Toured to Death, page 8
“Italy still has telegrams?” It was the first thing to flash through her mind.
“They do. I checked with the office in Portoferraio. They said an Amy Abel sent the messages. I wanted to throw mine away. But all the other teams were running around the lobby, talking about it.”
“So why aren’t you on Montecristo with your team?”
“I . . . I was thrown.” His voice cracked, and for the first time in their acquaintance, he looked helpless. Amy found this appealing, even sexy, and was annoyed with herself. “I knew I had to talk to you. . . . So I pretended to be sick. They went without me.”
“Why would someone send them off on a false clue? To sabotage the game?”
“Why would someone want to sabotage the game?”
“Why would someone throw a rock at your head?”
“Oh.” Marcus winced. “I’d forgotten that. You think they’re connected?”
“I don’t know. But there’s nothing we can do until they get back.”
“True.” The stress was starting to leave Marcus’s voice. “That’s true.”
“We haven’t really talked since the cactus garden. Your ankle seems better.”
Marcus’s smile was crooked and sweet. “I’m sorry for the way I yelled.”
“No, you were right. I should have chased after him. At least then we might know who we’re dealing with, if we’re dealing with anyone.”
“Just because I’m the confrontational type, I expect everyone to be that way. It probably does more harm than good.”
They were walking back through the pine grove, toward the hotel and the two-storied wall of balconies that faced onto the sea. “When they get back, we’ll find out what happened on Montecristo. Then we’ll find some way of working it into the mystery. With any luck, they’ll never know the difference.”
“Good idea,” Marcus said.
“Good idea? That’s the first time I ever heard you say, ‘Good idea,’ to anyone.”
“Oh, I don’t know. The words came out so easily. I must have said it at some point in my life.”
“Or maybe you just heard other people say it.”
The dark, striking man stopped in his tracks, his crooked smile frozen. Had Amy joked too far? She was about to verbally backtrack when she noticed Marcus’s eyes focused into the distance.
“What is it?”
The Hotel Montecristo’s functional architecture—a main floor topped by two tiers of bland, sea-facing balconies—was being attacked by the bright afternoon sun. Marcus raised an index finger and started counting horizontally from the left. “Three, four. Jolynn and Vinny,” he said, sounding vaguely puzzled.
Amy picked out the room, the only one on the lower level with the drapes closed. The piercing sunlight illuminated a moving silhouette behind the beige barrier. “It’s the maid,” she said. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she saw a second silhouette, this one farther back in the room. “Two maids?” Then the legs moved. Two pairs of long, distinct legs. “Two maids wearing pants?”
“Why would maids be in the room at this hour?”
Good point. The rooms had been cleaned before check-in. Any turning down of beds would occur in the evening. And didn’t the maids here wear skirted uniforms?
“Why would our practical joker want everyone away from the hotel?” Marcus asked.
Amy suspected it was another rhetorical question, but she answered. “To rob the rooms.”
CHAPTER 10
Marcus was already racing across the lawn. He ignored the winding path and cut directly across a rock garden that had probably been placed there to prevent just this type of shortcut.
“What are you doing?” A reluctant Amy began chasing him through the slippery bed of rocks and plants. “Have you thought that far ahead?” Her words floated off in the breeze. Marcus was already up the outdoor staircase and around the pool.
“What’s their room number?” Marcus shouted.
The Mrozeks’ room was next door to Amy’s own. She tried to visualize the hallway. “Two-oh-four.”
Marcus was already inside at the reception desk, leaning over, nearly grabbing a startled clerk by the lapels. “Room two-oh-four is being robbed. We need the key to two-oh-four. Amy. Italian.”
“Scusi, signore,” Amy said. “La camera due-zero-quattro . . .”
By the time the clerk grasped the situation, Marcus had already disappeared up the main staircase. From the next floor came the sound of fists beating on a door.
“Good God. He’s going to get shot. Marcus!” Amy turned back to the slow-moving clerk. “Venga subito! Portaci la chiave.”
As she tripped her way up the stairs, Amy heard Marcus’s voice in front of her. “Olla. Alto. Polizia.” Marcus was pounding on the door to 204, pounding and shouting maniacally, with no thought to what might happen next. He paused just long enough to turn her way. “Tell them to open up. We’re with the police.”
“No,” Amy barked back. She was at the next door, her own, unlocking it with her key card. She rushed inside. Her room had been untouched, she noted thankfully as she raced straight through it and slammed open the balcony door.
The two balconies, hers and the Mrozeks, were connected, physically the same balcony. They were divided by a waist-high partition, an angry blue slab of sheet metal welded to the wall and the seaside railing, providing the occupants with minimal privacy from each other.
Even as Amy climbed over the blue metal, just inches from the Mrozeks’ sliding glass door, she wondered what the hell she was doing. She would not be making this insanely reckless gesture if Marcus the avenger, the man who had scolded her in Monaco, wasn’t right now slamming his fists against the room’s only other entrance.
“I know you’re in here. Open up.” Marcus’s voice was loud and forceful.
For a moment Amy stood on the Mrozeks’ balcony, facing the glass and curtain, her hand hovering over the handle. The door was probably locked from inside. But what if it wasn’t? How would the burglars—two at least, maybe more—react to the sight of an unarmed woman entering from the balcony, from which they were probably hoping to make their escape?
Another moment and her hand still hovered. They would already be unnerved by Marcus’s attack on the door. Anyone would be. And at any moment the desk clerk would finally arrive with the key. Then . . . ?
Her hand seemed to hover forever, all of three seconds. And then the glass slid open from inside. The sudden draft forced a cascade of curtains to blow out, embracing Amy in a swirling cocoon. Instinctively, she twisted, trying to free herself from its soft clutches.
She was off balance now, still turning. And that was when the shadows outside the cocoon grew denser and harder, gaining weight and arms and legs and, worst of all, ramming speed.
The force of the burglars’ exit was enough to knock a linebacker off his legs. Amy found herself trapped within the twisting, ripping curtains, suspended like a lanky hunk of wrapped taffy.
“Porco miseria,” a disembodied voice growled. Two pairs of arms and legs began alternately grabbing the trussed tour leader, then pushing her away in a wild, panicky attempt to keep themselves free of the billowing folds.
It didn’t take long for the curtain rod to give way. Pulled from its anchor in the wall above the sliding glass, the left end fell first. One curtain ring slipped, then half a dozen more slid off. The concrete balcony rose up to meet Amy’s body with an excruciating impact that knocked the breath out of her lungs and disoriented her even more.
Barely aware of which side was up, she continued to writhe and turn, convinced that she was rolling back toward the room and away from the foot-high gap that she knew existed under the balcony railing.
“Amy, stop.” More hands grabbed at her, and she fought back, hearing the words but not connecting them to any meaning. “It’s Marcus. Stop. Stop moving.”
Like a dog obeying an unwelcome command, she snorted and fell limp, giving up any attempt at control.
The hands returned—helpful hands this time—and within a minute, she was being pulled from the ripped strands of beige curtain, like a floral butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. “Pig misery,” she moaned as her eyes focused on Marcus’s face.
“Pig what?”
“Just quoting someone,” Amy said, now finally able to help free herself. “Did you see them? I think there were two.”
Marcus rose from his knees and stumbled over the curtains to the balcony railing. “What the hell were you doing?” He continued to stare out over the rock garden and the pine-sheltered bluff beyond. “You could have been killed.”
“At least I slowed them down.”
Marcus turned back. “You were an inch away from rolling off the balcony.” His voice was angry, but his eyes looked frightened. Amy stared into those eyes and for a few seconds forgot the pain from the pummeling and the twisted ankle and . . . Damn, her new beach tunic had a split at the seam.
The desk clerk had joined them, key in hand, eyes focused on a white poplin object among all the heavy beige. “Ecco, guarda,” he said, pointing to the bulging pillowcase.
“They dropped their stash.” Amy said it brightly, hoping to call a truce with Marcus. “We did good.” But he wasn’t listening. He was bending down by the railing, pulling a sliver of paper from where it had been caught between two points of decorative ironwork.
“What?” Amy asked as she wriggled her way free of the curtains. Her new Fendis sat twisted on her nose, perhaps permanently twisted.
“A list of numbers. Two-oh-four, two-oh-six, two-oh-eight . . .”
“Room numbers.” Amy joined him, twisting her glasses to look at the handwritten note. “Our rooms,” she said. “Mrozek, Callas, Davis. The whole tour.”
“Not quite.” Marcus reviewed the list again. “Two rooms are missing. Yours and mine.”
For just a second she was flattered that Marcus knew her room number. Then the oddity of the note sank in. “What does it mean?”
Marcus turned the note over and back and thought out loud. “The burglars—probably locals—had a list of everyone who’d been lured away to Montecristo.” He looked up. “What’s in the pillowcase?”
Back in the room, the desk clerk had already dumped the contents out on the bed. “Purse,” Amy said, pointing out the scattered items. “Man’s watch and wallet. A few rings and a necklace. Cuff links. Two passports. This must be the first room they hit.” She crossed back to Marcus and lowered her voice. “So? What now?”
“Go yell at the manager. Enough to make him cooperate. We have a lot to do before our people return from Montecristo.”
“Right.” Amy sighed. “If only it hadn’t been the Mrozeks.”
They began arriving back at seven, a convoy of four tiny tour boats, plus two rusty trawlers that had been hired by the slower teams. Amy was at the docks to greet them, relieved to discover that her players weren’t nearly as cranky as she’d expected. More shamefaced than cranky.
“Well, Otto finally fooled us,” Burt Baker said, reflecting the general sentiment.
The moment the first boat landed, the hotel inaugurated a program of pampering. Nothing that smacked too much of an apology. But there was a full staff of waiters on the terraces and in the lounge, ready to jump at the merest hint of a drink order. A special dinner was on time, on the best linen, and accompanied by champagne, compliments of the management.
The manager, unable to hide the fact that someone had ripped down their curtains, took Vinny and his wife aside and confessed a version of the truth. Two thieves had broken into their room. But an alert employee had intervened before anything was stolen.
“There’s nothing missing,” Vinny exulted with his usual positive attitude.
“I guess it’s all here.” Jolynn sounded disappointed.
“Of course it is.” Vinny was opening his wallet. “Now, where is that guy who risked his life for us? I’d like to give him a little something.”
“That won’t be necessary,” the manager said. “It was his job.”
“Nonsense. He deserves a reward.”
“Is everything all right?” Amy asked, appearing in the doorway. She and Marcus had been next door, in her room, listening through the wall. Now that the Mrozeks seemed to be taking it so well, they felt emboldened to drop by.
“Abel. Marcus. Come in.” Vinny was reluctantly putting his wallet back in his pocket. “I guess you heard about our good luck.”
“Nothing was taken?” On Amy’s first step into the room, her right ankle twisted, sending a spasm of pain up her injured body, intensifying the throbbings in her left elbow and right side.
“Nothing at all. Are you all right? Looks like you hurt yourself.”
“Oh, just banged myself up in the pool. Acting stupid.”
“I’ll bet the pool was nice,” Jolynn said. “Was it nice?” The short, hard woman was smiling at Marcus, who had just entered the room. “You were so clever not to come along. How on earth did you know it would be a wild-goose chase?”
“I didn’t.” Marcus shrugged uncomfortably. “I should have gone. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Montecristo.”
“You didn’t miss a thing.” Vinny laughed. “I never knew how boring ruins could be until we examined every inch of that godforsaken island.”
Jolynn’s steely gaze switched from Marcus to Amy. “I assume our boat costs will be reimbursed.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Absolutely,” said Amy.
“Unless this little excursion was some sort of mistake.”
“I sent the telegrams myself. How could it be a mistake?”
“But there weren’t any packets of clues, were there? You didn’t have time to sail out there and plant clues. Yes?”
“No . . . I mean, not exactly.” She breathed deeply, trying to regain her composure. “Jolynn. If you missed a clue or you didn’t, you certainly can’t expect me to tell. Daryl asked you to go to Montecristo. He must have had a reason.”
It was a rebuttal that was, for the moment, unassailable.
CHAPTER 11
Amy lay wide awake in the dark, wondering why exactly she was awake. She so rarely had trouble in this department. Was it the soreness? she wondered. The trauma and punches she’d endured in the curtain cocoon? Perhaps. Although a few aspirins had helped to ease the aches and she’d certainly slept through worse.
It wasn’t her personal life keeping her awake. What personal life? And as far as she could tell, she wasn’t obsessing about the tour. But, of course, the fact that she was thinking about not obsessing probably meant she was. She had just checked the bedside clock—4:58 a.m.—when there was a light knock at the door, a soft but insistent rapping of knuckle against wood. She got up, grabbed a hotel bathrobe and her nearest pair of glasses.
“Did I wake you?”
Marcus was standing in the hall. For a second, her heart beat a little faster. But the man was fully dressed, with a light jacket and a leather portfolio under his arm.
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Five o’clock,” he answered without bothering to check his watch. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix the Montecristo thing. Get dressed. I’ve got a boat.”
“What the hell are you up to?” Given the time, Amy felt she was being more than civil.
“Bring a jacket, waterproof if you have it. How are your bruises?”
“Sleepy. Thanks for asking.”
It was wet and chilly on the motor launch, as predicted. At some juncture, while Alberto, the youngest of the local fishermen, skidded his boat across a black glass sea, Marcus shouted out an apology and even thanked her for coming. It was timed to seem offhand and inconsequential, delivered over an eighty-decibel background.
“What you said about Daryl having a reason for sending them to Montecristo . . .” Marcus’s mouth was an inch from her ear. “It made me think.” The boatman cut the engine to half as they eased into the bay, and conversation became easier. “We have to find the right clues—hard but not impossible. The ruins, of course, are the island’s most distinct features. The number of intact arches. The color of the marble or brick.”
Amy caught on. “You’re making it a memory game. That’s good.” For the tenth time this morning, she wiped the spray off her tortoiseshell Lafonts.
The sky had turned pearl gray in the east. Alberto tilted the outboard out of the water and let the launch gently beach itself on the island’s pebbly shore. Amy asked him to wait, then raced to catch up with Marcus, who was scaling a boulder in order to get a quick lay of the land.
When the dawn finally came, they were sitting on a fourteenth-century foundation stone, munching on the bananas and apples they had providently thought to grab from the lobby’s fruit bowl. Amy shielded her eyes from a cold sun that threw long, cloudless shadows, brightening the roofless peaks and solitary doorways.
The remains of the old convent were a gold mine of memorable images, and Marcus was even now putting the best ones into a rough draft. “We can make it like a treasure map. ‘Turn right. Pace out four times the number of stars in the stone crest.’”
“They’ll remember details like that?”
“My Fidels took pictures. I’m sure the others did.” He flipped shut his notebook. “When they wake up tomorrow, we’ll have this puzzle waiting for them.”
Amy thought forward to the next stop. Siena. “How is that going to work?”
“Tomorrow morning, when they’re having breakfast, they’re supposed to find a clue in the personal ads of the local English language paper. That’s a cool way to get a clue, and I don’t want to lose it. You and I will hide those six newspapers in various spots around the hotel garden.”
Amy grimaced. “Management’s going to love that. Won’t the papers get muddy?”
“Plastic bags.” He had an answer for everything, and for once, she appreciated it. “At breakfast tomorrow, instead of finding the papers at their table, each team will find a different treasure puzzle, based on their memories of Montecristo.”
