Page 70 of Edge of Secrets

Another vicious slap. My head rang. Tears sprang into my eyes.

“So the Contessa never told you how her father died?”

I shook my head, gulping. “No,” I whispered.

“You want to hear the tale?” Haupt sounded eager to talk. “My father knew the old Conte de Luca, you see, back in their youth. In the thirties, before the war. They attended the art academy together in Rome for a time. They became close friends. Such good friends, the Conte even invited my father to visit his ancestral home. To show off the family’s art treasures.”

“Ah. I, um, see,” I said, although I didn’t.

“And then, the war. And the Reich,” Haupt went on. “My father was a high-ranking officer in the SS. He arranged to be headquartered in de Luca’s palazzo during the occupation. One of his duties was to appropriate the cream of the art pieces for the glory of the Reich. But the Conte de Luca was greedy. He kept aside his greatest treasures. He hid them, but drew a map describing where to find them.”

I was hypnotized by the pale, mad eyes of the ruined old man. Spittle landed in my face as he talked. I silently willed him to go on and on. All day, all night.

As long as he was talking, they would not tear me to pieces.

“The war ended,” Haupt went on. “My father fled to Argentina after the war, but he never forgot. He paid de Luca a visit fifteen years later, but the sketches were still hidden. Would you like to know what my father did to the Conte? In his efforts to convince him to reveal the hiding place?”

“N-n-no,” I quavered. “Thanks, but no.”

“Do not be insolent!” Haupt shrieked. “Perhaps if I tell you that you will share his exact same fate, it will spark your curiosity, hmm?” He slid his cold, puffy hand down over my arm, my breasts. “All that smooth, flawless skin. So pale, and soft and perfect. A pity, really.”

Delay, delay. “And, ah, wh-what about M-m-marco?”

“So you know about the Marchese Barbieri? Worthless old turd. He had the map—little good it did him. My father, and later I stationed domestic spies in the Palazzo de Luca for decades, watching him search, but he never found the sketches. And then, one fine day, he climbs on a plane! And flies to America! What a curious thing, eh?” He rubbed his hands together. “John was there to meet him. That was how we finally located the elusive Contessa. But John has an impulse control problem. I call it, ‘kill now, ask questions later.’” Haupt shot a poisonous glance at John. “The Marchese and Contessa were dead before we could find out what he brought, or where he hid it. So be a good girl, Antonella, and maybe John won’t be so harsh with you, eh?”

I swallowed. “I will cooperate. As much as I can.” Which wasn’t very goddamn much. As they would discover soon enough.

Haupt held up both necklaces. Nancy’s sapphire pendant, and my ruby one. They swung and glittered in the dim light filtering through the cobwebby windows.

“Tell me the secret of the necklaces,” he commanded.

I winced. “I don’t know. I only saw an incomplete draft of the letter you took. It said that only the three of us, working together using our love of art, could open some sort of key, but we never figured out exactly to what. I’m sure she meant to tell us more before she?—”

Crack, another slap. My nose was now dripping blood.

“Do not lie!” Haupt shrieked. “I know you know more! We have researched you, Antonella. The bitch Contessa had you study Italian and Latin. You were being groomed to take over the search! Admit it! Why else would you study a dead language? Have you seen the map? Have you read it? What does it say?”

“No! I-I-I haven’t s-s-seen…” I floundered, stammering. My imagination was failing me. How could I justify a passion for language and literature for its own sake to subhuman monsters like this? They wouldn’t understand it. They didn’t even know what beauty was. How could they imagine loving it?

John stepped up, with a businesslike air. His next blow knocked my chair off balance. It teetered on one leg, tipped. The room swirled as I tumbled backward, onto my tied hands. Crunch. Wood splintered beneath me—and oh shit, oh dear God, my hands … oh, that hurt?—

A long broken shard of wood from a piece of junked furniture had stabbed into the pad of my thumb. I wrenched my thumb loose from the shard, again, groping with my fingers feeling blood flow, slippery and hot. Felt for the shard. There it was. My hand closed around it, and clenched.

Snap. I broke off the tip. Small, but sharp, hidden in my fingers. A few inches long.

John hooked the back of my chair and heaved me upright. “Let’s try that question again, Antonella.” He leaned down, the whites of his eyes showing, and slid the point of his knife under my blouse. A few sharp jerks, and the fabric gave, gaped. Buttons flew, skittering on concrete.

He dug the knife tip under silk cord that held my bra cups together, flicked the knife. This time, he nicked my skin. Blood welled up, trickled down my belly. Blood dripped from my wounded hand, as well. I clutched the splinter, hard enough to hurt, to ward off the squirming nausea, the waves of sick vertigo.

The knife gleamed in front of my wide, hypnotized eyes.

“Now, Antonella,” he said, companionably. “Let’s talk about art.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Duncan

“Right on Connemara Drive, four point two miles. Hard left onto a dirt road, half a mile past the creek. Her signal’s three hundred meters ahead of me—perpendicular to the main road and ten degrees to the right. I’m leaving the car. Tell the cavalry to hurry the fuck up.”

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