“She must have been lonely to make the trek up and down these hills,” Carlos muttered. “What about the Tynte home? Has it been owned by one family just as long?”
The smile left Gabrielle’s eyes first. “Yes, my mother was the last Tynte heir before me.”
Was. He let her ride quietly for a few minutes, then asked, “What happened to your mother?”
“She was killed…in an accident. I was eleven.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to open a wound.” He’d lost his biological mother the day he was born even though she really didn’t die for another ten years, so Carlos couldn’t relate to Gabrielle’s loss of a mother.
If anything happened to his aunt Maria, yes.
“No, it’s fine,” Gabrielle said. “I just don’t think on it often.”
When she didn’t say more, he went for a change in subject to something he felt she could expound on. “You seem to have solid resources in South America.” He glanced over when her fingers curled tight. “I’m not asking for your contacts, Gabrielle. I’d just like to hear what else you know about the Anguis. Anything you could tell me about Durand and his men could be helpful on this mission.”
Her hand relaxed and she chewed on one corner of her lip. “I hate to say this in a way that sounds flattering, but Durand’s really good at what he does. He expects one hundred percent loyalty from his people.”
“You know what any of his men look like?” The road he followed climbed through stunning vistas. Wide blue sky backdropped each outer curve of switchbacks up the mountain.
“Durand marks his men.”
“How?” Carlos gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“With a tattoo…on their chest.”
His heartbeat thumped faster. “What kind of tattoo?”
“I don’t know, just that it’s on their chest. My contacts either don’t know or are afraid to tell me that much.”
He exhaled slowly, relieved to finally have that answer. “Lots of men have tattoos on their chest…even me.”
“Really? What does yours look like?”
“Snake and dagger. Had it done when I was really young,” he said dismissively. “What made you research the Anguis the first time?”
“Nothing in particular.”
She’d answered too quickly. Gabrielle was hiding something, but pushing her more right now would be a bad tactical move that might make her cautious about discussing more with him.
He slowed as they approached two short walls on each side of a drive made of yellow and white rocks. Naked vines spiderwebbed across the barriers. Weeds grew thick in front of the walls and sprouted between the stones of the drive.
“That’s the formal entrance to the property.” Her eyes lit with anticipation, then dimmed. “Linette said her father was anal about keeping the landscape perfect to the point she had to spend her Saturdays doing gardening.”
Carlos drove through the entrance, proceeding slowly as Gabrielle pointed out the trees lining the drive as umbrella pines. The impressive three-story structure with pale gray stone walls and a terra-cotta roof had been tucked into the hillside for so many years the house appeared to be part of the terrain. The afternoon sun cast deep shadows beneath an arched walkway hugging one side of the house.
But again, the lack of maintenance in weathered shutters and rusting wrought iron along the gabled windows and the balconies didn’t fit with Gabrielle’s recollection of Linette’s anal father.
Gabrielle had fallen silent again.
Carlos parked next to a tiered fountain of cherubs pouring water from one vase to another, but no water flowed through this fountain. Invasive vines crept along the statue. He circled the car and helped Gabrielle out.
When they reached the top of the decaying stone steps, he lifted the heavy, unpolished doorknocker shaped as a lion’s head and banged three times.
Gabrielle told herself to focus on the mission and not the disturbing condition of the property. But worry over Linette’s father kept cramping her thoughts.
The door opened to a short dumpling of a woman with more gray than black hair and a plump face that had aged well for being around sixty. “Bon giorno. Come stai?”
“Parla inglese?” Gabrielle asked, requesting English to be spoken.
“Sí. I know pretty good English.”
“You are?” Gabrielle prompted.
“Housekeeper.”
That couldn’t be right, but Gabrielle moved ahead. “I’m looking for the Tassone family.”
“Signore Tassone and his wife traveling.”
“Really? Where did they go? I’d like to contact them.” Gabrielle tried to imagine Linette’s parents spending a nickel to travel far since her friend had often bemoaned her father’s overly frugal attitude.
“They cruise Mediterranean. Signore Tassone gave strict orders. No bother him.”
“Do you know when they’ll return?” Gabrielle glanced past the woman, but saw little in the dark room behind the half-open door.
“Who know?” The housekeeper kept her gaze averted and shrugged. “Sometimes few weeks, sometimes few months. Just left this week.”
Carlos took Gabrielle’s arm. “Okay, we better hit the road if we want to get back to the airport in time for that flight.”
“Yes, let’s go. Grazie,” Gabrielle told the woman, then turned to leave.
“Signora? What your name?”
Gabrielle stopped, and as she turned to answer the woman, Carlos grabbed her hand and squeezed. She understood his message not to share her name.
“My mama was Madame Gervais. She met Signora Tassone on a cruise and asked me to stop by when I came to Milano, but Mama died six months ago. I just wanted to tell the signora hello and that Mama enjoyed their conversations. Grazie. Bon giorno.”
Carlos had the car in gear and was driving away from the house when he said, “So what’s going on?”
“Linette’s father was very tight with the family purse. Her mother rarely came to visit Linette because she got motion sick when she rode in cars for a long time, airsick on airplanes, and was too afraid of the water to cruise. I don’t know who that woman was at the house, but she does not know the Tassone family.”
Carlos slowed as they passed through the entrance and started back down the drive that would take over a half hour to get off the mountain. He didn’t like this one way up and one way down, but that might just be a case of paranoia over having Gabrielle with him and no backup nearby.
“Linette’s father would never have given up that home,” Gabrielle added, wringing her hands together, then stopped and looked up at Carlos. “Linette said once when she asked her father if they could move to a new house, he told her the only way he was leaving his home was in a wooden box. Do you think they are dead?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.” He drove on, creeping slowly around a tight turn that leveled out for a kilometer.
She took in the tense muscles in his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, but I’ll feel better once we reach the main roads. Rae and Korbin should have a place scouted out for us to stay tonight in Milano. We’ll give Gotthard this information and see what he can track down.”
Gabrielle sat back and thought about Linette’s parents, searching for a logical reason they would have changed so much.
Carlos maneuvered the car through a tight right-hand turn around a wall of rock and bushes hanging close to the road that blocked any view through the curve. On the other side was another long stretch of road with dips in the hills bordering the right side and a sheer drop-off for several hundred feet down the left.
A compact, red Italian sports car had spun out, blocking the road farther down. The driver’s door was wide-open and a man slumped over the wheel.
Slowing down, Carlos parked four car lengths away.
“It looks like the driver is hurt.” Gabrielle started to reach for the door handle.
“Don’t get out of the car.” Carlos opened his door and stepped out.
“Give me your cell phone. We need an ambulance.” Gabrielle extended an open palm to him for the phone.
She realized why he hesitated. If he left her the phone and walked away, she could call someone to help her escape. To hand over his phone would show a trust in her she doubted this man allowed any person.
He didn’t move to lift the phone from the clip on his belt.
Gabrielle lowered her hand, hurt more than she wanted to admit by his lack of faith.
“Here.” Carlos snatched up the phone and keyed a button, then flipped it to her. She caught the phone in midair, shocked and heartened by the trust he’d shown her.
“It’s ready to dial,” he said, and walked away.
She pressed the emergency number that went through, but the minute the operator answered she lost the call. Gabrielle checked the connection. No cell tower.
How could she lose a tower without moving?
One of the great mysteries of cell phones.
She grumbled and reached around for her laptop out of habit before she got out of the car. She could use her blouse to make a bandage since it was warm enough to just wear the silk top she had on with her linen pants.
When she glanced ahead again, Carlos was almost to the car.
The driver sat up and jumped from the car, running for a valley in the hills lining the road.
Carlos spun and took off at a full run. His face went from furious to frightened when he saw her. “Run!”
She did, just as fast as she could. He caught up to her and grabbed her by the waist, yanking her off the ground, charging toward a dip in the hills on their side.
The explosion knocked him into the air.
She hit the ground sideways wrapped in his arms. Compression from the blast rushed across the open space like an invisible tidal wave of pressure to slam their bodies again. A second explosion shook the ground beneath her. Crashing banged and banged again right behind the explosion’s initial impact.
She couldn’t breathe. Gabrielle wheezed, fighting for air.
“It’s okay, try to calm down.” Carlos’s voice sounded so far away. Her chest and lungs hurt like the devil. “You’ve had the wind knocked out of you,” he told her.
He sat up, holding her in his arms. His face had scrapes and cuts, but he was alive. Oh, dear God, he could have died.
She tried to talk. Nothing came out.
“Shhh. Just work on breathing.”
When she could finally fill her lungs, she drew a shaky breath, then nodded to let him know she was okay for the moment. He helped her stand. They turned around.
Their rental car was gone.
Vanished. Poof. No car.
“Where is it?” she croaked.
Carlos led her to the side of the road where their lovely Mercedes had rolled all the way down the ravine. The explosion must have blown it off the road.
“If I’d have stayed in the car, I’d be dead now,” she whispered. Gabrielle’s knees folded.
“Whoa. Don’t pass out on me.” Carlos lifted her into his arms and walked to the cut in the hills where he found a shady spot and sat down. “I have to assume they aren’t going to shoot us or they wouldn’t have gone through that much trouble to make it look like an accident. The other car had to be full of aircraft fuel for that kind of explosion.”
Helicopter blades whomped overhead.
“Oh, God. Are they coming back?” Gabrielle cringed.
“No, that should be my people.”
“How would they know?”
“I keyed an emergency call to Jake before I gave you the phone. Jeremy had a tracking device on this car for insurance to find us if anything happened.”
“And the helicopter?”
“I told you Jake is the man to have when it comes to flying anything. He’s also the one person who can confiscate something that flies at any time. Before we left, he located a small airport close to here and said he’d be prepared.”
By the time they reached the airport in Milano and climbed out of the helicopter, Gabrielle was sorely missing her rental house on the lake back in Georgia.
“Want to fly somewhere else tonight?” Jake asked Carlos, then handed Jeremy their suitcases he’d kept stowed until now.
“No. Rae and Korbin have already reconned the city. I’d rather stay here where I have four of you close to help protect Gabrielle while we update the office and figure out where we’re going from here.”
“Okay, I volunteer for the first shift of protecting Gabrielle tonight.” Jeremy walked back up giving that offer in his Boy Scout voice, but Gabrielle doubted he’d been one.
Carlos stepped close and said something to Jeremy too low for her to hear, but she’d seen his fury once already today when he’d turned around and yelled at her to run.
And he’d only played at intimidating Pierre and the others at the school.
This was not the playful side of Carlos. Veins stuck out the side of his neck. His hands were clenched into fists.
Jeremy took a step back. Probably a healthy decision.
Carlos finished whatever he was saying and just stood there, glaring at Jeremy, who lifted his hands in a confused motion. “You don’t want a volunteer, fine. I’ll sleep in.” He backed up another couple steps.
Jake took in everything between Carlos and Jeremy without a word, but his eyebrows were staked high with interest.
Carlos drew in a breath and scratched his chin, then told Jeremy in a calmer voice, “Thanks for the offer just the same.”
Jake chuckled.
Carlos cut a look at him that could maim, then turned a warm gaze to Gabrielle. “Ready to get cleaned up?”
“Oui.” She walked with him to another car, this one an identical copy of the silver sedan they’d lost. When they got inside, she asked, “What was that all about?”
“Just clarifying Jeremy’s role in this mission.” Carlos lifted his hand to her forehead, his fingers gently brushing a tender spot. “How are you doing?”