Trusting a Stranger (19 page)

‘I'm sure your father's is,' Hayley agreed diplomatically, as she remembered the meal she and Ethan had cooked together a few days ago. If their luck held out they would be back in his villa and preparing to eat by late tonight.

They all ordered hamburgers and sat at one of the large, round tables near the door.

‘I want to keep an eye on who comes in,' Ethan explained.

Katy was eyeing a row of different pastry-filled desserts and ice cream.

‘They look good, don't they?' Hayley asked her.

‘I want you to eat your hamburger first,' Ethan added. ‘We have a long way to go today and I don't want you getting hungry too quickly.'

‘I'm eating it,' Katy said, with her mouth full.

Hayley leaned towards her, as if conspiratorially. ‘I'll get you a gelato afterwards. Would you like that?'

Katy nodded.

‘Would you like a fruity flavour, or chocolate?'

‘Um… Maybe fruit.'

‘Or there's vanilla or caramel or…'

Katy swallowed and laughed a little as she looked from Hayley to her father and back again.

‘What is it?' asked Hayley, mystified.

For a moment, Ethan almost looked embarrassed.

‘Daddy said you're very nice but that sometimes you ask too many questions,' Katy explained, still laughing.

‘Did you really say that?' demanded Hayley of Ethan.

Katy pointed at her and laughed louder.

‘What's funny?' asked Hayley, and then the truth dawned on her and she laughed, too.

Katy pulled her games machine out of her pocket and turned it towards the gelato, shooting a photo that captured it in all its cool creamy rows of pastel colour and promise. She continued to shoot as Ethan ordered a cone for her but it was that first photo that most impressed Hayley when Katy passed the device to her to look at.

‘You need to pay attention to this,' she said to Ethan. ‘I think Katy might be a gifted photographer.'

‘It is good,' Ethan agreed, looking at the image as he began walking back to the car.

He passed the device back to Katy who flipped it open and passed it to the gelato sales assistant.

‘Will you take a photo of all of us?' she asked.

The sales assistant did a point-and-click and passed it back.

‘See?' said Katy, looking at the picture. ‘We look like a family. I knew we would.'

Ethan pressed the keychain button to open the car doors and his face was hidden from view as he helped Katy into the car. Hayley tried to work out what he might be thinking. That she, Hayley, had intruded too much into his family, if Katy was having fantasies like that? That he needed to take steps to prevent Katy from forming too close a bond with a woman who could never be any more than a friend to either of them? That he had been foolish in allowing the two of them to form a bond, however new it might be, given what a hopeless role model Hayley must be?

But Ethan said nothing. He fastened Katy back into her booster seat and crossed to the driver's door.

Katy looked up at Hayley. ‘You have water in your eye,' she noticed. ‘Have you been crying?'

Hayley touched her eye with her fingertips. ‘I don't cry,' she said.

Ethan opened his door, looking across at her. Hayley didn't like this kind of attention.

‘You sure you don't want me to take over driving for a while?' she asked.

Ethan shook his head. ‘I'm sure that today I'd be a lousy passenger,' he said.

Hayley looked around them for other diners returning to their cars, for cars following them onto the road. There was a group of teenagers with loud voices whose car had been left with its window down and was soon blaring out very loud music. There was a family that seemed to have about six children, all pouring into a car that was far too small. There was an elderly man whose hesitation in crossing the car park suggested alarming things about his driving skill, and his even older, frail-looking wife.

‘No one I can see looks like they'd be tailing us,' Hayley observed.

Ethan checked Katy over his shoulder as he reversed out of the spot.

‘They won't all be as obvious as those goons we saw earlier,' he said.

When they were out on the road, Ethan pulled his new mobile phone out of his pocket and passed it to Hayley.

‘There's a hands-free kit at your feet,' he said. ‘Would you plug it in for me and dial Pearl for me?'

‘Do you know her number?'

‘She has my phone,' Ethan reminded her.

He checked that Hayley had plugged the headset in properly and pushed the buds into his ears as Hayley pressed the buttons he called.

Hayley watched as he waited for the phone to be answered. He had asked Pearl not to sell his phone. She had been horrified at the time that a brother could even think his gift might be used like that. But then, she had never had a brother. And Pearl had an addiction that needed feeding.

Ethan had so few people in his life. Hayley hoped against hope that his sister wouldn't let him down again.

‘Hello? Pearl?' asked Ethan, eventually.

From her seat all Hayley could make out was a voice. But it was a female one. Hayley sighed in relief.

‘How are you?' Ethan asked. ‘Yes, I know it's very hard… Can I tell you where I'm going…? Of course I haven't always distrusted you, Pearl. Things haven't exactly been clear over the past little while, have they?'

Ethan was silent for a long moment that seemed to be echoed on the other end of the phone line. Then Hayley heard the faint sound of distance sobs. Pearl obviously had no difficulty shedding tears.

‘Oh, Pearl, don't be like that,' Ethan said. Hayley could tell from the whitening of his hands on the steering wheel that he was gripping it very tightly. That he was moved. ‘I know how hard drying out can be. No, I'm not going to tell you where I am. But I'll tell you this: get to my place, get there on your own, no wires, no drugs, no funny business, and I'll make sure someone lets you in and makes sure you have everything you need. Deal?'

The crying seemed to change in intensity. Pearl murmured a few more sentences then Ethan said goodbye and pressed the headset button that would disconnect the call.

‘I wish I had a brother like you,' said Hayley, looking at him admiringly.

‘I don't think Pearly quite sees it that way.' Ethan stared out the window. He had not relaxed his grip even when the phone call seemed to have reached a satisfactory conclusion.

‘Why not?' asked Hayley.

‘She's the older sibling,' Ethan told her. ‘Older by quite a few years. It must have seemed to her that the MacDonald money was going to be hers until I came along.'

‘I see.' Hayley looked down at her fingernails. At the moment they were running from Tomasi but their immediate goal would not always be so obvious. In the future, Ethan would need to know who he could trust. So it seemed imperative that they work out who had betrayed him this time.

‘Do you think she might have resented that enough to sell your secrets?' she asked.

‘The truth is, with Pearl it's seemed anything's possible,' Ethan said. ‘It's not her; it's the drugs. If she had inherited the family money, she would have injected it all by now. Would you mind dialling another number?'

***

As he recited his boss's phone number, Ethan considered how useful it was to have Hayley with him. There were so many things that a man couldn't do properly on his own. How strange that he had never really considered this before.

Ryan would be surprised to receive a phone call at his secret number from an unauthorised source but Ethan had taken care to ensure his new phone could not be linked to him, and thought he was on fairly safe ground.

He continued to check behind him as the phone rang in his ears. It had been some hours now since he had last seen one of Tomasi's men. This made him nervous if anything. Tomasi had to be planning something, and the more it became one thing that he was relying on, the bigger that one thing was likely to be.

There was no answer on Ryan's phone.

Ethan slapped the steering wheel in frustration. The phone number he had tried to ring was one that only their investigating team knew. It was one that should be answered if one of them rang, day or night.

Why hadn't Ryan answered it?

There was any number of reasons, of course. Ryan might have programmed a setting to his phone that meant only calls from the numbers he knew received a must-answer ring. He certainly wouldn't know that it was Ethan calling, let alone that the matter was urgent.

He might even be in the shower. It could be as simple as that. What Ethan had to do was wait for a return phone call and drive. And drive.

‘Are we there yet?' asked Katy from the back seat.

Hayley stirred beside him. With the sunlight pouring in through the passenger window, she had dozed off. She turned to Ethan, her eyebrows sleepily raised with a curiosity that matched Katy's.

‘Not too long now,' Ethan promised. ‘Half an hour or so and we should be in sight of Siena.'

It was what was going to happen between now and then that he wasn't sure of. There were still no signs of Tomasi's men, although Tomasi must be out there.

He reached the end of the
Autostrada
and made the turn off towards home. Ten minutes later, the first shot rang out.

Hayley span in her seat as the car veered out on the road. Hayley clutched at her camera case. Who could be shooting a rifle in a place like this? They were surrounded by other vehicles! And they had Katy in the car!

Ethan swore under his breath and turned suddenly.

‘Katy, you okay?' he asked.

Hayley turned to check, too. Katy had her headphones in. She did not seem to have heard the shot, but she had felt the sudden veering of the car. In response, she had dropped her game console to the floor and was clinging onto the side of her booster seat. Her face was white, her mouth a wide, dry line.

There was another shot.

‘Wind your window down,' Ethan instructed.

Hayley gazed at him until he felt her confusion. Right now, that window was the only thing between her and the outside world that suddenly seemed very dangerous.

‘A bullet will get through anyway,' he said. ‘We don't also want to have to deal with broken glass.'

There was another shot. With her window down, this time Hayley could hear that it was accompanied by the sound of yelling. Someone, somewhere, was being told off, very emphatically.

Ethan smiled grimly.

‘What do you think is going on?' Hayley asked.

‘One of Tomasi's men got a bit trigger happy,' Ethan said. ‘We're going to be okay, Katy. That will be an end to it.'

There was another gunshot as he spoke, but this one was dim and distant.

‘Tomasi won't want the car in danger while we've got you, Katy,' Ethan continued. ‘He'll be furious at whoever started that.'

Then he looked at Hayley. ‘That will be the random shooter sorted.'

‘You mean…' Hayley asked, barely able to believe that someone had been murdered some place that was close enough for them to hear it.

Ethan nodded grimly.

‘You know, there's something I don't understand,' Hayley said. ‘Ivan was working with Tomasi, right?'

‘He must have been. There's no other explanation.'

‘But he already had Katy. Why did he send us down to Naples?'

‘Because he wanted to keep Katy,' Ethan said. ‘He knows I'd never let that happen.' They were on a straight stretch of road. He turned to her for a moment. ‘I never would let it happen, Hayley. That's just one more reason for Tomasi to want me dead.'

‘I still don't understand what Ivan had to do with it.'

‘He was to be the assassin. Tomasi would be far away and have a watertight alibi.'

‘But why not keep Katy with him?'

‘We weren't meant to find her at that house,' Ethan said. ‘Though I'm certain that we were meant to find her somewhere. She was the bait in the trap.'

‘She could have seen you being killed. I can't believe that her uncle would want her to witness something as terrible as that.'

‘That's because you can't understand the way his mind works. Of course you can't. Alvaro Tomasi is a wicked and evil man. But maybe the rest of his family will be different.'

‘They were willing to use us as pawns.'

‘I know. It's not promising. But there's still a chance.'

‘What sort of chance?'

‘We'll, we don't know for sure that Primo Tomasi actually wants us dead.'

‘It sure feels like that's what he wants.'

‘I'm not pretending he cares,' Ethan agreed. ‘I'm just saying… I'm not sure he actually wants us dead. That might just be Alvaro. But I'm sure Primo wants Alvaro dead.'

‘That's our chance, then. If we defeat Alvaro, Primo could think we've done him a favour.'

‘It's a chance.'

‘There is no possible peace to make with Alvaro?'

‘He wants Katy. He wants to bring her up in the ways of the Tomasi family. I can never let that happen.'

Hayley nodded. ‘I know. He was happy for Katy to see you being killed!'

‘I believe so. Yes.'

‘But she would hate him for it.'

‘She would never even blame him for it, Hayley. She's very young, and he wasn't there. If she ever discovered the truth, by then she would have been thoroughly part of his family and would understand.'

Hayley looked over her shoulder at Katy, who was asleep in the back seat. She found herself shivering at the idea that someone would want to corrupt the little girl's innocence.

‘I can hardly believe it,' she said.

Ethan shook his head. ‘I can understand that,' he said. ‘But you have to believe it, Hayley. It's the only explanation that makes sense.'