Murphy's Law (15 page)

Dante laughed and stood up. “Go on down and get her and feed her. She looks like a strong wind would blow her over. I’ll talk to her when she’s rested.”

“Right.” Nick hobbled to the door and opened it.

“Oh, and Nick…”

Nick turned and met Dante’s sober gaze.

“Make sure she sleeps somewhere safe tonight. There’s a murderer on the loose.”

Chapter Nine

Mother Nature is a bitch.

“Faith.”

“Go away Nick,” she said stonily as they both stepped outside the Questura.

“Goddammit!”

Faith looked up in surprise as Nick raked a big, scarred hand through his blue-black hair. He looked angry, which surprised her even more. She had supposed he usually worked out his aggressions on the ice because he always seemed so even-tempered.

Not now. Now he looked tired and exasperated, regretting his precipitous rush over the ocean. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here. With her. Well, no one had asked him to come over. Her spine stiffened. “I told you before, Nick, go away. It was absolutely crazy of you to fly across the Atlantic for me. All that money wasted and you’re probably in the middle of training or something—”

“We train in the fall,” Nick said.

“Whatever.” A limp loop of hair fell over Faith’s eye and she shoved it out of her face. She felt limp all over. “It was ridiculous to come out here just because—”

“I often come over at the end of June, beginning of July. Or else halfway through August. The race is run twice in the summer.”

“Race? What race?”

Nick stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. “The Palio.” At her blank look, he added, “It’s a horse race, but it’s more than a horse race…it’s a way of life. A way of belonging to the city.”

Faith couldn’t imagine what he was talking about, then remembered Leonardo talking about some horse race.

“A family tradition,” he ended lamely. “We all come over, sometimes in July, usually in August. Lou will be over in August and my parents will be, too.”

Nick was interested in horses? Lou was interested in horses? As far as Faith knew, Lou was interested in money, clothes and bullying Nick, their father and any man within a ten-mile radius into doing what she wanted. “I…see.”

“I just came over earlier than I would have anyway.”

Great
, Faith thought as new humiliation washed over her. Nick had slept with her because he’d been drunk and thought she was someone else, and she’d made this big deal out of it. He’d come over to Siena because he came over every year around this time anyway, and she’d made a big deal out of that, too. She was suddenly reminded all over again why she loved math so much.

Numbers weren’t people.

“Listen, Faith—” Nick began, two red spots of color on his high cheekbones.

“No, you listen to me.” Faith had never wanted anything in her life as badly as she wanted to get away from Nick.

Not even getting out of Sophie, Indiana and then getting her PhD had evoked the same yearning in her.

She’d longed for Nick for almost a year, knowing she could never have him. In comparison, getting out of Sophie and getting her PhD had been a piece of cake.

And then she’d landed Nick, briefly and humiliatingly, and all she could think of was how much she longed to toss him back.

She backed away. “Look, I’m tired and stressed, and hungry and thirsty and dirty. I need to get back to—” She broke off as Nick took her arm and marched her down the street. “You’re hurting me,” she said icily.

“I’m not hurting you,” he snapped. “Believe me, if I wanted to hurt you, by God you’d know it.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “If I’m going to be kidnapped, can I at least know where you’re taking me?”

“To eat.” She could actually hear Nick’s teeth grinding. “Not that you deserve being taken care of, or having someone worry about you. God forbid someone care that you look like you’re about ready to faint.” His features were hard, tense.

He was angry.
Fine,
Faith thought, as she stared blindly at the gorgeous shop windows.
Fine. Let him be angry.
She was angry, too.

Nick dug his fingers into her elbow and started limping fast. She had no choice. Thoughts and stomach churning, Faith walked with him, staring blindly at the street scene. Faith didn’t want to look at him, so she looked around and her heart simply melted as she finally
saw
what she’d been looking at.

The world had turned red-gold while she’d been in the Questura. The light was so intense she had to squint her eyes against the crimson sun shedding its dying rays over…perfection.

There was no other word for it. Deep red brick buildings, which were probably golden at high noon, rose straight and high from the cobblestone street. She could hardly take all the gorgeousness in all at once. Marble and stucco casements, wrought iron balconies, friendly green shutters. Swallows wheeled and cried overhead in the dying light.

It was like some impossible film set.

Music,
she thought.
We need some music…
And sure enough, the sounds of someone practicing a piano concerto drifted down from an open window.

Faith stood taking it in, too overwhelmed to think beyond the moment, too tired to move in any direction. Too tired to react when Nick took her arm again.

She just stood there, soaking up the glow, Nick’s tall, broad figure as much a part of the scenery as the earth-colored buildings, the oleander bushes in big terracotta pots with molded angels on the side, the pewter-colored cobblestones and the shafts of bronze sunlight with gilded dust motes dancing in the air.

Faith closed her eyes and savored the gentle evening breeze. Even her eyelids turned golden on the inside. For a moment, she felt an elemental connection with everything—the hand-made cobbles, the warm wind on her cheeks, the glow of the sun so strong it almost had weight. The hard, warm hand at her elbow.

For an instant, she imagined herself one of the swallows wheeling overhead. Imagined the freedom, whirling and banking over this lovely city…

“Come on,” Nick said. “Let’s go.”

And just like that, she snapped back to reality. Back to a foreign country, back to the thought of a dead man someone she knew had killed, back to her deepest humiliation.

Nick had come for her because he felt guilty.

Sweet Nick.

He was incredibly tough on the ice, slashing and hacking his way through his opponents at thirty-five miles an hour, slicing over the ice like a fury. A ruthless and canny adversary, he had what the sports reporters called simply “the edge”. That extra something that men who went into war and survived had.

Off the ice, he was a perfectly normal man, if you didn’t count the fact that the many years spent playing hockey to the exclusion of anything else besides chasing skirts had left him a little…uninformed.

He was larger and stronger and tougher than most men, but he was a real softie when it came to his family. Lou and his mother rode roughshod over him. Even his father could get him to do anything.

And somehow she’d fallen into the category of family for him. All those evenings out with Lou and Nick and Rossi friends, tagging along in the background, watching Nick with the hockey groupie
du jour
, had turned her into wallpaper.

Rossi wallpaper.

So much in the background that, for Nick, she’d somehow become a female family member who needed looking after.

Nick was loyal to his family. Of course he’d be appalled at what he’d done. Which was only fair, since Faith was appalled at what
she’d
done.

Not that she hadn’t enjoyed it.

She pulled away and started walking. She didn’t even know in which direction she was supposed to go, but anywhere away from Nick sounded good.

He hobbled along beside her and she stepped up the pace.

Nick grabbed her elbow again in an unshakable grip. “Hold on. I can’t keep up,” he gritted, and Faith felt guilty.

She also felt angry and sad and lost, but right now guilty prevailed. With a huge sigh, she slowed her pace and he dropped his hand.

“I didn’t know where I was going anyway,” she confessed.

“Doesn’t make any difference. You just follow the road. All the streets lead to where we’re going.”

Faith blinked, momentarily diverted from her misery.
All the streets lead to where we’re going.
It was an interesting topological concept. Were they on a Moebius strip?

Faith matched her pace to Nick’s as they turned left into a busier street. Nick was slow, too slow. He’d always had some injury or another in the year she’d known him. He’d shown up splinted, bandaged or strapped up so often she’d lost count.

But he was also a fast healer and, once the cast or the bandage came off, he was as good as new. If he was still limping, maybe something was seriously wrong.

She stopped herself from fretting. She didn’t want to wonder and she didn’t want to worry about him.
To hell with him.
She moved off.

“Hold it.” Nick pulled her to a stop and Faith glanced at him in surprise.

They were on what seemed to pass for a main street in Siena, though there weren’t any cars.

There had been no cars at all, she realized. They’d meandered down a narrow, cobble-stoned street filled with people and plants, the loudest sound that of kids playing street ball, then had turned left onto this broader street with gorgeous shops, cool and secret courtyards, mysterious ten-foot high wooden doors like the entrance to heaven.

Nick had stopped her at the corner of what looked like a dark alley angling off down to the right.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered, and Faith stepped back.

“Nick,” she murmured warily.

But Nick looked perfectly normal, not crazed with lust, and certainly not drunk.

“Close them. It’s a surprise.”

In spite of all that had happened, somewhere deep inside she trusted him. She closed her eyes and felt Nick’s warm, large hand clasp hers. He tugged and she stiffened.

“Come on,” he said coaxingly. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

You already did
, Faith thought, and stepped haltingly forward.

He turned them right, into the dark alleyway. The golden light seeping through her eyelids vanished and the air was noticeably cooler. Unexpectedly, the cobblestones beneath her feet slanted and she lost her footing for a moment.

“Steady there,” Nick said and put an arm around her for a moment. She hated the unstoppable thrill that shot through her heart at his touch, and straightened away from him.

The road angled downward in broad shallow steps and they walked in silence. After a minute or two, she obeyed Nick’s tug on her waist and stopped.

“Okay now,” he said, his voice serious. His hand dropped away. “You can look. And be prepared.”

Prepared for what?
Puzzled, Faith opened her eyes and stared. And stared.

The alleyway was steep and narrow and dark, with high walls rising on either side, and at the end of the alleyway…

Like a painting,
she thought, dazzled. Framed by the walls of the alleyway, the cobblestones and the cobalt blue sky overhead.

She moved slowly forward and the vista opened up more magically with each step. The square was bathed in intense light, the contrast with the dark alleyway making the colors even more vivid.

The square was shell-shaped, the exact shape it would have if God were to hold it in his cupped hands. It was made of rose-red brick, as were the buildings ringing it.

Circling the
piazza
was a ring of tawny earth, like a ring of gold. People were walking along it. Every once in a while, someone would stoop and gather a handful, as of gold dust.

It seemed impossible that such a large space could be so seamlessly beautiful, that there could be a place in the world where nothing was ugly or unsightly.

After a moment or two, Faith realized she’d stopped breathing. She sucked in warm, golden air and let it slowly out. Her breath hitched.

“Yeah.”

Faith turned. Impossibly, she’d even forgotten Nick’s presence beside her. “It’s, it’s…” She shook her head sharply, as if to loosen words up, but none came.

“Yeah.” The corner of Nick’s mouth went up in a half smile. His eyes lifted over her head to the square beyond. “I’ve seen it every year of my life and it still makes an impact. It’s in every Sienese’s blood. It’s the center of the city and the center of their lives. Come on in.”

She didn’t need his hand at her back to move forward. The square beckoned like Oz.

Nick would have smiled at Faith’s amazement if he hadn’t felt so bad.

He’d been showing the
Piazza del Campo
off all his life and it always gave him a lift, particularly the view from the alleyway they were on, the
Chiasso del Bargello
. The view of the
piazza
had to be seen to be believed. For most Americans, it was right off the radar.

He was grateful Faith’s astonishment made her forget she was mad at him. He hated seeing that get-out-of-my-sight expression on her face. It was only now that things had changed that he realized how much he craved her looking at him with her usual…what? Approval? Admiration? This past year he’d gotten used to having her around. She was funny, smart, easy to be with. They joked a lot and she was great company. He wanted things back the way they were. Damn it, he wanted
her
back the way she was.

Well, he was the one who had made this mess, so he was the one who was going to have to clean it up. Starting now.

The cobblestones were a little uneven and Faith wasn’t able to watch her feet because what she was seeing was so fascinating. She kept swiveling her head around on that long, slim neck of hers and stumbling over her own feet.

Nick gently took her upper arm and steered her down into the square and onto the
terra
, the dirt made of ground tufa stone that comprised the track for the Palio. When the horses weren’t running trial heats, the track was filled with people and tables and chairs from the bars and restaurants ringing the
piazza
.