Page 99 of Every Step She Takes

“You’re… PCTracy?”

Marco steps toward me, his lips curving in a smile. When I back away, that smile twists with chagrin.

“All right,” he murmurs. “Not exactly the way I imagined this.” He clears his throat. “Largo di Torre Argentina.”

“What?”

“It was our second date. We were looking at the Largo di Torre Argentina. You said you’d read a mystery where someone was murdered there, at the same place Caesar was presumably assassinated, but seeing it, you realized the writer had never been to Rome, because the scene made no sense. That got us talking about mysteries and then about classic mysteries and then about–”

“Dick Tracy,” I say. “You’d read the old comics as a kid.”

“I thought you might get the connection, but I also knew it was a long time ago, a passing conversation.”

“You pretended to be a private investigator?”

His brows shoot up. “Pretended?”

I eye him and then lean back against the wall, arms crossed. “So when you said you wished you could fly out and help, but you’d just make things worse? Because you’re only a tour guide and bike courier?”

“Uh…”

I give him a hard look.

Marco sighs. “Yes, I lied, but if I admitted I’d been an investigator, you would have still insisted I stay home so I couldn’t be implicated. If I showed up anyway, you’d have blamed yourself for not making your point strenuously enough.”

“You decided it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

“More like I decided to take full responsibility for my actions. I will explain everything, but right now, I’m a little more concerned with what just happened.”

“The paparazzi finding me?”

Now I’m the one getting a hard look. “You know that isn’t what I mean, Gen. As for them finding you, though, that was Justice’s fault.”

Before I can speak, he hurries on. “No, he didn’t rat you out. The paparazzi were followinghim. Then they spottedyou. Back to the real topic of concern, though…” He lifts the bundled jacket and opens it to reveal a silenced handgun. “I know it takes a lot to rattle you, Gen, but the way you handled that tells me it’s not the first time he’s come after you. He was the guy in the park, wasn’t he? I didn’t get a good look at the time, but you obviously did.”

I hesitate. Then I nod.

Marco sets the jacket and gun down. “Was the park the first time you’d seen him?”

“I… I don’t think so.”

I tell him about the attack outside the sandwich shop, and then about the man I’d briefly spotted the night before.

He lets out a string of curses in Italian and sinks onto the bed. “So, after you’d been held at knifepoint in an alley, I suggested you spend the night in Central Park.”

“I wasn’t sure the alley encounter was connected to Isabella’s death. I didn’t want to seem…”

“Paranoid. I get that. But if you’d told me, I would have been paranoid for you.”

More curses as he shakes his head. “I should have told you the truth right after the park attack. Instead, I was in a panic over what happened and just wanted…”

“To put me safely in a hotel and shower me with goodies.”

He exhales as he raises his eyes to mine. “I’m sorry, Gen. I’ve made a mess of this, and I could have gotten you killed.”

I look at the gun. “Pretty sure you justsavedme from getting killed.”

“Pretty sure I wouldn’t have needed to if I’d told you who I was two days ago.”