The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series) (37 page)

When I grabbed hold of the tree limb and tried to lift it, the branch was so wet and bulky that it was almost impossible to get a grip on it. I shifted it perhaps a centimeter and had to let go. Dante yelled in pain.

“I’m going to get assistance,” I told him. The rain had flattened his stylish hair and soaked through his cashmere jacket. His formerly impeccable silk tie hung askew.

“Don’t leave me,” he pleaded.

“You should have listened to what I told you earlier,” I said. “I warned you, but you ignored me.”

He groaned. “I don’t want to die.”

He had no aura. I knew he wasn’t in mortal danger, but I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to torment him, just a little. “It’s cosmic retribution,” I said. “The gods must be very angry with you, Dante.”

I stumbled through the woodland out on to the driveway, keeping an eye open for Massimo on the way. I hoped he was okay, but it made more sense to get to the house for help than to look for him by myself. My feet slipping on the wet gravel, I sprinted towards the villa. Low clouds wrapped the hills in a pallid shroud. An owl screeched close by.

Dante’s black Mercedes was parked on the driveway right in front of the house so I ran around it and took the front steps two at a time. All the lights were on, every window ablaze. The front door was splintered and hung from one hinge, its lock shot out, dangling shards of metal.

On the top step, I paused. The memory of last night settled heavy on my shoulders. I’d truly thought we were going to die here. Still, there was no choice but to go forward, so I stepped inside and heard the thunder of boots on tile floors above me.

“Detective Falcone?” I shouted up the stairs. At once, Oberto appeared from a room to my right.

“I need your help,” I said. “A woman is injured and Dante got hit by a falling branch.”

If Oberto was surprised to hear that Dante was on the property, he didn’t show it. He toggled a switch on his radio and, in less than a minute, Falcone appeared at the top of the stairs. He hurried down to ask me what had happened. “Where’s Massimo?” he demanded.

“I don’t know, but we need help. And someone needs to call for an ambulance. There’s a woman with a gunshot wound.”

While I was explaining what had happened, two officers came into the hallway from the kitchen, holding Renata between them.

When she saw me, she screamed at me. My Italian’s good, but there were some swear words in there I didn’t catch, which was probably just as well. She told me I’d languish in hell, that Santini’s ghost would come back to haunt me. I was glad when the officers marched her out the front door.

Falcone told Oberto to take some men to find Dante. “Can you show them where to go?” he asked me.

“Yes.” Anxious to get back to Claire and Ethan, I hurried to the door. With Oberto and a unit of his men in tow, the grounds didn’t seem as frightening as they had on my way in. We jogged along the driveway to the noise of a siren wailing in the distance.

“The ambulance will be here soon,” Oberto said. “Which way now?”

I led them into the undergrowth at the side of the graveled road, pushing through the shrubs. “Ethan?”

“Over here.”

Oberto’s men separated into two teams, one heading towards Ethan and Claire.

“Where’s Vanucci?” he asked.

“This way.” I led Oberto and the other crew across the clearing to find Dante. I half-expected to find him gone, but he was still there, of course, pushing uselessly at the branch that lay across his legs. Several officers lined up on each side of the massive bough, lifted it clear and rolled it away.

Dante groaned when Oberto tapped his leg.

“Oh,” the captain said. “It must be broken.”

“Of course it’s broken, you moron.”

While Oberto organized a posse of men to watch over Dante until medical help arrived, I ran back across the clearing to the tree where I’d left Ethan and Claire. Patrizia leaned against the tree trunk while two paramedics worked on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted to help you and Claire this afternoon while I had the chance. I should have done, but I was scared of what Dante would do.”

“It’s okay,” Ethan said, squatting down next to her. “You rescued me. I’m very grateful.”

“How?” I asked. “What happened?”

“Patrizia came to the apartment half an hour or so after you and Dante left. She told the nurse that she’d been instructed to take over from her. Ofelia packed up and left quickly. I think she was glad to be out of there.”

“We’re moving her out,” one of the medics said as two others laid Patrizia gently on a stretcher.

“Injured man over here,” someone yelled from deeper in the woods. The police must have found Massimo. We heard the thud of running feet and the crack of breaking twigs as a team rushed in that direction.

“What about you, Ethan?” I asked. “Perhaps you should go to the hospital too?”

“No, thank you. These people are in far more need of medical help than I am.”

“Then let’s go back to the house.” Oberto had joined us. “Stay close to me.”

We trudged up the driveway, into the circle of light from the lamps at the doorway.

“They’ve gone!” I blurted out, and then remembered that Ethan had no idea about the auras. I gave Claire a hug. “Your aura’s gone,” I whispered.

“And Ethan’s?”

“Yep. He’s going to be okay.”

When we filed into the house, the umbrella urn by the door caught my eye. I bent over to retrieve the diagram that I’d hidden in there. I unfolded it and gave it to Falcone, who was waiting for us in the front hall.

“A souvenir,” I said.

We followed him to the kitchen, where the wood stove gave off a pleasant scent of burning logs and welcome heat.

“Tea for everyone,” Falcone said to a middle-aged officer who scanned the kitchen, filled a kettle with water and took cups down from a glass-fronted cabinet.

While he worked, we fussed over Ethan, asking again and again if he was feeling all right. There wasn’t a hint of moving air over his shaggy blond hair. I breathed deeply a couple of times, expelling all the pent-up stress I’d been carrying around with me since Friday night.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Falcone asked, after introducing himself to Ethan. “How did you end up here?”

“The nurse tried to give me a sedative just after Claire and Kate left with Dante,” he said. “Not enough to do any harm, but enough to keep me drowsy. I managed to spit it out, though, and hid it under the pillow, so I’d be alert and ready to put up a fight when she came at me with more drugs. Then another woman arrived. She told Ofelia to leave, that she would be taking over. As soon as she’d gone, Patrizia told me that she was going to help me. I had no idea who she was, of course, but it seemed best to go with her. We were halfway down the stairs when Dante and that bodyguard chap appeared.”

Ethan’s shoulders slumped. “Dante had a gun and he ordered us to go with him. He took us back up to the apartment and into the kitchen. There was a back stairway, very narrow, which led down to an alley.”

“So that’s how he got out,” Falcone said.

“My men were all over the gallery and Dante’s office by that time,” Oberto agreed. “We didn’t know there was another way out.” He nodded at Ethan. “Please, go on.”

“Dante told us we were his hostages and that he’d let us go once he was safely out of the country,” Ethan said. “That seemed like a step up from being fed too many sedatives. And he had the gun of course, so I cooperated, and so did Patrizia. There was a car waiting at the end of the alley. He bundled us into the back seat, tied our hands and put blindfolds on us. He said there were some things he wanted to collect before we drove further south. I got the impression we were heading for a port, Brindisi, perhaps. He mentioned a sailing boat.”

“But why stop here?” I asked. “This is Santini’s place.”

“They were brothers,” said Ethan. “Why wouldn’t he come here?”

“Because they hated each other,” Claire said. “They were fighting over the code and the key. And Dante shot Santini at the vault.”

Ethan flinched. “Shot him dead?”

“Yes.” Claire’s bottom lip trembled.

We all paused while the officer set down cups and saucers. Grateful, I took a sip of tea, which was strong and hot.

“What happened when you got to the house?” Falcone asked Ethan.

“They took the blindfolds and ties off and told us to wait by the car. A gnarly-looking old nun answered the door with a gun in her hand, but she and Dante seemed to know each other. They brought Patrizia and me inside. In here, actually. We stood by the stove while the two of them talked and then they started to quarrel. My Italian isn’t very good, but Patrizia said they were arguing about money. The nun said something about being paid upfront. Things got fairly heated.”

Ethan paused to take a swallow of his tea. His face was pale and his cheekbones jutted sharply over sunken cheeks. He always looked skinny and underfed and now he was almost skeletal. But he was safe.

“Just then a man ran in, yelling about vehicles coming up the road. That must have been you lot. The nun started screaming at Dante about leading people to the house, told him to take us into the woods and she’d sort things out here. In the mayhem that followed, Patrizia picked up a gun from that counter and hid it down her dress.”

Falcone drained his teacup and put it down gently on its saucer, even though the china was rustic, not like the elegant porcelain in Dante’s apartment. “Did they mention boxes?” he asked. “Packages?”

Ethan shook his head. “I don’t think so, or at least Patrizia didn’t mention it. I caught a few words though and I think the old harpy said ‘
cantina
’ once or twice. That’s a cellar, right?”

Falcone pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet.

We followed Falcone from the kitchen into a small walk-in pantry, clumping up behind him when he stopped at a narrow door in the far wall. It was locked.

“Stand aside,” he said, his voice harsh with tension. We didn’t have enough room, so we filed back into the kitchen and waited for Oberto to shoot out the lock. Falcone opened the door and pulled on a string just inside. A bare bulb lit up a narrow stairway with wooden treads and a rickety handrail leading down into a well of darkness.

Falcone led the way, with us following, gripping the handrail for questionable support. When he reached the bottom step, he found another pull string. A bright light came on, revealing a large room with plaster walls and a vaulted brick ceiling.

Four massive casks stood across the back wall, and wine racks loaded with dusty bottles lined one of the side walls. The air smelled of old cork, vinegar and yeast, although the floors were immaculate, swept clean. But it looked just like a wine cellar.

I was disappointed for Falcone. I’d hoped he would find his relics.

Ethan limped to the wine racks and lifted out a bottle. “A Sottimani Barbaresco,” he said, looking at the label. “That’s a good wine.”

He placed the bottle with great reverence back in the rack, and hobbled over to examine the casks, which towered higher than his head. He was a bit of a wine connoisseur. Getting to play in a wine cellar must have felt like a luxury break after all he’d been through.

He rapped on the first cask. “Hey, it’s full,” he said. “I wonder what varietal it is?”

Falcone’s head jerked in his direction. “Do that again.”

Ethan tapped the wood again. He peered up at a plaque on the front of the barrel. “Sangiovese,” he read.

Falcone pointed to a ladder leaning in one corner. “Drag that over,” he said to a junior policeman who’d accompanied us. Looking a little bewildered, the man did as he was told and positioned it carefully against the cask. Falcone slipped off his black coat and threw it over a wine rack. As he headed towards the cask, I stopped him.

“I’ll do it. Climbing ladders with one functioning arm isn’t a good idea.”

“Let me hold it for you,” Claire said, grabbing hold of the ladder at shoulder height. Before Falcone or Ethan could argue, I climbed up five or six rungs, which got me high enough to see the barrel lid. It was a solid piece of wood that appeared to be sealed tightly to the barrel sides. “There’s no way to see into the cask from up here,” I said.

“The ladder must be here for a reason,” Falcone said, coming closer. “What about that?” He pointed to the plaque in the center of the cask. I stepped down two rungs and leaned over to inspect the plaque. It had a latch on one side.

“Shall I open it?” I envisaged a deluge of red wine spilling from the container. Falcone nodded.

My fingers shook as I pulled on the handle but, to my relief, no flood ensued. Instead a door-sized portion of the barrel swung outward, revealing the interior of the cask.

Falcone darted forward. He leaned into the opening and pulled out a package the size of a book and wrapped in oilskin. He gently peeled back the wrapping. Inside, a silver box that looked like an old-fashioned cigarette holder held a piece of bone nestled on red velvet.

“Oh yes,” he murmured. He handed it to Oberto to hold while he retrieved another parcel and removed the protective outer layer to reveal a gold casket holding a mummified forearm and hand.

We all crowded around while he opened two more packages that held an ebony reliquary and an ornate bronze box protecting a vial of something red and viscous. We were indeed a superstitious race, I thought.

“These are Santini’s stolen relics?” I asked him.

Falcone nodded. He seemed to be at a loss for words. Claire and Ethan had moved the ladder to the second cask, and Claire clambered up a few rungs to open the door, which revealed another cache of boxes and bags. It seemed fitting that the cardinal had stored his ill-gotten treasures underground, just as the Custodians had hidden their art in a subterranean vault.

“Are they all here?” I asked Falcone.

“He’s probably already disposed of a few. We’ll know more when we can do a complete inventory.”

He took out his mobile to make a call, and then frowned at his screen. I doubted there would be a signal down here in the depths of the old house.