Page 61 of Ticket Out

She gave a snort. “I’ve tried that tack. Believe me. But my mother is a good Catholic, and so is Gino. Although I reckon he could be persuaded. My mother, not so much. She’s stubborn as a mule. And she would never think of going against the church after the Archbishop of Melbourne supported Italian Australians during the war, when the government was interning men in other Australian states. The Italian side of my family lived more or less normal lives because of the church.”

He knew internment had happened to Italian men in the UK, he hadn’t realized it had also happened in Australia. He could see how being spared that would generate a great deal of loyalty. “How are you getting on with your search?”

“I’ve sent off for his birth certificate. I’ve sent off for his death certificate. I’ve had no luck on either count. According to the records, he doesn’t exist. Or, not under the name he married my mother with, or the name he put on my birth certificate.”

He could hear the fury in her voice. She had worked out her father had been living a lie the entire time he had been with her and her mother.

He thought of his own quiet, self-effacing parents. The idea of deception on this level was unimaginable.

“Did you check the ship manifest?” he asked.

“He either never got on that ship, although my mother swears she waved at him from the dock as they’d pulled out of the harbor, or he bought his ticket under another name.” She turned on her side to face him. “I’ve requested a list of everyone who boarded that ship. And I’m going to have to go through the men of the right age one by one.”

He could hear the determination in her voice.

She lapsed into silence. There was the sounds of cars in the distance, the rumble of trucks on some distant road. The yowl of a cat, and then the spitting and hissing of a cat fight, were much closer.

James let himself drift, the feeling of being stabbed repeatedly in the head easing off as his headache improved.

He had checked his watch when they’d been deposited in the garage. The florescent hands had pointed to ten o’clock.

He would rest for a few hours, and hopefully, when he was more himself, he’d figure out a way to get them out of here.

He knew his being a policeman had probably turned the tables in their favor. That, and whoever Fred was, he hadn’t been up for anything more than a little kidnapping.

The other one, he was a little harder to read.

If one of them was going to tell their boss where the prisoners were, it would be him.

James hoped that if the boss did decide to take care of them himself, he would at least wait a few hours, when James felt more able to defend himself and Gabriella.

Why not hope for the best?

chaptertwenty-six

She wokewith her nose pressed into James’s neck, breathing in the salty, spicy scent of him. It helped to drown out the musty smell of the canvas they lay on.

Sunlight, fresh and pale with dawn, touched her cheeks and she enjoyed the sensation of warmth for a moment before she raised her head.

James was watching her, his gray eyes steady as they hadn’t been the night before.

She had woken him again and again through the night—every time she moved to find a more comfortable position—to check he hadn’t gone into a coma.

He had insisted on covering them both with his suit jacket, and they had lain close together, the shared heat creating an intimacy that caused a definite shift in their relationship.

She knew it, and the way he was looking at her told her he knew it, too.

“Morning,” he said, and she smiled up at him.

He blinked, then his lips quirked up on one side in response.

“Where’s that bucket from last night?” she asked.

“Do you need to . . .?” He looked suddenly discomforted, and it took her a moment to understand what he thought.

“No. Well, yes, but not desperately. Now that it’s light, I thought I’d see if I could use it to get up onto the roof, and try to open the door on the other side.”

“Oh.” He looked over at the bucket. In the night, his arm had come around her, and she had fit herself flush against his side, her head on his shoulder. He didn’t seem inclined to loosen his hold. “Didn’t you say it wasn’t high enough last night?”

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