Suspicious (On the Run) Read online

  She apologized in Italian, then recognized Zoe. Her expression froze, and she broke off mid-sentence. Switching to English, she said, “So clever, turning one of our own against us. But I will not forget this. You have taken advantage of our gratitude and embarrassed us.”

  “Wait a minute. We had nothing to do with—”

  She stepped forward, forcing Zoe back against the wall. She was so close that Zoe could see the yellow flecks in her hazel eyes. “Alessi may not be able to prove what you did—yet.”

  Zoe’s escort, a compact woman with her hair clipped back in a no-nonsense bun, stepped forward to intervene, but Melissa held out her hand and snapped a few words in Italian that made the woman pause.

  Melissa turned back to Zoe, “Your business is built on the ‘help’ you gave us. I promise you that I will personally see to it that Safe Haven is completely dismantled. You will never have another client after I’m done.”

  She turned and marched away, her sensible low-heeled pumps clacking on the tile floor.

  ***

  Jack was waiting outside at the foot of the marble steps. Zoe’s police escort watched from the top of the steps as Zoe descended. Jack reached out, and Zoe threaded her fingers through his as they strode away from the building at a quick pace.

  Jack leaned close. “Did you mention Harrington’s suspicion about the thefts?”

  “No. You?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I knew you wouldn’t.”

  He shot her a glance, his eyebrows raised as they navigated around tourists consulting a map.

  “Don’t look surprised. I may not have you totally figured out, but I do know a few things about you. You’re quite skittish where the police are concerned.”

  “With good reason.”

  “Yes, I’ll give you that. So I knew you’d give the least complicated version of the truth and get out of there as soon as possible. I just hope Alessi didn’t send someone back to search our room again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the bracelet from the Flawless Set was in my jewelry bag in the bathroom.”

  Jack stumbled. “What?”

  Zoe recounted how she’d found the bracelet and where she’d hidden it.

  “You’re sure it was from the Flawless Set?”

  “The clasp is broken, just like the one at the exhibit last night, and it had the mark, the R in the oval.”

  “That sounds like the real deal.”

  “I know. Did Alessi tell you that they got a tip this morning that you and I and Harrington stole the Flawless Set?”

  “No, he didn’t. No wonder he’s leaning so hard on us.”

  “It can’t be true,” Zoe said. It was impossible to imagine proper and buttoned-down Harrington stealing.

  “No, of course not,” Jack said. “But I’m even more worried about him now.”

  “I know,” Zoe said. “I can only think of a few reasons he’d go missing.”

  “Yes, and none of them are good.”

  “Maybe he’s hurt or sick. Or he could have been in an accident.” Zoe rubbed her hand across her forehead. “Listen to me. You know the situation is horrible when the thought of someone being hurt or sick is a positive.”

  “We’ll find him,” Jack said confidently. “First, we have to get back to the hotel and take care of that thing you mentioned.”

  “Where are we?” Zoe looked around for familiar streets or landmarks. They’d been moving along quickly and talking so intently that she hadn’t paid attention to where they were.

  “We’re not far from the hotel, and we have a tail.” They stopped to cross a street, and Jack said, “Behind my right shoulder, about fifteen feet back. Receding hairline and a mustache. Gray shirt, black pants. See him?”

  Zoe pretended to adjust the strap of her messenger bag as she glanced over Jack’s shoulder. She swallowed. “Yes. How long has he been following us?”

  “He dropped onto us a block from the police station.” The light changed, and they joined a group crossing the street in front of a line of Smart cars and motor scooters. “I’m not sure about the woman with the blue backpack and sunglasses,” Jack said as they neared the other side of the street. “She could be following us, too. Looks like Alessi cut us free so he could keep an eye on us, see what we do.”

  Zoe looked back in time to catch a glimpse of a woman much closer to them with dark hair caught up in a bun.

  “I think she may have escorted me out of the police station.”

  “Thought so,” Jack said.

  “Should we try to lose them?”

  “No, that would look odd.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s go back to our hotel—that’s a perfectly normal thing to do, except for the checking on the priceless jewelry part.”

  “Right. We’ll just keep that last thing to ourselves.”

  They consulted their map and caught a bus that dropped them a few blocks from their hotel. They made their way through the bustling Campo de’ Fiori, passing the statue of the hooded philosopher—Zoe couldn’t remember his name—but she knew the somber figure had been burned in the campo for heresy during the Inquisition. The statue had always seemed such a sharp contrast to the busy market of vendors selling fruit and vegetables, spices, flowers, and specialty foods as well as the crowds gathering at open-air restaurants that ringed the square. The statue looked especially forbidding today.

  Zoe tried to shake off the bleak feeling as they moved into the street off the campo and paused at the hotel’s front desk. The desk clerk was away, so Jack stepped around the counter and removed their key from its pigeonhole in the wall.

  They climbed the steps to their room, and Zoe went directly to the bath. The little bottle was still there, and it still felt slightly heavier than a normal bottle of lotion. She turned toward Jack to tell him, but he was near the window, positioned with his back to the wall so that it would be difficult for someone outside to see him.

  Zoe crossed the room. “Are they there?”

  “Yes, one of them, anyway. Mustache Guy is waiting at the corner.”

  She raised the bottle. “Still here.”

  “Did you check?” Jack asked softly.

  “No.” Zoe moved to the bathroom and he followed. Zoe unfolded a towel on the counter, then working over the towel, she unscrewed the lid and banged the bottle on her palm a few times until she felt the first stone. The bracelet slipped into her hand covered in globs of lotion. She used the back of her fingers to wipe away some of the lotion, which revealed the facets of the diamonds, their sharp angles catching the light. She found the stone on the end and rubbed away the lotion, revealing the broken clasp.

  Jack wiped his hand over his mouth. “That’s real. That’s it.”

  “I know,” Zoe said with a sigh. “I hoped I was wrong—that I’d made a mistake, and it would look like an imitation. But this is it.”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, I think you’re right.”

  “What are we going to do? Someone tried to frame us.”

  Still staring at the bracelet, Jack said, “I don’t know, but I think the best thing would be to get you to the airport right away.”

  “Why? Can you think of someone I could take this to? Someone who’d help us out?”

  “No, to get you out of here.”

  “I’m not going to go off and leave you here to sort this out on your own.”

  A faint smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “Don’t think I can handle it on my own?”

  “You are the most resourceful person I know, but I’m not leaving you to deal with this by yourself. We do things together, not on our own. We work better that way.”

  “Zoe, you should go now, while there’s the chance.”

  “No. We’re not going our separate ways. We’re all in on this marriage thing, so I’m not running away at the first hint of trouble.”

  “The first hint of trouble would have been that quarrel we had last year over where to put the new couch. This is in a diff
erent league.”

  “Doesn’t matter. All in. Not leaving.”

  He stared at her a moment then blew out a sigh. “For someone with such a free and easy personality you can be quite obstinate.”

  “All part of my charm.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for not being too absurdly old-fashioned about it.”

  “Yes, well. I’m not sure that’s a compliment, but in any case,” he pointed to the bottle, “I think we should get out of here and find a safe place for that. There’s no guarantee that Alessi won’t come back and search our room again.”

  “Sounds like a good plan. I don’t want to stick around here anyway.”

  Chapter Five

  They left their room, but didn’t return their key to the nook in the wall behind the unmanned front desk. They’d decided that, for now, the lotion bottle was the best place for the bracelet. The lotion certainly wouldn’t harm the diamonds, and it wouldn’t be unusual for Zoe to carry a small bottle of it.

  “Are they still with us?” Zoe asked.

  “Bun Lady has dropped back, and Mustache Guy is on point.”

  “Great. Where are we going?”

  “Someplace busy and noisy. I know just the place.”

  They twisted through the streets, stopping to admire windows where Zoe didn’t look at anything on display, only the reflection of the people in the glass. Their two followers stayed with them. Zoe was so focused on what was happening behind them that she barely paid attention to where they were going, but as they moved through increasingly crowded streets, Zoe heard the rush of water. “What is that?”

  Jack smiled fleetingly, the first break in his grim expression since they’d left Alessi. “Wait and see.”

  “That’s not the Trevi Fountain, is it? It is,” she said as they rounded a corner and emerged into a cozy piazza where the roar of water was even louder, and tourists stood fifteen deep in front of the famous landmark. A mass of twisting mythical figures, the fountain centered on Oceanus, who looked bulky and a bit like a WWF fighter as he rode his shell-like chariot, pulled by two powerful sea horses, which were flanked by tritons. The reverberation of the flowing water filled the space. “Impressive. And a great idea.” Zoe worked her way down the shallow steps to the edge of the pool at the base of the fountain. Even over the roar of the water, Zoe heard chatter in English, French, Italian, German, and possibly Russian. She fished some coins from her messenger bag and handed a few to Jack.

  “You only need one,” he said.

  She tossed her coins. “Insurance,” she said and then felt her smile falter as she remembered Harrington’s quip about throwing coins in the fountain to insure he returned to Rome.

  Jack nodded. “I know what you’re thinking.” He tossed his coins.

  Oblivious of the other tourists edging forward to take their place, Jack held their ground at the edge of the fountain and looped an arm around Zoe’s shoulders. “Now’s a great time to talk. Can’t be overheard and our friends are hovering at the top step.”

  “I don’t even know where to start.” Zoe rested her head against his shoulder for a moment, then pulled away to look at his face. “That theory of Alessi’s about how the jewels were stolen—the sleight of hand thing—is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I agree, but somehow, someway the switch was made.”

  “And we ended up with the bracelet. I suppose figuring out what to do with it is the most urgent thing.” She ran through the thoughts she’d had in the bathroom when she first discovered it. “I considered telling Alessi I didn’t know where it had come from, or how it got there but…”

  “Considering they showed up expecting to find the jewels, I’m sure we would have been arrested, not just questioned and released. No, it was a good call to hide it, at least until we figure out what happened.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be hard to put it in our room,” Zoe said. “Anyone could watch for us to leave, then slip in and get the key when the desk clerk was away.”

  “Which is often, apparently. We’ve retrieved our own key several times.”

  “And we were out this morning, so it could have happened then.”

  Zoe blew out a breath and focused on the water gliding across the flat surfaces of the fountain then sheeting over the edge into the pool. “But why leave one piece of the set in our room?”

  “Simple. We take the blame for the theft, the police focus on us, giving the real thief time to unload the necklace and earrings. The bracelet is made of smaller stones, while the earrings were larger and matched, so more valuable. The necklace is the showpiece of the set and has the most stones. If they have to give up something, it might as well be the piece with the smaller stones. And it was easily identifiable as the stolen bracelet since the clasp was broken. This way, someone fingers us for the theft, but they still have the majority of the most valuable stones available to sell.”

  “But how could they do that? Won’t it be…what do they call it in the movies…hot? The Flawless Set is already famous, and after all the publicity for the exhibit, even average citizens like me who don’t know much about jewelry would recognize it. There have been ads and posters all over town for it, even one on the side of a bus.”

  “But if you sold the stones individually…”

  “Break up the set? That would be terrible,” Zoe said.

  “No, that’s how to make money.”

  “Right. We are talking about someone cold enough to steal the set in the first place, and then lay out a plan that would implicate us. It all had to be planned…the whole thing. The switch of the real jewels for fakes, and the hollowed out center of the plaque, as well as the placement of the bracelet in my jewelry bag.”

  “Yes, we were set up very neatly.”

  “Look, more police.” Zoe tilted her head toward the edge of the piazza. The sunken fountain was positioned several steps below the main piazza. On the right and the left of the fountain, a low wall ran alongside the fountain, creating an amphitheater-like setting. Two police officers paced along the wall. Their higher elevation gave them a good view of the tourists crowding around below. As they scanned the crowd, Zoe gripped the messenger bag tighter, feeling the bump under the layers of leather where she’d tucked the lotion bottle.

  “They’re probably not looking for us.” Jack’s voice was calm, but his gaze bounced between the police officers and Mustache Guy, who had moved halfway down the steps.

  “I wish we had somewhere safe that we could stash the lotion bottle. I don’t suppose we could convince a bank to give us a safety deposit box?”

  “Only if we want to show ID, and we’d probably have to have an Italian address, too.”

  “So that’s out. What about Left Luggage? There’s one at the Termini.” Zoe had checked into baggage storage options because they’d arrived several hours before check-in on the day they flew into Rome, but their hotel had let them store their bags with them until their room was ready. “The drawback is we’ll have to show our passports to drop it off and pick it up.”

  Jack frowned. “Not fond of that idea.”

  “I know. If Alessi figures out that we stored something there, he’ll want it.”

  “And would probably be able to get whatever warrant or permission he needed.”

  “I suppose we could mail it to someone,” Zoe said reluctantly. “But I hate to do that. No matter how good the tracking is, packages still get lost.”

  “And who would we mail it to?” Jack asked. “Whoever it is, we’d pull them into this mess as well.”

  “I don’t like the idea either.” Zoe’s forehead wrinkled into a frown. “There’s Nico, I suppose.” Nico was an old friend from Jack’s consulate days in Naples. Jack had recruited Nico as an asset because of Nico’s family connections with the Comorra, the powerful Naples mafia. Nico’s fun-loving, Lothario exterior hid a shrewd mind, and he had helped Jack and Zoe out of a few serious scrapes. They’d had dinner with Nico the day after they arrived in Rome. He had
become quite the globetrotting entrepreneur, and Rome had been on his itinerary frequently because his fiancée lived there.

  Jack actually laughed. “Now, that would be a dangerous place to leave it.”

  “You’re right. The temptation would probably be too great, but I can’t think of anything else.”

  Jack said, “There is one other option, if it’s still open, but we need to lose our escorts.”

  “I’m up for both of those things.” Zoe felt as if the lotion bottle were pulsing and glowing, sending out signals to come and find it. “The police are coming down the steps, too. Time for us to leave, I think.”

  Mustache Guy was inching his way through the crowd toward them. With the steps blocked, Zoe and Jack pushed through the tourists at the edge of the fountain, trying to reach the far end of the left side of the fountain, but the tourists weren’t about to give up their prime viewing spots.

  Zoe turned and scanned the crowd in front of Mustache Guy. She spotted a tall man with thick salt-and-pepper hair and sunglasses. She pointed as she shouted, “Hey, isn’t that George Clooney?”

  A beat of silence followed as people around her turned, following her pointing finger, then the crowd of tourists surged toward the man in the sunglasses. Mustache Guy was caught in the flow. As the tourists jostled for a better look at the “movie star,” Jack and Zoe cut through the crowd, scrambled over the low wall, and raced across the piazza to one of the tight streets that branched off from it.

  Zoe focused on not tripping over the curb or the uneven cobblestones as they sprinted. They were moving so quickly that she couldn’t look back. They dodged between pedestrians for several blocks. Jack slowed, and Zoe realized they were on the Via del Corso, one of the best shopping streets in Rome with lots of high-end stores that ran in a straight line into the heart of Rome. Ahead, at the end of the street, she could see the Victor Emmanuel monument, the massive, blindingly white monument the locals called the Typewriter.