Charmed and Dangerous (26 page)

He had yearned for justice, yes, but he’d also longed for revenge. No one treated his loved ones badly and got away with it. He’d been determined to win at all costs.

But that was four days ago. A lot had happened. Exactly when had his priorities shifted from bringing in Shriver to saving Maddie’s sister?

When he’d realized Blanco was the masked man at the Prado.

Even now, a cold chill passed over him. Cassie’s life hung in the balance and a life, anyone’s life, would always be more important than stolen art.

But, maybe, if he was lucky, he could save Cassie
and
send Shriver to prison for a long, long time.

“I’ll call Henri,” he assured Maddie and then he made a vow he would spend his last breath trying to keep. “And I promise you, whatever it takes, I won’t stop until I find your sister.”

“I believe you,” she whispered and he was gratified by her trust. “But will we find her alive? Or dead?”

They wandered around the streets of Monaco waiting for Henri to call David back, not knowing where else to go or what else to do. All Cassie’s breadcrumb clues had dead-ended in this quaint little country. Maddie tried her best not to imagine the worst, but fighting her instincts was a losing battle.

David reached over and took her hand. “Stop visualizing disaster.”

“How do you know that’s what I’m doing?”

“Whenever you’re thinking scary thoughts, you screw your forehead up tight.”

“Do I really?” She reached up to smooth her forehead with two fingers.

“Yes, really.”

Maddie inclined her head at him. In spite of the broken wrist and black eye and the cut along his jaw, he looked dashingly handsome in the early morning sunlight. Strong and reliable and there.

That was the most important part.

He was there. Holding her hand.

She remembered what he’d sworn to her in the restaurant and she held it close to her heart.
And I promise you, whatever it takes, I won’t stop until I find your sister.

She realized she was counting on him to keep his promise. Somewhere along the way, she’d started believing in him.

And that terrified her.

Be careful. Don’t let him know how you really feel about him.

They stood on the sidewalk, studying each other and Maddie was struck hard by the intensity of her feelings.
I could fall stone cold in love with him if I let myself.

That notion scared her even more.

But you won’t!

She’d never been in love, never wanted to be in love, had avoided anything that remotely looked like love.

Because she didn’t trust it.

Her parents had once been wildly, madly, crazily in love and poof, a sick kid had ended it all. If you couldn’t trust a wedding vow, what could you trust?

“Stop it.” David rubbed her forehead with his thumb. “No more dark thoughts.”

She had to admit this was pretty handy. Having someone monitor her inner negativity. He was good for her.

But was she good for him?

“No, no.” he rubbed her forehead harder. “You’re too young and pretty for frown lines.”

The cell phone he’d just recharged in the cigarette lighter of Maddie’s rental car blasted the
Dragnet
theme.

They both jumped.

David reached for the phone with his right hand but the bulky cast stopped him in mid-reach. The phone rang again.

“Hurry, hurry, before he hangs up,” Maddie said.

He fumbled in his jacket pocket with his left hand and ended up dropping the phone.

“Let me do it.” Maddie grabbed for it at the same time David bent down and they ended up cracking their heads together.

“Ouch!”

“Ow!”

Frowning, David answered it on the fifth ring. “Marshall here.”

Nervously, Maddie gnawed a thumbnail. He listened intently, nodding occasionally but never once letting his expression give any clues about the information he was receiving.

“Okay, Henri, thanks.” He rang off and shifted his gaze to Maddie.

“Well?”

“They found my rental car with Blanco’s prints all over it.”

“Where?”

“At the Piazzale Roma car park outside Venice.”

“Any word on Cassie?” She clasped her hands. Please, please, please let her be okay.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, no.”

Venice was architectural poetry.

A floating fantasy. A dozy reverie of mist and sunshine. A winding labyrinth of walkways and waterways of complicated beauty.

All her life, Maddie had daydreamed of visiting Venice. She’d pictured herself strolling along the cobblestone streets, gliding through the canals in a graceful gondola, shopping in the Rialto district. She’d longed to watch artisans blowing exquisite glassware. She’d thirsted to drink Bellinis at an outdoor café.

And she’d blushed to think of kissing a handsome stranger under the Bridge of Sighs.

To think she was in the city of her dearest fantasies in the midst of Carnevale and she could not enjoy a minute of the experience. All she cared about was finding Cassie.

They arrived on a vaporetto sardined with tourists. By the time the waterbus arrived at their stop, Maddie was yoga breathing to ward off claustrophobia.

At least she told herself it was claustrophobia. What she really feared was that among the maddening throng, in the narrow pathways of this ancient city, she would never find her sister alive.

Venice in February was an overwhelming jumble of sights and sounds and scents. The weather was chilly but not uncomfortably cold. Maddie snuggled deeper into her denim jacket and eyed the throng of people—many dressed in colorful Carnevale garb—streaming through the streets.

Faces were hidden behind elaborate masks. Hair was secreted beneath decorative wigs. Excited shouts of pleasure and rich laughter filled the air.

A woman in a huge bustle waltzed with a man wearing a startling codpiece along the edge of a piazza. Roaming troubadours in Renaissance attire strummed mandolins or lutes. Young women wore feathers and lace and an abundance of jewelry.

Maddie stopped and stared, unable to absorb it all.

“This way,” David said.

Getting a hotel at the last minute in Venice during Carnevale would have been impossible if it weren’t for Interpol. Henri had pulled some influential strings, grabbing them a VIP suite at the exclusive Hotel International near the Piazza San Marco.

David took her hand and while she appreciated the comfort of his touch, she couldn’t help bristling. She was still upset with him for not telling her his suspicions about Blanco back at the Prado. He claimed he hadn’t told her because he’d wanted to protect her, but Maddie couldn’t help wondering if he’d kept silent because he was too hardheaded to admit he’d been wrong about Cassie.

They edged their way to the middle of the bridge but once there, discovered they couldn’t move any farther.

Up ahead, something had captured the crowd’s attention and no one was budging. From above, the noonday sun cast a festive glow over the city. Below them, gondolas, waterbuses and barges cruised the canal.

“You know,” she said to David, “if someone had a heart attack right here, right now, they’d die before help could get to them.”

David shook his head and smiled wryly.

“What?”

“Do you always have to imagine the worst case scenario?”

“It helps prepare me for any eventuality,” she said, defensively. “I like being prepared.”

“Well, you can stop worrying so much. I’m here.”

Maddie snorted. “As if I would rely on you.”

“You still don’t trust me?” He sounded hurt. “Not even after all we’ve been through together?”

“Don’t take it personally, you’re a little busted up.” She waved at his broken wrist.

“Didn’t get in my way last night.”

She felt her cheeks color. She didn’t want to talk about last night. She’d lost her head, lost her mind, lost every shred of common sense. She didn’t want to be reminded of her mistake.

“You’re a hard nut to crack, Maddie Cooper,” he said, his unblackened eye snapping with an intelligent light.

She glanced away, not knowing how to deal with her feelings. Did he think it was good or bad that she was distrustful? Did he admire her prudence or believe she was just a nervous Nelly?

Maddie shifted her attention to the surrounding mob. It was an eclectic mix of old, young and in between. She heard several languages bandied about: French, German, Italian, Japanese.

David asked a Frenchman if he knew why everyone was stopped on the bridge.

“The Spectacle of Angelo,” the man answered. “It starts in ten minutes.”

If she’d been on vacation Maddie might have been able to relax and enjoy the pedestrian traffic jam but as it was, she felt as jittery as if she’d just downed ten cups of strong coffee.

Everyone was watching the Campanile several hundred yards ahead, waiting for the performance to begin. Everyone that is, except for Maddie. She was busy scoping out her environment, and searching the crowd for any signs of Cassie.

A young mother dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the British flag stood several feet behind them. She was scolding an older child who’d been misbehaving, not paying attention to her toddler trying to climb onto the bridge parapet. One slip and the boy would plunge into the canal.

Maddie’s heart leaped into her throat and she could think of only one thing.

The day Cassie fell into the pond.

Maddie slipped free from David’s grasp and wound her way through the crowd.

“Ma’am,” she shouted. “Your baby!”

But apparently the woman couldn’t hear her over the crowd noise.

“Maddie,” David called her name. But she was utterly focused on what she was doing. All she could think about was getting to that little boy before he fell. She elbowed people aside, hurrying as best she could.

“Ma’am, ma’am,” she kept hollering.

Dear Lord, don’t let me be too late.

The toddler was marching along the top of the narrow ledge, wavering on his chubby little legs as he peered down at the water.

She was so close.

Desperately, Maddie lunged forward at the same time a woman with an oversize handbag turned sharply to see what was happening.

“Oops,” the woman exclaimed in a British accent.

The swinging purse caught Maddie off guard, smacking her squarely in the back. She tripped over the cobblestones and fell awkwardly across the bridge railing right beside the toddler.

“Look!” the boy said and grinned at her.

“Oh my,” gasped the mother, finally realizing what was happening.

Maddie shoved the boy toward his mother who safely caught him. But the motion knocked Maddie completely off balance.

The next thing she knew, she was falling over the edge.

Chapter

TWENTY

M
ADDIE DIDN’T TUMBLE
into the canal.

Just as she toppled over the bridge, a barge loaded with several large vats glided by. David reached the edge of the bridge where Maddie had been standing at the same time her feet ruptured through the plastic cover of one of the vats.

He jumped off the bridge after her, aiming for a flat empty spot on the barge near the vats. The crowd on the bridge hollered instructions. He landed with a hard splat and stumbled to his knees. Quickly, he swung around, and saw Maddie’s head disappear under the rim of the vat.

What was in those containers? Toxic chemicals? Petroleum products? Battery acid?

Adrenaline had him sprinting for the vat. Fear had him praying she was all right. Worry had him ignoring the pain shooting through his right wrist.

He reached the vat, which was taller than he. He clambered atop a stack of wooden pallets beside the vats. With his heart in his throat, he peered inside, not knowing what he would find.

He saw Maddie slowly sinking into a thick tub of raw honey. Honey. Just plain old honey.

“I’ve gotcha, sweetheart.” David grabbed a fistful of Maddie’s hair just before her nose submerged.

She was thrashing around, apparently trying to swim, but there was no swimming in the thick, brown syrup.

“Help!” she sputtered.

“I’m here,” he murmured and their eyes met. He saw relief on her face and felt his corresponding relief relax the tension knotting his gut. “I’m here.”

“Get me out of this before I attract ants.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He tried his best not to laugh.

She tried to swipe honey off her face with a hand thick with the sticky stuff. “Oh bother.”

“Now we know why Winnie the Pooh always says that,” he said.

“Did you see that little boy on the bridge? Can you imagine what would have happened if he’d been the one to fall in here?”

“He would have been all right. You’d have jumped in after him,” David said. “When it comes to protecting other people you’re braver than a firefighter.”

“You think so?”

“Nobody else in that crowd ran to rescue the boy.”

“I don’t think anyone else saw him.”

“Trust you to notice someone in trouble, Miss Mother Hen.”

The two-man barge crew picked that moment to stroll over and investigate the commotion. They helped him pull Maddie from the honey.

The men struggled not to laugh. They kept turning their backs to snigger and chortle, before turning around again and with straight faces offering clean-up suggestions in Italian.

David had to admit that she was a pretty comical sight. Her clothes were plastered to her skin and with every step she took honey rolled off her.

“Don’t you laugh at me, too!” She shook a finger at him and a big blob of sweet goo smacked him squarely in the chest. He had to slap a hand over his mouth to hold back his own laughter.

“It’s not funny,” she growled.

“Yeah, it is.”

“You’re a horrible man, you know that?”

He could tell from the tiny upward pull at the corners of her mouth that she was beginning to see the humor in the situation. “Insult me all you want, sweetheart, I’m the one who pulled your fanny out. Without me, you’d be breathing treacle.”

“So what do you want? A merit badge?”