The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series) (21 page)

When we reached Bologna, we were lucky to find a commuter train leaving for Florence in five minutes. Claire’s phone rang just after we’d settled in the middle carriage. She glanced at it, her mouth set hard. “Dante,” she said. “I’m not going to answer it.”

I nodded my agreement. The less he knew about where we were the better.

The storm that had threatened us in Pianoro had not yet broken. Clouds scudded across the darkening sky, creating patterns of light and dark across Claire’s face. The shock of learning that her boyfriend had been using her showed on her pale skin.

To take my mind off it all, I retrieved the notebook and papers from my bag, leafing through the pages without really seeing them. The line drawing of the strange rectangles came into focus and I stared at it for a couple of minutes. I remembered thinking it looked like a stone wall out in the English countryside. But now I thought it could be a stone wall anywhere. I counted the rectangles, remembering what Leo had sent us.
Five down and nine from the left.
My finger rested on a thin block. I was sure this was what the cypher text referred to. But this was just a fraction of the puzzle. Where was the wall?

Too tired to think clearly, I put everything back in my bag. I watched the scenery roll by. We’d traversed the Apennines and now, under the softened light of dusk, we were passing through the cypress-dotted hills of Tuscany. Rain began to fall as we rattled through the outskirts of Florence, water running across the windows in tiny, fast moving rivulets that captured the color of lights from nearby houses and traffic signs.

When we pulled into Santa Maria Novella I felt a familiar frisson of excitement. I loved this station. It had been the starting point of many journeys to cities all over Europe, some with my parents, some with friends or with Josh. This evening, it was as busy as always, crammed with tourists, business people and students carrying backpacks. We crossed the main concourse and left through the front exit. Under the overhanging roof of the station building, a queue of people sheltered from the torrential rain, waiting for taxis that failed to materialize.

“Which is the quickest way to the Carabinieri station?” I asked Federico.

“It’s just a short walk,” Federico said. He gestured to the people in the taxi queue. “That will take forever.”

“Okay,” I said, linking arms with Claire. She looked so fragile I thought the wind would blow her over. We hurried down the steps towards the road with Federico on our heels. The street lamps, wreathed in mist, cast a feeble yellow light mottled with dark shadows. Scraps of paper flew in the wind and rain fell like cold arrows on my back while we waited on the curb for the lights to change so that we could cross the busy intersection. I wished they’d hurry. I was getting soaked.

Suddenly I was aware of someone standing close, almost at my shoulder. I didn’t even have time to turn round before a black Mercedes braked to a halt right in front of us. Whoever was behind me dug something into my ribs.

“I have a gun,” he explained helpfully. “Get in the car.”

I turned then, to see Federico crumpled on the pavement, but he was moving, trying to get to his feet. There were no other pedestrians around. The only sign of life was the fast-moving traffic that sped past the stopped car, drivers honking horns to show their displeasure that it was blocking one lane of the road.

I started yelling, screaming as loudly as I could. “Help! Call the police!” But I doubted anyone could hear me over the roar of traffic and the blare of the horns.

“I told you to get in,” the man repeated, pressing his gun hard into my back. I stopped shouting.

“Good decision,” he said. “Now get in.” I slid into the plush leather seat with Claire scrambling in after me. The gunman climbed into the passenger seat and hadn’t even closed the door before the car pulled away. I met the driver’s eyes in the rear view mirror and got goosebumps when I saw it was the man who’d followed me up to the dome at the cathedral.

The car purred along the city streets, shielded from outside noise, but I had no intention of being quiet. I pounded on the back of the passenger seat. “Stop. Let us out right now.” The gunman ignored me, which made me even angrier. I yelled again, kicking the seat to get his attention. After a while I succeeded. He turned round, raised the gun and pointed it at Claire. “Shut the hell up,” he said. “One more word and she gets it.”

I didn’t really believe that he’d shoot Claire, but the sight of that nasty little gun was enough to choke off any further outbursts. I slumped in my seat, fuming to myself. I couldn’t believe we’d been captured within minutes of arriving in Florence. Not after we’d done so well in evading our pursuers in Venice.

I touched Claire’s arm, wanting to talk, to try to work out what had happened and what we were going to do, but she was huddled against the side of the car, her face in her hands.

As bright lights briefly illuminated the interior of the car, I glanced out of the window to see that we were passing through the toll station at Certosa, about to take the A1
autostrada
south in the direction of Rome.

While we stopped to take a ticket, I looked over at a car at the pay station next to ours. The driver was loosening his tie as he waited for his ticket to pop out of the machine. A different life, I thought. A businessman going home from work, looking forward to dinner and time with his family. My imprisonment in the Mercedes seemed unreal.

We were soon speeding along in the fast lane, the driver flashing his headlights at slower cars to warn them to move out of the way. The wheels sighed softly on the wet tarmac and the windscreen wipers moved steadily, blurring the taillights of cars in front of us into a red wash on the glass. It reminded me of Friday evening when I’d jumped into a taxi to follow Ethan. That night seemed like a lifetime ago and yet it was only Monday. I checked the time. It was almost seven, the time I should have been boarding the flight back to London.

“Where are you taking us?” I asked, pressing my bag to my chest, checking to make sure the key was still there, hidden in its leather pouch. The man in the suit didn’t bother to answer. My fingers on the paperback, I glanced up. Both of our captors were staring through the windscreen at the rain-drenched road. Carefully, I took out the book and removed the diagram of the wall, folded it into a small wad and put it in my coat pocket. I was about to do the same with the provenance list when I glimpsed the driver watching me in the rearview mirror. I slid the notebook back into my bag and rested it on the floor at my feet. We’d only gone another five minutes when the driver pulled off in a rest area. It was deserted at this time of night, lit by a single light. Claire grabbed my hand. Were the men going to shoot us and dump us here? Our captor got out of the car and opened the back door next to me. My chest was tight and it was hard to breathe. But he leaned over and wrapped a blindfold around my head, pulling it down over my eyes and tying it tightly. He snapped a plastic tie around my wrists behind my back and yanked hard on it. Then he did the same to Claire.

Immobilized and blinded, we endured a painful ride before the car slowed and I heard the driver open his window to pay a toll. I’d been counting seconds for lack of anything else to do. I estimated we’d driven another thirty minutes, so we had to be somewhere near Montevarchi or Arezzo. Now we drove for another ten minutes before the car started winding its way up a steep hill. We were thrown around in the back as we navigated several hairpin bends at speed. The car slowed and I heard the tires crunching over gravel before we came to a halt. The back doors opened and the man leaned in to cut the ties and remove the blindfolds. “Get out,” he ordered. We’d parked in front of a stuccoed farmhouse that stood alone in the center of a circle of cypress trees. In an upstairs window, a single light shone.

“Do you know where we are?” I whispered to Claire. “Is this Dante’s place?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never been here before.”

I buttoned up my coat, feeling cold after the soft warmth of the car. Wind sighed in the cypress trees, and the car’s engine ticked as it cooled in the chill evening air.

Given the presence of the gun, we didn’t resist when the man told us to follow him through the unlocked front door into the house. As he turned on lights in the tiled hallway, I noticed a large Deruta urn holding several umbrellas just inside the door. It was like the one in my dad’s house. Checking to be sure our captor wasn’t watching me, I dropped the folded-up diagram inside the urn. If Dante was looking for it, we could claim we didn’t have it. I could retrieve it later maybe. If there was a later. A house in the middle of nowhere with a gunman for company didn’t do much for my sense of optimism.

We arrived in a large well-lit kitchen where a fire burned in an old blackened stove, and several plates covered with cloths lay on a scrubbed pine table. Candles in Faenza ceramic holders flickered on travertine countertops and old pine cabinets held plates and glasses. Under any other circumstance, it would have been homely and welcoming.

“Wait,” the gunman said.

A minute or so later, another man entered the kitchen. Dressed in black trousers, with a black shirt buttoned to the neck, he looked like a priest. His skin was white and unlined, as though it never saw the sun, and his silver hair was cropped short.

He also had an aura, moving sinuously around his head.

“At last we have the opportunity to meet,” he said, in perfect English. His lips were thin pale lines that barely moved when he spoke. “You are Kate Benedict and Claire Hamilton, yes? Allow me to introduce myself. I am Cardinal Santini Vanucci.”

“Vanucci? You’re related to Dante?” Claire’s face had gone deathly white.

He nodded. “I’m his older brother.”

“I didn’t even know he had a brother. Where is he?” Claire looked around the kitchen as though expecting to see him.

“Certainly not here. We may be siblings, but we don’t tolerate each other very well. Never have.”

Claire looked at me, raising her eyebrows in query. I didn’t know what to make of this information. Nor did I know what to make of Santini’s very visible aura. My legs seemed to be giving out. I sank down, uninvited, into the nearest chair.

Santini waved Claire to a seat next to me and he sat down, facing us across the kitchen table.

“You may call me Santini,” he said. “It is my baptismal name.”

I could think of other names for him, but I kept them to myself.

“Let’s keep things simple,” he said. “You have something of mine and it is time that you returned it.” He looked directly at Claire. “Why don’t you hand it over, my dear?”

She crossed her arms. “Tell me where Ethan is.”

“Ethan?” For a moment he appeared confused as though the name meant nothing to him.

“My brother,” Claire said. “We know you have him.”

“Ah, of course. Your brother.” He leaned over to lift the covers from the platters on the table. “Shall we conduct our business or shall we eat? Personally, I’m hungry. I drove up from Rome to spend some time in your company.”

“Where’s Ethan?” Claire demanded.

Santini stared at her for a long time as though deciding whether to tell her or not. “You give me the key, and I’ll return your brother.”

“Why should we trust you?” Claire asked.

“I’m a clergyman,” he said, motioning to his henchman to pour some wine. Gunman and sommelier. That made for an interesting job description. The cardinal waited until we each had a glass in front of us and then raised his in a toast. The wine, dark red, glistened like blood in the candlelight.

“To the reopening of the vault.”

So there was a vault. I wondered where it was. Here, at this house? I looked around the kitchen until I caught Santini watching me with a smug smile on his face. I ignored him, thinking about what role the code could play. And what was the purpose of the diagram I’d dropped in the urn by the front door?

I didn’t drink the wine, but I was starving, and the platters of bread, cheese and
salumi
were tempting. Santini helped himself and sat back in his chair with all the appearance of a contented host. After placing a few olives and slices of cheese on my plate, I reviewed the kitchen. A cabinet containing china stood against one wall and a rack over the ancient stove held a dozen pots and pans of various sizes. I assumed that there would be knives in a drawer somewhere, but the room was not promising as a means of escape. A single window was protected with an exterior wrought iron grill, so the only exit was through the door into the hallway.

“What is in the vault?” I asked. I didn’t expect Santini to answer, but asking questions was better than sitting and contemplating what came next.

The cardinal’s thin lips twitched. “That I can’t tell you. It is one of the best guarded secrets in Italy, which, as you know, is a country full of secrets.”

“Are you a Custodian?”

“You’re well-informed,” he said, only a faint lifting of the eyebrows signaling his surprise. “What do you know about the Custodians?”

“Not much,” I replied. “Except that you steal art but, honestly, we don’t care. It has nothing to do with us. We only want to find Ethan. If you let him go, we’ll return to our normal lives, leaving you to yours and your conscience.”

Santini chuckled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. In a different setting, he’d have looked like someone’s genial uncle. A genial uncle about to keel over from a heart attack, perhaps. That aura was confusing. Worse, it was scaring me. It meant that death was lurking out there for both Santini and Claire. And for Ethan and Falcone. Maybe for me too. Something really bad had to happen for multiple deaths to occur at the same time. The slice of
mozzarella di bufala
I’d just eaten stuck in my throat.

“You seem to have the wrong impression of what we do,” Santini said. “We don’t steal art. We protect it and we do so on a grand scale. The Custodians are the guardians of Italy’s cultural heritage, to use a modern term. By collecting and safeguarding works of art, we ensure our country’s artistic legacy.”