“She has an accomplice, a man driving a Jaguar. He drove the car between her and my men, shielding her while he returned fire.”
“License plate?”
“No; the angle was wrong for my men to see it. There were witnesses, of course, but they were too busy cowering to take down a license number.”
“The most important question: Has she tried to harm you personally?”
“No.” Rodrigo blinked in surprise.
“Then it follows that I am in less danger than you. Therefore I will stay here, and you may delegate some of your duties to me. I will oversee the search for this woman, or any of your other problems if you would rather see to that yourself. Or we can work together on everything. I wish to be of help. He was my father, too.“
Rodrigo sighed, realizing he had been wrong to keep Damone away from everything; his brother was, after all, a Nervi. He must long for vengeance as deeply as did Rodrigo himself.
“There is another reason I want this matter taken care of,” Damone continued. “I am thinking of getting married.”
Astonished, Rodrigo stared at him in silence for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Married! When? You haven’t said anything about a special woman!”
Damone laughed, too, and color darkened his cheeks. “I don’t know when, because I haven’t asked her yet. But I think she will say yes. We have been seeing each other for over a year-”
“And you didn’t tell us?” Us included Salvatore, who would have been delighted that one of his sons intended to settle down and provide him with grandchildren.
“-but exclusively only in the past few months. I wanted to be certain before I said anything. She is Swiss, of a very good family; her father is a banker. Her name is Giselle.” His voice deepened when he said her name. “I have known from the very first that she is the one.”
“But she took longer, eh?” Rodrigo laughed again. “She didn’t take one look at your handsome face and decide you would make beautiful babies with her?”
“She knew that immediately, yes,” Damone said with cool confidence. “It was my ability to be a good husband that she doubted.”
“All Nervis make good husbands,” Rodrigo said, and it was true, if the wife didn’t mind the occasional mistress. Damone, though, would probably be faithful; he was just that type.
This happy news did explain why Damone was anxious to put this problem of Liliane Mansfield to rest. While it was true that wanting retribution was also part of it, he might well have been patient enough to let Rodrigo handle things had events in his personal life not spurred him to action.
Damone looked at Rodrigo’s desk and saw the photograph lying on it Walking over, he turned the file around and studied the woman’s face. “She’s attractive,” he said. “Not pretty, but… attractive.”
He flipped through the rest of the file, reading rapidly. He looked up in astonishment. “This is the CIA’s file on her. How did you get it?”
“We have someone there on our payroll, of course. Also in Interpol, and Scotland Yard. It has, on occasion, been convenient to know certain things in advance.”
“The CIA calls here? You call them?”
“No, of course not; every call going in or out of there is logged and perhaps recorded. I have a private number for our Interpol contact, Georges Blanc, and he contacts the CIA or FBI through normal channels.”
“Have you thought of asking Blanc to get the mobile phone number of the person the CIA has sent to track Mansfield? The CIA doesn’t do this itself; it hires others to do the work, am I correct? I’m certain he or she would have a mobile, everyone does. Perhaps this person would be interested in making a considerable sum of money in addition to what the CIA pays, if certain information comes our way first.”
Intrigued by the idea, chagrined that he hadn’t thought of it himself, Rodrigo stared at his brother in admiration. “Fresh eyes,” he murmured to himself. And Damone was a Nervi; some things were inborn. “You have a devious mind,” he said, and laughed. “Between the two of us, this woman has no chance.”
Chapter Fifteen
Frank Vinay always rose early, before dawn. Since the death of his wife, Dodie, fifteen years before, it had been increasingly difficult for him to find reasons not to work. He still missed her, dreadfully at times; at other times it felt more like a distant ache, as if something in his life wasn’t quite right. He’d never considered remarrying, because he thought it would be grossly unfair to a woman to marry her when he still loved his dead wife with all his heart and soul.
He wasn’t alone, anyway; he had Raiser for company. The big German shepherd’s chosen sleeping place was in a corner of the kitchen-maybe the kitchen felt like home to him, since that was where he’d been kept as a puppy until he became accustomed to his new surroundings-and he rose from his bed, tail wagging, as soon as he heard Frank’s footsteps coming down the stairs.
Frank entered the kitchen and rubbed Raiser behind the ears, murmuring silly things that he felt safe in saying because Raiser never betrayed a secret He gave the dog a treat, checked the water in the bowl, then switched on the coffeepot that Bridget, his housekeeper, had prepared the evening before. Frank himself had no domestic skills at all; it was a complete mystery to him how he could take water, coffee, and filter and concoct an undrinkable brew, while Bridget could use the same components to make a pot of coffee that was so good it almost made him weep. He’d watched her do it, tried to do the same things, and ended up with sludge. Accepting that any further efforts of his to make coffee would fit the definition of insanity, Frank had acknowledged defeat and saved himself from further humiliation.