Dead By Dusk (6 page)

There was no answer.

Stephanie stepped past him. The place was similar to her own, just smaller.

She walked on into the living room.

“I'll look upstairs,” Suzette murmured.

Stephanie wandered on into the little kitchenette area. She turned, aware that Clay Barton was standing in the middle of the living room or parlor area, his head slightly bowed. He stood so strangely, as if he were listening, or . . .

As if he saw himself as some kind of psychic. As if he were trying to
feel
or
envision
what might have taken place in the room.

He looked up, as if he had been aware she was watching him.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Pardon?” he said politely.

Stephanie opened her mouth to speak, but words never left her lips.

From upstairs, Suzette let out a bloodcurdling scream.

“
Eh! Americano!
”

Grant Peterson looked up. He'd been painstakingly brushing away the dirt atop a centuries-old skeleton. The brush was almost as small as a kid's kindergarten watercolor brush. The task required tremendous patience. The area in which he worked had been roped off by the real archeologists, the fellows who knew what they were doing.

It was a woman's skeleton. Some of the scholars were convinced that they had found the remains of a legendary countess. But Carlo Ponti, head of the excavations at the site, so recently unearthed by a minor earthquake, was not convinced.

“So far, with the bits and pieces of fabric left . . . I don't think that these are the remains of such a woman,” Carlo said. “I believe we will discover that we have found a peasant. I do think that these remains will prove that a legendary battle was fought, and that the stories told beyond the history books will be verified. The ground shifted, as it reportedly did centuries ago. To those poor people, it brought death. To us, it brings a treasure of knowledge.”

Carlo walked toward him now, a jacket casually thrown over his shoulder. “
Americano
! Come on. We're calling it quits for the day. The road is nice and clear. We'll go into the town and have a real cooked meal and some drinks.”

Grant stood, arching a brow, gesturing to the dirt that covered him.

“So, shower quickly. We'll be on our way in.”

“It's all right. Go in without me,” Grant said.

Carlo walked to the tape surrounding the ground where Grant worked. “Go—alone? With my German comrade Heinrich and the Swiss, Jacques? No, no, no. They are too serious. They know nothing but the earth and history. I want to hear music, and talk about movies. We'll go see the new club. I want to see the young ladies who will be working at the new club. The two who were stuck out here with the rocks in the road, eh?”

Grant shook his head. “You're a lascivious old fart, Carlo,” he told the renowned archeologist. Carlo grinned. Actually, he was in his early fifties, and had a bearded, rustic kind of easy charm. He loved his work, but his every move was not dead serious, or geared in only one direction. He loved archeology because he loved history because he loved people, and what made them tick.

“
Sì
, let's go look at live women, eh? Besides, the forensic anthropologists arrive tomorrow, and they will likely not want much more dirt gone before they take their photos, yes? Take a shower, and let's go. Dusk is coming quick. And I've been eating from cans cooked over a fire and sleeping in a tent too long, even for me.
Andiamo
!”

Grant hesitated. He should really be staying out of the town. He didn't know for certain, but he was pretty sure that
la bella direttrice
of the new
teatro americano
was Stephanie. He'd had no idea when he signed on here as an amateur volunteer that he and Steph might wind up in the same place, but when he had arrived and heard about the resort, the club, and the theatre, he had learned almost immediately that it was owned by an Italian-American named Victoria Reggia, and once he knew that, it was an educated assumption that Reggie would have brought Steph in on the project.

Steph, he was certain, had taken on the project to get out of Chicago—and away from him. He wasn't at all sure how he could prove that he had made his plans the day she had walked out—way ahead of her own. And if he tried to explain that he'd felt as if he'd been waiting all his life for this particular opportunity, she'd think he was in a stranger state than she had apparently considered him to be in when she left.

Maybe the new woman wasn't Steph.

Bull. Had to be, if Reggie owned the place.

But what the hell. Maybe she wouldn't be around. And he couldn't spend the next months refusing to go into town. Stephanie was going to have to believe whatever she chose.

“Grant?” Carlo said. “Are you all right?”

He wasn't. A fierce pain had suddenly snaked throughout his limbs, gripping them with tension. Everything that had happened with Steph had been torture, just as it was a constant agony now to wonder just what the hell was wrong with him, why he was here, and why he had all but thrown away the person who had meant more than anything in the world to him. A woman who was beautiful, sensual, evocative, intelligent, fun, and richly talented.

“Grant?”

“Yeah, sorry, daydreaming, I guess. About the bones, that's all,” Grant said.

Carlo shook his head with patient tolerance. “Grant,
mio amico
—if you must daydream, make it about living women, eh? So—we go?”

“Sure. Give me a few minutes.”

Daydream about living women . . .

Bizarre. There was something about the dig. He felt as if he could unearth the bones, an entire section of history, a moment in time. Patience here had been difficult. He couldn't help that really strange feeling that if he really kept at it, searched and tore into the dirt, he'd have the answer he was so desperately seeking.

Problem was, he didn't even know the question.

 

 

“What, good God! What?” Stephanie cried, heading quickly for the stairs.

There seemed to be a pounding from all around as the lot of them joined Suzette where she stood, just inside the doorway of Gema's bedroom.

“It's a roach the size of Texas! I didn't know that they even got roaches in Italy!” Suzette said, horrified.

Her words were greeted by silence as those around her stared at one another, not sure whether to laugh, strangle Suzette, or simply be relieved.

“Where?” Arturo said with quiet dignity at last. “Naturally, we have a great deal of foliage, we are by the seaside. We are very, very clean . . . but upon occasion, an insect will make its way inside.”

“Roaches are survivors. Older than dinosaurs, I believe,” Clay said, a spark of amusement in his eyes. He was standing slightly in front of her. She could have sworn that he had been behind her as she came flying up the stairs.

“Suzette, you dip!” Lena let out suddenly. “You scared us all to death! My heart is still racing a million miles an hour. I thought that you'd . . . that you'd . . .”

“She thought you'd found Gema—splat on the floor,” Drew said, grinning impishly.

“Drew, that's horrible!” Lena protested.

“Oh, come on!” Drew said. “It would be horrible if we had found Gema . . . hurt. Or worse,” Drew said. “But she's not here. That much is evident.”

Clay Barton went striding past them all to the closet. He swung the doors open.

They were all silent again as they stared in.

The closet was empty.

Suzette let out a long breath. “Well . . . there you have it. She's gone.”

“But . . . but . . . she just walked out!” Arturo exclaimed, incredulous and outraged.

“Apparently,” Drew said. “The bright lights of Rome and all, you know.”

“I didn't know her,” Stephanie said, looking at Arturo, and then the group. “Would she really have done such a thing?”

“I have to admit, I didn't think she would,” Doug said. He shrugged. “She talked a lot. She is good-looking, and she certainly has balls, if you know what I mean. She's the type who intends to make it. But . . . well, we all knew where we were going when we took the job, so I really thought that all of her talk was just that . . . talk.”

“I don't know. It doesn't really surprise me,” Suzette said. “I mean, think about it, Lena. It's not that I dislike Gema, mind you—she can be really funny—but she was that . . . well, type. I mean, you wouldn't trust her, really, with anything terribly important. And if I had a boyfriend or husband, well, quite frankly, I wouldn't trust her in the room with him for five minutes! Lena, you know that I'm right. Okay, come on, really, think about it. When women have friends, they have good friends, people they trust. And then they have friends like Gema, who kind of move to their own tune. They can be friendly as hell, but you know that they don't really have the same ethics or feelings, or whatever and . . . oh, quit staring at me like that! I know that you all know what I mean. She thought she could better herself by leaving, so she left. For her, it wasn't a bad thing to do.”

“But not to even mention it?” Stephanie asked.

Suzette shrugged.

“Well, I'd like to know that she's really all right,” Stephanie said.

Arturo sniffed. “The closet is empty.”

“Let's take a look around anyway, just make sure that we don't see anything funny, huh?” Stephanie said.

“Funny?” Drew said, arching a brow. “Like what?”

“Like blood on the floor,” Lena said.

“My God, no!” Suzette cried.

“Suzette, we're not going to find blood on the floor,” Stephanie said, but a strange unease filled her.

Suzette let out another little squeal.

“Suzette, really, we're just looking for a note or something—” Stephanie began.

“No, no, it's the roach again. Moving! There, on the wall!”

Clay Barton strode across the room, picked up a tourist magazine from the dresser top, and whacked the roach.

“Ugh!” Suzette said.

“Hey, he just did the manly thing. The roach is dead,” Doug told her impatiently.

“Dead as a doorknob!” Drew added cheerfully.

“Yes, it's still ugh!” Suzette said.

Clay shook his head and walked into the bathroom, came back out with toilet paper, and picked up the insect's remains.

They heard a flush as he sent the tissue and mini-carcass down the toilet. When he walked back out, he told Stephanie, “I'll look around downstairs.”

“Suzette, you and Lena look around in here,” Stephanie told them.

“In the roach room! Hey, look, Clay was a manly man, all right, but there are still roach guts on the wall, even if he wiped it,” Suzette said.

“We don't need to look at the wall,” Lena told her. “Come on, Suzette, let's just check out the drawers and the bath . . . it will only take a minute.”

“Drew, Doug, please take a look around outside, and I'll head downstairs as well,” Stephanie told them.

“Aye, aye!” Doug said, saluting. Drew followed his example. They both stared at her, standing at attention.

She forced a smile. That was what you got when you worked with improv players. “Cute, cute. Save it all for Friday night, huh?”

She turned, and nearly walked into Arturo, he had been standing so close behind her.

“What can I do?”

“Why don't you go to the lobby, see if you can find the maid who did this room today, and ask her if Gema left a message, or if she found anything,” Stephanie suggested.

“Yes, yes . . . then we'll all meet in the lobby bar . . . it's just opposite the club. And the restaurant is behind—we can have a few drinks . . . have some dinner. You haven't had a dinner here yet.
Fantastico!
” he assured her.

“That will be great.”

Arturo, pleased that he could help, started down the stairs. Stephanie glanced at Suzette and Lena. Suzette seemed to have gotten over her bug phobia, and was working on a dresser, going through it, drawer by drawer.

Stephanie went down the stairs, slowly.

She paused as she reached the bottom step.

Clay Barton was on his knees by the front door, studying the tile at the entry.

“What is it?” she said sharply.

He glanced up quickly, then rose, dusting his hands on his jeans. He had a rueful expression, and yet . . .

She could have sworn that before, he had been intense. As if he had seen something on the tile.

“Clay?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I'm sorry. There was nothing,” he said.

“What were you expecting?”

“Ah, well, you've got me playing detective, I guess,” he said with a shrug.

“But you can see the floor easily enough—even from here. It's white tile,” she pointed out.

“Yes, so it is. And like I said, there's nothing.” He strode back toward the center of the living area. “No note—I've looked. Nothing broken, no sign of a struggle . . .”

“But the floor was fascinating?” she pressed.

“I guess I thought I saw a footprint, but hell, we've all walked over the entry area, so . . . and a footprint wouldn't mean anything, anyway. Hey, Arturo said something about drinks. I'm going on over to the bar.”

He smiled, and exited.

She stared after him, and felt the strangest wave of fire and ice wash over her.

Then it was gone.

And she wondered if she was still suffering from jet lag . . .

Or if it was all part of the strangeness—that which made her feel wonderful, and that which made her feel uneasy—that had wrapped around her from the time she had first arrived.

As she stood at the base of the stairs, she heard the pounding of footsteps behind her. She took the last few steps to the landing and waited as Suzette and Lena joined her.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” Lena said. “Every drawer is empty.”

“She just left,” Suzette said firmly.

“So it seems,” Stephanie said.

“Wow, we're screwed then, huh?” Lena said. “Well, I suppose the outlines could all be redone. But hey, a vamp is usually necessary.”

“We're not screwed,” Suzette said, staring at Stephanie. “That's what you did in the States, right? Didn't you work with an improv group?”

“Yes, well, we'll see,” Stephanie murmured. She was suddenly feeling the urgent need for a drink herself. “Let's just head on over to the bar for now. Arturo has suggested drinks before dinner.”

“Great. What about the boys?” Lena asked.

“Doug and Drew? They'll find the bar,” Suzette assured them.