Trusting a Stranger (12 page)

If he hadn't realised that Ethan was behind him, then why had he been driving so erratically?

Overcome with fury — his child was missing, and this man was certainly responsible — Ethan seized Tomasi by the collar of his dark and expensive suit.

‘Fancy meeting you here,' Tomasi said, barely bothering to struggle.

‘Step back!' Ethan called to Hayley who was standing too close by, one hand raised over her mouth in horror. Another expression passed over her face too. What was it? Confusion?

Then with one quick move, Ethan turned his hand into a fist and used it to break his former brother-in-law's nose.

‘Where is she?' he demanded brutally.

Tomasi looked up at him from the space in the dirt where he had stumbled. He wiped his hand across his face and winced. Then he looked down at the blood on his fingers and winced again.

‘If I hadn't already decided to kill you, I'd kill you just for this,' he vowed.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' Hayley told him as she approached. ‘Give me your keys.'

Tomasi looked from her to Ethan.

‘Well, well, well. Hayley Wolfe. Wedding photographer,' he slurred. There was a distinct note of disdain in his voice that made Ethan want to hit him again. Who was he to put Hayley down for the way she earned her living?

‘You're actually working for Ethan MacDonald?' Tomasi continued. ‘That's clever, Ethan. Unexpected. More my sort of speciality. How did you manage that?'

‘Your keys,' Hayley repeated. She was ignoring Tomasi's question.

Ethan rested his foot over the fallen man's throat. Tomasi's fingers closed around his ankle but he made no further move. His neck would break if Ethan pressed down. Ethan could see by the expression in his eyes that he was just as aware of that as he was.

‘We need to check his boot,' Hayley said.

His boot. Of course.

Ethan went cold as he considered the possibility that Katy could be in there. It was so horrifying he hadn't allowed himself even to imagine that until now.

‘Give Hayley your keys,' he told the fallen man.

Blood was running from his nose into his mouth and it was a gruesome sight to see him smiling through it. ‘They're in my pocket,' Tomasi said.

Ethan paused to reach into his holster and pull out his gun. He was just aware of Hayley's eyes widening in shock.

‘Let Hayley reach them out of your pocket. One false move and I'll shoot,' Ethan said.

Tomasi shuffled to one side on the dirt and let Hayley reach over and feel around inside his pocket for the keys. He rolled his eyes back with mock pleasure as her fingers moved next to him.

The expression sickened Ethan until his gun shook slightly. At least, with his eyes shut, Tomasi couldn't see that.

‘Here they are,' said Hayley, standing.

She pointed the keys towards the car and pressed the release catch for the boot as she ran towards it.

‘It's empty,' she called back to Ethan.

His gun still trained on his enemy, Ethan took a step closer. He had to see for himself.

Hayley was right. Katy was not in the boot either.

He didn't know whether to be relieved about that or panicked. The two emotions tore at him. At least Katy had not been through that particular indignity and fear and discomfort.

On the other hand, where was she?

Tomasi was coughing as he stumbled out of the dirt and to his feet. His expensive suit would never be the same.

‘Where is she?' Ethan demanded again.

Tomasi raised both hands as though to emphasise that he was not armed.

‘I've been following the man who has her,' he said, between splutters. ‘He got away. We need to sit down and talk.'

***

Hayley ordered espressos for all of them and carried them back to the
trattoria
table that Tomasi had led them to in Montepulciano's main piazza. It seemed fitting to be having this conversation in an area that had been the meeting place of the town for centuries.

The occasion had increased the awful aura of unreality that she had been operating under for hours now. Hayley couldn't believe that she was here, after everything that had happened, without having slept, wearing the same clothes that she had worn yesterday. The nearby
Duomo
towered over them, its very architecture looking at once grand and threatening.

She really needed this coffee.

Tomasi and Ethan looked like they needed the caffeine, too. Hayley hated to include them in the same thought. She couldn't believe that she had once trusted Alvaro Tomasi enough to come here on his assignment. He was an evil and malicious man. Seeing him beside Ethan only heightened the contrast between the two. Both were big and dark haired, but Ethan had that clear face and open expression about his eyes that spoke volumes for his honesty and suffering.

The two men both had dark shadows beneath their eyes. Enemies, they fell onto the coffees Hayley ordered like a couple of wild animals over a carcass. She wondered if they would go for water at the ancient
cisterna
well after this, or order it like civilised people.

Tomasi's eyes were shadowed as black as the coffee he drank. Was it possible that he hadn't slept either?

Hayley sipped her own drink more delicately and tried to step back to view this situation more objectively. She couldn't assume that Tomasi was all evil just because he was so ugly compared to Ethan. No one would come out seeming honourable if the requirement was to be as attractive as Ethan MacDonald. But she had to remember that, contrary to what they had thought, Tomasi hadn't had Katy with him.

And he looked exhausted. As though he needed sleep as much as Ethan and Hayley did. It didn't seem like the sleeping habits of an evil man in the midst of acting out some terrible plan. Not to mention that he looked as worried about where Katy was as Ethan.

‘Let me get this straight,' Ethan was saying as she took her seat.

He looked up as he spoke and Hayley understood that this part of the conversation was for her benefit.

‘You followed this man, Ivan, to the school,' Ethan recapped. ‘You'd had a tip that he knew where Katy was. You sent Pearl in to get her, but Katy ran away from you in the car park and was seized by this Ivan fellow?'

Tomasi had the decency to look awkward as this embarrassing tale was told.

Hayley continued to regard him sceptically. ‘What sort of evil villain are you?' she asked.

‘What would you know?' Tomasi fired back.

‘Enough. You're not a very good one,' Hayley observed.

She needed another coffee already. She needed a change of clothes. Feeling grotty and tired in a place like this was doing nothing for her mood.

‘A bit clumsy, I'd say,' she suggested

‘That sort of talk gets us nowhere,' said Tomasi. ‘What do you think, Ethan?'

Ethan looked exhausted. Hayley's heart went out to him. She thought about how awful it must feel to not know where your own child was, but she couldn't even begin to imagine it.

‘I think that maybe Hayley has a point,' Ethan said. ‘You can't be a very good kidnapper if your victim makes such as easy escape.'

‘I meant: what do you think of my plan?' Tomasi asked.

‘I think you killed my wife. Why should I listen to anything else you might say?'

‘You think I killed Erica?' Tomasi sounded astonished. ‘You can't be serious.'

Hayley found herself looking at him more closely. His eyebrows were raised, the whites of his eyes showing.

Could he be as good an actor as he would need to be to fake an expression like that, or had Ethan been mistaken about him all these years?

‘You're trying to tell me you didn't?' Ethan asked.

Hayley rested her hand on his thigh and gave his leg a gentle squeeze.

The message was meant to be for him to look at her. She wanted him to realise that she believed Tomasi. Ethan didn't look at her. His leg was firm beneath his jeans, the muscles that rippled through it firm and clenched.

‘She was my sister!' Tomasi exclaimed. His face was red with fury, the dark whiskers speckled over it erect with tension.

‘She was my wife!'

‘I didn't think you killed her!' Tomasi yelled.

‘You had no reason to say that!'

The two men were leaning together over the little
trattoria
table as though they wanted to break it in half between them.

‘I did not kill my sister,' Tomasi said in a low voice, as he suddenly backed off.

Hayley had to admit that she didn't blame him for the retreat. Ethan MacDonald, aroused in anger, was a fearsome sight. She doubted she would be able to stand her ground against the force that radiated as much from his dark eyes as from the set of his broad shoulders and the thickening whiteness of his knuckles.

‘Someone killed her,' Ethan said.

‘I live for my family. Why do you think having custody of Katy matters to me?' Tomasi demanded, as if wanting control over a girl when her father was still alive were the most reasonable thing in the world.

Ethan leaned back slightly. The full implication of this seemed to be striking him for the first time. Hayley felt herself longing to reach out for him. How much worse must his suffering be, if he didn't know who his enemy was?

‘I loved my sister,' Tomasi continued at last.

‘This doesn't make sense,' Hayley said.

She surprised herself by speaking as she formed the thoughts but Ethan looked too stunned for speech and it seemed one of them had to regain control of the situation.

The two men were both looking at her now.

‘What doesn't make sense?' demanded Tomasi, with a glowering look that clearly meant he thought she had some nerve trying to be part of the conversation.

‘Someone killed Erica,' Hayley said. ‘If it wasn't you, then who?'

She looked from Tomasi to Ethan, watching him as his skin blanched.

‘Ivan Vasilovich?' Ethan asked Tomasi.

Slowly, very slowly, Tomasi nodded his head.

‘Ivan has Katy now?'

Tomasi's nodding continued.

Ethan looked as though he was about to pass out. Instantly, Hayley had realised how critical this news was. Because, although Ethan had believed that Tomasi wanted Katy, it had only ever been an issue of custody and of not wanting to see her under the influence of a man he thought was evil.

He had never thought Alvaro Tomasi might want to hurt Katy. But whoever this Ivan Vasilovich was, he could really be dangerous.

‘Erica's death was meant to look like an accident,' Tomasi said. ‘Vasilovich is a long-time family rival. He wanted to send a warning to the Tomasis. I don't think he cared who he took out.'

Ethan flinched.

‘But Erica,' her brother continued, ‘with all her dangerous hobbies, was, I suppose, the easiest target.'

‘What sort of brother would let this happen?' Ethan demanded, suddenly.

The other man looked taken aback. ‘What sort of husband?' he demanded.

‘Don't go there!' Ethan insisted.

Hayley looked from one man to the other. ‘If you want Ethan to co-operate you shouldn't push that line,' she observed.

Tomasi shrugged. ‘You might be smarter than you look. You'll be a great loss,' he said before turning his attention towards Ethan. ‘You haven't exactly been helping,' he observed.

‘Do you know where Ivan might be taking her?' asked Hayley.

Tomasi looked back her. ‘As it happens, Hayley Wolfe, I do have an idea.'

‘Where?' demanded Ethan.

‘A couple of ideas,' Tomasi corrected himself.

‘Where are they?' amended Ethan.

‘I'm glad you followed me,' Tomasi said. There was a smile playing around his mouth now. Beneath the nose that was still smeared with blood and now also starting to swell, the expression looked absolutely evil. ‘Perhaps we can work together.'

Ethan looked like he would rather work with the devil. Or, more specifically, he looked as though the devil were right now making just such a suggestion.

‘Listen to him, Ethan,' said Hayley. ‘Alvaro knows something that we don't.'

‘Listen to her,' Tomasi echoed, mildly.

The expression he shot Hayley was hard to work out. All she knew for sure was that she was going to have to be very, very careful around this man. Both now and in the future.

Ethan brushed the fingers of one hand through his hair. ‘All right,' he said. ‘I'll listen. What is it you want to say?'

Tomasi was regarding the two of them terribly coldly. Hayley was aware more than ever that, although Tomasi had said he had not killed Erica, that loyalty he felt towards his sister and niece did not extend to her. She remembered everything Ethan had told her about how Tomasi would seek revenge against people who deceived him — and she remembered how it had felt to be shot at. She remembered Pearl MacDonald's shattered appearance and drug-ravaged eyes on Ethan's DVD player.

This was not a man to take lightly no matter how mistaken Ethan might have been about Erica.

‘On past history,' Tomasi was saying, ‘I think one of the places Vasilovich is most likely to take Katy is near my house.'

‘Well, let's go there,' said Ethan.

He looked as though he was about to stand. Tomasi did not follow.

‘You said that was one of the places?' asked Hayley.

Tomasi nodded. ‘Ivan also has a place down near Naples,' he said. This is according to my latest sources. What I thought might be sensible is if I go back to my place in case they are there, and you head down south.'

‘He's more likely to be at your place, you mean?' asked Ethan.

Tomasi pressed his fingertips together and nodded. ‘I suspect that might be the case. However, both places need checking and at least you know that if I have Katy, she will be safe.'

‘I'm not sure.' Ethan paused, frowning.

‘No?'