at the American Academy two weeks ago.”

“We?”

“The Signorina Fitzpatrick took the call.”

“The same Fitzpatrick who is allegedly on her way to America?”

“There is, perhaps, another one?”

“Damn it!” Griffin slammed his hand on the table.

“
Cosa c’è?
”

“Do we even know if she ever got on board that flight?”

“You would like me to inquire?”

“Don’t bother,” he said, grabbing his keys. “I already know the answer. Get a landline to Professor Santarella’s office. If she picks up, patch it through to my cell.” He stormed toward the door, cursed himself three times over for not personally putting Fitzpatrick on that plane himself.

Standing at one side of the window, Sydney studied the man on the rooftop a few buildings down from the ambassador’s residence, someone she wouldn’t have noticed had it not been for the sunlight reflecting off what appeared to be the lenses of binoculars. She pulled Francesca back, out of sight, even though she was fairly certain that the object of the surveillance was the ambassador’s grounds and not anyone at the American Academy. “I’ve changed my mind about the tea,” Sydney said. “I think we should return to your studio.”

Francesca looked at Sydney as though she’d lost her mind. “Is something wrong?”

“I’d rather explain it back at your room.”

The professor shrugged, set their still full teacups in the sink, then led Sydney back to her office, which was obviously intended to be an artist’s studio at one time. Francesca had her work sorted out neatly on a long white table in the center of the room, with photographs and charts tacked to one wall. These seemed to focus on maps of underground chambers of some sort. A large drawing of a map of Rome was taped to another wall. A laptop sat on a desk next to the huge windows, which must have been a good fourteen feet in height. And beside the computer was a clear vase of yellow autumn crocus. What held Sydney’s interest on the desk, however, was the U.S. Global Priority Mail shipping label on the small box. What the hell was in it, and why had Alessandra sent it here? And just when Sydney had decided what line of questioning she wanted to follow in hopes of gaining her answers, the professor’s phone rang.

Francesca answered it, with “
Pronto?
” Listened a moment, then said, “
Grazie
, Roberto.” Then, turning to Sydney, she asked, “Now what was it you wanted to explain to me here, instead of in the kitchen?”

“First, I’m wondering if anyone knew of your friendship with Alessandra.”

“An odd question. I’m assuming that this has something to do with the package she sent?”

“I’ll explain it in good time,” she said, since Alessandra’s murder wasn’t yet public knowledge. “Just believe me when I say it’s important.”

“It wasn’t a secret,” she said. “Her father knew, and I presume most of his household staff did. I’ve been to several parties across the street over the last two years, even on occasions when she was back at school in the States.”