Page 101 of Homeport

He wanted her back.

He’d called the lab in Rome and demanded the return of his property. He had shouted and raved and called them all liars and cheats. He’d even called America and left a desperate and rambling message on Miranda’s office machine. He believed she was his link to his lady. She would help him, somehow.

He couldn’t rest until he saw the lady again, held her in his hands.

He would hire a lawyer, he decided, inspired by wine and the humiliation of sly laughter. He would call the American woman again, the one in the place called Maine, and convince her it was all a plot, a conspiracy to steal the lady from him.

He remembered her picture from the papers. A strong face, an honest one. Yes, she would help.

Miranda Jones. She would listen to him.

He didn’t glance behind him when he heard the oncoming car. The road was clear, and he was well onto the shoulder. He was concentrating on the face from the papers, on what he would say to this woman scientist.

It was Miranda and The Dark Lady who occupied his mind when the car struck him at full speed.

Standing on the terrace in the strong morning light, Miranda gazed out at the city. Perhaps for the first time she fully appreciated the beauty of it. The end of Giovanni’s life had irrevocably changed hers. Somewhere inside her a dark place would remain, formed of guilt and sorrow. And yet, she sensed more light than she had ever known before. There was an urgency to grab hold, to take time, to savor details.

The quiet kiss of the breeze that fluttered over her cheeks, the flash of sun that shimmered over city and hill, the warm stone under her bare feet.

She wanted to go down, she realized. To get dressed and go out and walk the streets without destination, without some purpose driving every step. Just to look in store windows, to wander along the river. To feel alive.

“Miranda.”

She drew in a breath, glanced over her shoulder and saw Ryan standing in the terrace doorway. “It’s a beautiful morning. Spring, rebirth. I don’t think I really appreciated that before.”

He crossed the terrace, laid a hand over hers on the parapet. She might have smiled if she hadn’t seen the look in his eye. “Oh God. What now? What happened?”

“The plumber. Carlo Rinaldi. He’s dead. Hit-and-run, last night. I just heard it on the news.” Her hand turned in his, gripped. “He was walking home near midnight. There weren’t many more details.” A cold fury worked through him. “He had three children, and another on the way.”

“It could have been an accident.” She wanted to cling to that, thought she might have been able to if she hadn’t looked into Ryan’s eyes. “But it wasn’t. Why would anyone kill him? He isn’t connected to the lab. He can’t know anything.”

“He’s been making a lot of noise. For all we know, he might have been in on the whole thing from the beginning. Either way, he found it, he had it for several days. He would have studied it. He was a loose end, Miranda, and loose ends get snipped.”

“Like Giovanni.” She moved away from him. She could live with it, she told herself. She had to. “Was there anything in the news about Giovanni?”

“No, but there will be. Get dressed. We’re going out.”

Out, she thought, but not to wander the streets, to stroll along the river, to just be. “All right.”

“No arguments?” He raised an eyebrow. “No where, what, why?”

“Not this time.” She stepped into the bedroom and closed the doors.

Thirty minutes later, they were at a phone booth and Ryan was doing something he’d avoided all of his life. He was calling the cops.

He pitched his voice toward the upper scale, used a nervous whisper and colloquial Italian to report a body in the second-floor lab at Standjo. He hung up on the rapid questions. “That should do it. Let’s get moving in case the Italian police have caller-ID.”

“Are we going back to the hotel?”

“No.” He swung onto the bike. “We’re going to your mother’s. You navigate.”

“My mother’s?” Her vow not to question was swallowed up in shock. “Why? Are you crazy? I can’t take you to my mother’s.”

“I figure there won’t be a nice linguine and red sauce for lunch, but we’ll catch a pizza on the way. That should give it enough time.”

“For what?”

“For the cops to find the body, for her to hear about it. What do you figure she’ll do when she does?”

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