Page 33 of Edge of Secrets (The Edge Trilogy #2)

Nancy glanced at Nell, and Nell gave her an eloquent nod, prompting Nancy to proceed.

“Lucia had a priceless intaglio Renaissance writing table,” she said.

“It had been in her family for the past four hundred years. It was smashed in the second B&E. You do know about our mother, Lucia? What happened to her? The burglary after, and all the rest of it?”

“Yes, Nell told me the whole story,” I said. “So what’s with the table?”

“Liam’s been restoring it,” she said. “And in the process of doing that, he found a secret drawer. You push one of the flowers carved into the back, and a drawer pops out. It had a letter in it.”

I waited for the punch line. “And? What’s in the letter?”

Nancy smiled at my impatience. “We don’t know yet,” she said.

“It’s in Italian, and Nell’s the only one of us who speaks Italian.

I guess I could have typed it in and put it into a translator, but it’s so much easier and more fun to just, you know.

Hand it to Nell and watch her work her magic. We all love seeing her do it.”

I looked at Nell. “You speak Italian?”

“And Spanish. And Portuguese. And French. And Latin. And ancient Greek,” Vivi piped up, pride in her voice. “Our Nell, the linguist.”

Nell looked embarrassed. “My birth mother was Italian,” she explained.

“I learned it from her. It was a second mother tongue. And I was in a foster home for a while with a couple of Venezuelan girls. I picked up their Spanish before they had a chance to learn any English. French and Portuguese were easy steps after that. So it’s not like it’s any kind of big accomplishment. ”

I grunted. “Right. Sure. Ancient Greek. No biggie.”

“Can I see the letter, please?” she asked primly. Nancy pulled a sheet of lightweight airmail paper out of her purse and passed it to Nell, who scanned it briefly. “It’s dated three months ago,” she said, then began to translate.

Dearest Lucia,

Perhaps you will refuse even to read this letter. It would be no more than I deserve. Be aware that my silence was not due to lack of sentiment. On the contrary.

I have given up the search. I accept that I will never find what I seek, and yet possession of the map is still a torment to me.

I have no right to destroy it, as it is not mine, and your father paid the highest price a man could pay to keep its hiding place a secret.

I wish only to be free of it now. It gives me no peace, and after fifty years of fruitless searching, peace is all that I can hope for. Perhaps even that is too much to hope.

I wish to bring the map back to you, my precious love. You are the rightful owner. Dispose of it as you think best. I beg you, take this burden from me. Your pure heart and lack of avidity make you its perfect guardian.

I have a flight reservation that will bring me to JFK Airport on May the 16th, if you will receive me. If you do not wish to see me, or you do not wish to take custody of the map, I will respect your wishes, and you will not hear from me again.

I await news from you.

Marco Barbieri

We all stared down at the letter, chilled.

“May sixteenth,” Nell said. “The day she died. So we have a name—Barbieri.”

“Marco said that her father paid the highest price a man could pay,” Nell continued. “But he didn’t break. So whoever’s coming after us must have tortured him. But how can that be? It would’ve happened fifty years ago. How could these assholes still be at it?”

“Maybe someone younger found out about it later,” Nancy mused.

“So maybe Marco brought Lucia this map that day,” Liam said slowly. “And he led them straight to Lucia. But they still didn’t find what they were looking for.”

“Just a map,” Nell said. “The treasure’s still lost. Marco couldn’t find it, and it sounds like he tried very hard. Then he came here and was murdered, still unsatisfied.”

“And where’s the map?” I asked. “I’m guessing the murderer took it, but didn’t have any more luck with it than Marco did.” I looked at Liam. “I assume you went over that whole table?”

“Centimeter by centimeter,” Liam replied.

“There were no other secret drawers. But there’s still the safe.

It’s a big question mark. The bad guys haven’t seen it.

It wasn’t found or forced, in either of the burglaries.

I pulled the whole safe out of the wall and took it to my house in the meantime. ”

Nancy held her hand up to her throat. “But even if we figured it out, we can’t open it without all three of the necklaces, according to Lucia’s letter. And Snake Eyes took mine. That son of a bitch.”

“Can’t you force the safe?” I asked.

Nancy shook her head. “It’s a tricky design,” she said.

“God knows where Lucia found the thing. There’s a warning printed on the top.

If you try to open the safe in any way other than with the numerical combination, a mini-bomb explodes and destroys whatever’s inside.

Keeps everybody honest. Too honest for our purposes. ”

“So we’ll go at it from another direction,” Nell said briskly. “We find out more about Marco Barbieri and whatever he’s been looking for these past fifty years. Maybe someone in Castiglione Sant’Angelo can tell us.”

“Let’s go to Italy and ask them,” I said, impulsively.

Everyone stared at me, mouths agape.

“Um, Duncan?” Nell began. “Hold on a second. Slow down.”

“Why?” The fantastic idea was taking hold in my mind, driving everything else out.

Castles, frescoes, fields of sunflowers, great pasta, thick Florentine steaks, liters of kick-ass red wine.

Walking through winding cobblestone streets with Nell on my arm—her in a skimpy little sundress with lots of cleavage, getting a tan, eating gelato, relaxing, seeing lots of beautiful art and architecture that turned her on.

Nell, naked in our rumpled hotel room bed, her eyes sultry, satiated. Yeah.

Nell snorted. “Please. Be reasonable. What about the game? And my summer school students? And your business?”

“The game will wait,” I said. “The students will live. And I haven’t taken a vacation since I started the business. It’s hard to justify vacations when you’re running your own operation.”

“Tell me about it,” Vivi said wearily.

“I cannot afford a trip to Italy,” Nell’s voice had gotten sharp.

“So we’ll divide the labor,” I offered. “You do all the talking in the hotels and the restaurants, and I wave my credit card around.”

Vivi laughed with delight. “I like your style, Duncan.”

I shrugged. “It’s a perfect way to get you out of their sights.”

“Not really,” Liam said. “To my mind, it’s the first place they’d expect her to go. She’d be noticed there, and watched.”

I was somewhat deflated by that very sensible observation, but I still couldn’t let it go.

I tracked with part of my mind, taking in data while they brainstormed about the letter, the safe, Marco, the attackers, the map.

The rest of me played with the Tuscan vacation fantasy like a dog with a bone. Gnawing it, licking it, loving it.

Nell began rubbing her eyes at about one-thirty in the morning, and I took her hand. “We should get back. You need some sleep,” I told her. “We promised Bruce you’d be at the office tomorrow. But not until later in the morning.”

She stifled a yawn and smiled. “Yeah, I’m whipped.”

“Give them your new phone number,” I said.

Nancy and Vivi looked at each other, mouths theatrically agape. “New phone?”

“Oh, shut up, Viv,” Nell grumbled. “He bullied me into it.” She scribbled the number twice on a cocktail napkin and ripped it into two pieces, handing one to each sister. Hugs and giggles, jokes and teasing admonitions followed among the three sisters, while I and Liam eyed each other.

Liam’s face was grim. “Stay sharp,” he said under his breath. “Those fuckers are motivated. They almost got me both times they tried. It was pure luck that saved us.”

“Same here,” I said. “I’m on it.”

Liam nodded, looking cautiously relieved. “It’s good knowing someone else has our backs from another direction. Let us know what your friend in Oregon says. When Vivi’s on the road, we don’t sleep at night.”

“I hear you.” We shook hands and made our way out.

Nell and I were silent on the way home. I was so heavy into my Italian-vacation-with-Nell fantasy that I was surprised when she spoke.

“They really liked you,” she said.

That made me happy. “Yeah? Great. How do you figure?”

“They told me so. But even if they hadn’t, I could tell, the way they talked about our private problems. Like it was a given that you were part of it. They would never have done that if they didn’t like you.”

“So I don’t have to worry about being disemboweled?”

Nell stifled a giggle. “Not for the moment,” she said. “You sure did throw your weight around, though. Your bank account, too.”

I glanced at her profile. “I’m sorry if that was offensive to you.”

“It seemed like you were trying to communicate to them that you’ve got money. I think they got the message loud and clear.”

I took a few seconds to breathe down the surge of anger and frustration.

“You’re hung up on the money thing, Nell,” I said.

“I was communicating to them that I’m willing and able to protect you.

Money is protection, too, whether you like it or not.

And they know it. In fact, I didn’t hear anyone objecting to it but you. ”

She was silent for a moment. “Sorry if I’m being oversensitive,” she said finally, her voice subdued. “And thanks for making that offer to Vivi—about your friend in Oregon. I hope that works out. She needs a break. We all do.”

“I got that sense too,” I said. “I’ll get right on it.”

The silence that followed was an invisible wall between us.

She was lost in her thoughts behind it, hidden from me.

It made me anxious and lonely. I wanted to break through, get inside.

I needed more intel. She was so complex.

There was so much going on in her head. I wanted her exact specs, a manual of her operating systems. I wanted to study her, absorb her. Master her like she was a math problem.

And she’d have my ass barbecued if I ever said anything like that to her. I had to watch my metaphors with this woman.

“Talk to me,” I blurted.

She looked at me, startled out of her reverie. “About what?”

“About yourself. I want to know more. You’re incredible. Unique.”

She harrumphed. “Yeah. I’m so unique, I’m practically extinct.”

I ignored that. “Tell me about your childhood, your mother, your sisters,” I urged. “Tell me anything. I don’t care what. Just let me in.”

Her big eyes were wary of the need she felt emanating from me, a vibration I could do nothing to hide. “Duncan ...”

“You make me feel so alive. Just please, Nell. Tell me how it is to be the way you are.”

My appeal touched her. She gave me a shadowy smile, and something relaxed inside me.

Excellent. By sheer chance, I’d hit upon the exact trick to calm her down.

Some judicious pity-mongering, a small, tasteful glimpse of desperation, and she’d melted.

I hadn’t calculated the strategy, either. It just came to me.

Maybe this incomprehensible emotional shit could be learned, after all.