White Heat (6 page)

This was about Daniel. Only Daniel. “The suicide note was handwritten,” she told Max, recognizing where they were, and feeling a strange combination of fear and anticipation. “The police asked me to identify his handwriting. It was very distinctive. There was no doubt at all that it was Daniel’s.”

“Then either we’re dealing with an excellent forger, or they used something he’d written for something else. What did it say?”

Daniel’s strong, unmistakable handwriting on that white sheet of paper would forever be indelibly etched in her mind. “He wrote, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do it. It’s just not worth it anymore.”

“Could have meant anything.”

She’d thought it was odd, too. But in context it made some sort of sense. “But it didn’t.” She’d never get over the fact that she hadn’t been there for Daniel when he’d really needed her. He’d seemed a bit more subdued than usual when they’d last spoken, but that was understandable considering his hands had been bothering him more than usual.

Max turned the car into the long, tree-lined road leading up to the villa just as the sky was lightening from black to charcoal. “I’m sure you’ll find things at the villa that will help you connect with your father. He would’ve liked that.”

“How he felt is irrelevant to me.”

“Any relationship requires that two people make some kind of effort to communicate. Neither of you ever did. You hurt each other.”

Max barked a sound that was supposed to pass for a laugh. “Hurt me? He was barely aware of my existence. And I didn’t give a damn enough to be hurt by him.”

She’d touched a raw nerve. Emily decided to drop the subject. For now “Have you ever been here?”

‘‘No.”

The tall wrought iron gates illuminated by their headlights opened slowly on well-oiled hinges, as if welcoming them with open arms.

“You must’ve spent a lot of time here if he had a microchip put in the car to activate the gates for you.”

He. No name.

“I did. But it was also more convenient. I tended to lose the gate control. He has five cars, all of them have the opener installed. I think the lawyer had them taken into Florence to have them appraised—”

“He did.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll want to take at least one of them with you when you leave.”

“Maybe,” Max said blandly.

Maybe?
He couldn’t have sounded less interested. Fine. Emily had no desire to spend any more time with Max than she absolutely had to. If this was the real him, she’d come to realize in the last hour that he’d probably done her a favor by leaving. Too bad he intrigued her now more than ever, she thought with a glimmer of annoyance. She wasn’t fond of puzzles, and she was too linear and straightforward to read between his lines and try and figure out who or what he was. Still, there was a strength about him, a strength that had nothing to do with what he’d done to her intruder, that captivated her. Ticked her off, too.

The gates slowly closed behind the car, and they continued up the ancient cypress tree-lined driveway that cut a pale swath between acres of lawn and trees. In the predawn light the usually vibrant and lush gardens were stark and somber, as if painted in grisaille, draped in the incredible tonality of a black-and-white Sickle’s chiaroscuro. Emily loved the grounds austere like this almost as much as she did in midsummer when everything was in a Technicolor of full bloom.

“Last summer your father had a hundred new trees planted in the olive groves,” she told Max, whether he wanted to know or riot. The eerie stillness of the estate, and the villa ahead, dark and grim, unnerved her. She wasn’t given to idle chitchat. She spent too much time alone for that, but needing to break the thick, uncomfortable silence was changing her usual desire for peaceful quiet.

If Max knew what was going on he wasn’t being chatty with the information. And she didn’t want to talk about the things that had gone bump in the night until she was in brilliant light. Be it sunlight, or a good one-twenty bulb.

“Your father’s gardens were quite famous, you know,” she said, almost desperately. Anything not to think about what had happened in her palazzo earlier. Who
was
that man? What had he brought with him? God. This was like a surreal movie. The kind she didn’t enjoy watching.

She tried to think how she’d explain this to Franco, and almost smiled trying to imagine him, in his Armani suit, his razor-cut hair, and his seven-hundred-dollar shoes, battling the thug in her hallway. The image wouldn’t form.

“Earth to Emily? Gardens?”

“Not that Daniel worked in them.” She tried to block out the memory of Max’s grim expression as he’d knocked the vial from her hand in her bedroom earlier. Her brain couldn’t even
comprehend
things like biotoxins and hazmat teams.

“He loved to look down from the tower when he was painting.” She knew she was talking too fast. Worse, she knew Max had absolutely no interest in what she was saying. And she didn’t want to think about the tower that had taken her mentor’s life.

“It’s exquisitely beautiful, particularly in the spring and summer. Of course to maintain it, he has upward of a hundred people working in the garden and the house.”

“A hundred and twelve,” Max inserted, his eyes glittering in the backlight of the headlights. He turned off the wipers as the rain stopped. “As of three days ago, they’re on vacation indefinitely.”

“I thought you’d never been here.”

“I haven’t. Talked to his lawyer on the way.”

With Max’s stewardship the place would go to ruin. But it was is right to do whatever he wanted with the property;

The villa was empty. She and Max, and all the scary events of their morning, would be alone in the enormous house for the duration of their quarantine. Emily found her heart beating much too 1st as they drew closer to the main building. She prayed “the duration” was very; very short. The tires crunched on the wet gravel, rid the headlights cut through the gloom, reflecting in the dark windows ahead.

The muted burnt umber of the ancient walls was set off with
tetra serena,
a local gray sandstone, to beautifully enhance the corbels and graceful columns holding up the arches.

“That’s the Cedar Garden over there.” She pointed to the side f the house where a sweeping lawn could be glimpsed between high hedges and ancient trees. She’d picked roses from the antique rosebushes growing there, and fresh tart fruit from the potted lemon trees planted in the enormous
pietra serena
pedestals that made graceful architectural statements between the trees.

She loved everything about the villa and surrounding gardens, and had painted some of her best work here over the years. The fifteenth century villa, originally a Medici family palace, was reputed be one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in the world. By the time Max was done with neglecting it, it would go wild and overgrown.

They pulled to a stop in front of the villa. Emily didn’t want to get
out of the car. And God—she did not want to go inside.

The thought that it would no longer look as it did now, and no longer be available to her, gave her a hollow ache in her stomach. Lit right now she had bigger concerns. She may have breathed, touched, or absorbed some god-awful bloody toxin and be dead by lunchtime.

“The garden was named for the three-hundred-year-old cedar Lebanon planted in the mid—” He looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “You don’t give a damn, do you?”

No, Max thought, he sure as hell
didn’t
give a rat’s ass about anything that had to do with his sperm donor. But Emily was obviously scared and confused, and by the look of her pale face, and the dark circles under her pretty eyes, she was ready to collapse. She had a sexy, husky voice that was a pleasure to listen to, though. If talking kept her upright, then she could chat away until he could get her secured within the compound Daniel had called a home.

He stopped the car as close to the house as possible. Emily rubbed a hand across the bridge of her nose. The gesture showed her vulnerability and was strangely appealing. Max wondered what the hell she and his donor had gotten themselves involved in. A murder and an attempted murder.

Somebody had pissed somebody off.

Or?

Hell if he knew. But he’d sure as shit find out.

“Damn it,” Emily said with a small catch in her voice as she looked up at the villa. “I miss Daniel. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Didn’t bother Max any, but he kept his expression inscrutable and waited her out.

“This whole . . . thing. Daniel dying. That creepy guy at my place . . . None of it feels real.” She didn’t move, but her chest swelled as she dragged in a deep breath.

“Wait here. I want to search the house before we go in.”

The blood drained from her already pale face. “You think there’s someone inside waiting for us?”

“Want to take the chance?”

“No. But I’m not going to be a sitting duck in the car if someone wants to use me for target practice.” She got out and closed her door with an expensive click. “I’ll take my chances inside.” Shaking off the apathy that had kept her pinned, she took off with purposeful strides toward the door. Her unbound hair billowing behind her reminded Max of a matador approaching a bull, cape flying.

“Besides,” she said briskly. “I have the code to get in.”

She headed for the entry keypad beside the double front doors.

Emily, as Daniel’s friend and protégé, had full access to the villa. Max had to have intel get him the address. He hadn’t known nor cared for the specifics before today. He’d been given the access code, as well as the security code for the alarm located just inside the front door.
I’m here, you old bastard.
“Hang back a second,” he told her, Glock in hand.

“I have to turn off the alarm inside first.”

She didn’t move out of the way, so he had to brush her body to get close enough to the pad on the wall. The scent of her reminded him of sun-warmed sheets, rain, and roses. Fragrances that always conjured memories of the Sunday they’d spent making love in her big, soft bed. And on the sofa. And on the floor. And in the bathtub …

“I’ve got it.” He tried not to breathe too deeply as he stabbed n the code on the keypad. 11—21—19—72. Ironically, his birthday.

Emily frowned. “How do you know the codes?”

“I know people.” With other pertinent intel, Daniel’s security codes, as well as Emily’s, had been sent to him before the T-FLAC team touched down at the Amerigo Vespucci airport at one this morning. And if his people assured him the death had been murder, not suicide, then there was no doubt in Max’s mind.

The front door unlatched with a muted click. Weapon ready, he brought a finger to his lips, then held up his palm for her to stay put. Eyes wide, she nodded. Stepping around her, he opened the heavy door. He was relatively sure the house was empty It had been swept by a local T-FLAC team in the last fifteen minutes. His cell phone had vibrated in his back pocket with the all clear code LS they’d approached the front gate.

Still, Max had a bad feeling he couldn’t shake.

When his team’s lives, and his own, depended on him making the right split-second judgment calls, he trusted his intuition. That and experience, which had been honed and proven on countless missions. Shit happened.

He didn’t want shit happening when Emily was involved.

So, even though the villa and extensive grounds had been given the all clear, he’d do his own sweep before he’d relax for what was left of the night. Which wasn’t much. The sun was making a valiant attempt to rise. He needed at least a couple of hours of sleep to function on all cylinders. And Emily was clearly at the end of her emotional rope as she leaned against the door jamb, waiting for him to tell her the alarm system had been disarmed.

He found the sophisticated security system keypad just inside the door, and started disarming it.

“You only have twenty seconds.”

It took him five. “Come in and close the door so I can activate it again.” His voice was just loud enough to carry the few feet to where she stood. As soon as she was in, front door locked behind her, he instructed, “Wait here. I’m going to look around.”

Four

IS IT OKAY IF I TURN ON SOME LIGHTS?” SHE WHISPERED. HE saw the nervous shift of her eyes. She was justifiably scared, but she wasn’t making a production out of it. He had to admire her grit.

Lights on or off weren’t going to matter if there was a determined killer in the house whose eyes had already adjusted to the dark. “Sure.”

Emily turned on the lights, illuminating a big, ostentatious foyer. The domed ceiling was frescoed, and enormous gilt-framed paintings lined the walls above while spindly antique tables and airs hugged the walls below.

Place was ornate as hell. Max hated it.

It was also cold, and smelled of stale air. Max couldn’t picture his warm hearted mother ever living here. It had all the cozy warmth of a sterile museum.

Utilizing his “cell phone” as a thermal monitor, he quickly— the term relative considering the size of the place—searched the villa bottom to top. It was a ridiculously large home for one man and his ego. Three floors of overdone, expensive furniture. As he searched for an intruder, or whatever the hell was poking his intuition, he imagined Emily at ease among all of the antiques and gilt. Personally, he liked plain comfortable furniture that he could put his feet on and relax without worrying about dropping the resale value.

He wasn’t impressed with the villa.

But he
was
impressed as hell with the state-of-the—art security system. Must’ve cost the bastard a pretty penny to keep his precious art inviolate. Hadn’t kept his killer out. Which meant the old man had known, had invited, his murderer inside.

Satisfied that the building was secure, he jogged downstairs to find Emily exactly where he’d left her. She hadn’t even taken off her yellow coat, merely pushed the hood back off her face.

She looked as exhausted as he felt, yet, as if she’d hostessed here a thousand times, she asked, “Would you like a cup of tea? Or something to eat?”