The Vesuvius Isotope (The Katrina Stone Novels) (13 page)

I have a lot of patients these days asking about the latest advancements in superheavy-isotope-based therapeutics. Especially the people that… have failed other therapies and don’t have many options left…

I looked up at Dante.

“The opiates were at such a high level in Jeff’s system that they should have killed him. Which means that his cancer was already beyond treatment by modern means.

“The nardo was Jeff’s last hope. It was the only clinically validated cancer treatment that he had not already tried. Because it was lost to medicine when the volcano erupted two thousand years ago.”

Dante laid a hand on my shoulder.

“No wonder,” I muttered under my breath, still sniffling. “No wonder his best friend keeps calling. No wonder he is so concerned about Jeff’s condition.”

Is he still having problems from the stomach flu he had earlier?

“John probably diagnosed the cancer. John is probably trying to call Jeff to update him about recent test results, to check in and find out how he is feeling. And also, just to listen because he knows that Jeff hasn’t told me.

“And no wonder Jeff didn’t tell me. He knew the losses I have already suffered. He was trying to find the treatment without ever letting me know he was sick in the first place.”

I stared at the Pompeii earth and smiled through my tears.

It was just like him.

Dante and I parted at the Naples train station.

“Thank you, Dante,” I said. “For everything. Really.” I hugged him fiercely. “But I will be fine on my own from here. I have already involved you too much, and it is only a short bus ride to my hotel.”

Dante was shaking his head.
They never learn
, his expression said. “May I at least go with you to your hotel? What if Rossi comes back?”

“No, thank you,” I said. “If Rossi is still looking for me, it will be easier for him to find us together. Hold on a second…”

I stepped away from him to purchase a sweatshirt and hat from a tourist booth in the train station. I donned the sweatshirt and tucked my hair into its hood before cramming the hat over the top. “See?” I said. “I will be fine. I can see Rossi before he sees me. And I have learned my lesson about stamping bus tickets.”

“OK, OK.” He gave me a fatherly smile. “But listen to me. Rossi is not the only threat to you in Naples. I meant what I said earlier. It’s not very safe here for you alone, especially at night. Don’t talk to anyone, not even small children. And, please, I must insist you take my cell phone number. If anyone tries to even talk to you, call me right away.”

He said something in Italian to a man standing nearby, and the man pulled a pen from his shirt pocket. Dante scribbled a number on the back of his ticket stub from Pompeii and handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said and tucked the stub into my purse.

He then took out his ticket stub from Herculaneum and wrote the number again. “Now,” he said, “put this one in your pocket, in case you have to call me because your purse has been snatched.”

I watched the bus pull away with Dante aboard. He waved through the window, watching over me for as long as traffic allowed.

In truth, I needed to take the same bus he had, the one we had taken from the seafood district. But something told me not to share the location of my hotel. Not even with the young man who had just saved my life. He was still a strange man in a foreign city, and I was still unsure of his motive for helping me in the first place.

So now I had to wait for the next bus. The sun was going down, and I suddenly felt very, very vulnerable. I looked around the train station.

A young man in earmuffs was staring at me.
Earmuffs? It’s seventy-five degrees outside!
But the look on his face was vacant. I realized that he was not staring
at
me so much as staring absently in my direction. A mustachioed old woman in a bra sat on the floor, rocking back and forth and muttering to herself.

I watched a chatty herd of small children with cloying smiles surround a solitary young woman. While it was clear that they were deliberately portraying themselves as sweet and endearing, they looked far too streetwise for their ages. They reminded me of a flock of vultures. The woman abrasively shooed them away, and I fervently hoped they would not approach me.

Another man, this one in shorts and a T-shirt and with his face partially obscured by a scruffy beard, was definitely looking at me. Unlike the man in earmuffs whose look revealed mental disability, the look of this man revealed interest.
Great
, I thought and looked away.

The bus was far less crowded this time. As I mounted the steps, grateful to be escaping the late-evening creepiness of the station, I immediately saw the bright yellow validation machine located in the aisle a few feet behind the driver. I practically lunged for it with my ticket extended.

I slipped the ticket into the slot, and nothing happened. I retracted it and tried again. Again, nothing happened. I could feel panic closing in as I thrust my ticket repeatedly into the machine, and then I felt a tap on my shoulder.
Oh, God, not again.

I turned and found myself face-to-face with a portly elderly woman. One hand clutched a fraying vinyl purse; the other held a small bag of groceries. I sighed with relief.

The woman smiled sympathetically, pointed at my ticket, and then extended her hand. I gave her the ticket. She, in turn, gave it to the driver, who pulled a pen from his dashboard and scribbled on it. The woman returned the ticket to me.

Ah
, I thought.
Manual validation.
OK.

“
Grazie
,” I said to both the woman and the driver.

Still, I should have known that the transit police would get on the bus as we neared the Naples police station. I should have stepped off the bus beforehand and walked the distance of a few stops before re-boarding. I should have done anything,
anything
, besides wait for them to approach me. But by the time I realized that, it was too late.

When I saw the two familiar uniforms on the bus, I turned to look out the window. I pulled the hood of my new sweatshirt a bit closer around my face and the hat over my ears as tightly as possible. Then I pulled my purse in front of me and covered it with my arms as best I could, praying that Rossi—if he was, indeed, one of the cops now aboard the bus—would not see or notice the very handbag he had been rifling through earlier in the day.

I could hear the dialog between the two policemen and the various passengers as the officers worked their way toward me. My heart was pounding. The ticket in my hand was now soaking in sweat, and I took care not to crumple it beyond legibility.

I kept my head down when the officers reached me, simply holding out the ticket for them to see. But I peered out from beneath my hat to read the name badges on the two uniforms. One was a name I did not recognize. The other was Dalfani.

“I validated my ticket,
asshole
,” I muttered.

Dalfani stood next to me for what felt like far too long. Then he said simply, “
Prego
,” and walked away. I wondered if, like Rossi, he had been able to speak English all along.

A few moments later, I recognized the large stone arch leading into the Santa Lucia district, and I knew that we were near my hotel. I stepped off the bus and looked around to gather my bearings. My hotel was almost immediately across the street. I was so exhausted that the thought of room service followed by a good night’s sleep in a plush bed was almost painful.

I turned and watched as the bus drove away. I could see Dalfani through its window. He was watching me as well.

It was now completely dark.

I had begun walking toward the light of the hotel when a sudden, intense feeling came over me that I was being followed. Casually, trying to look like I was seeking a street address, I allowed myself to turn around and look behind me.

I recognized him immediately. The man behind me was not Dalfani as I had been expecting. It was not Rossi either. It was the man from the train station—the one in shorts and a T-shirt who had been looking at me with an interest I had taken for romantic. Our eyes now met; his were emotionless.

I quickly looked away.

For the second time that day, I was afraid to return to my hotel. As I deliberately avoided looking toward its façade, I turned instead to face the Bay of Naples. The bridge to
Castel dell’ Ovo
came into my field of view. Remembering the lively seafood district just across the water, I kept walking.

Like a ticking clock behind me, I could hear steady footsteps.