flight over. You do not know me, and I don’t know you.”
“Fine. But I guess you’ll never know if I get on that return flight.”
He glanced over at her. “Good point. I’m booking, paying for, and personally delivering you to that plane. Come to think of it, I’ll deliver you to your hotel room.”
“What hotel are you staying in?”
“I’m not.”
The row in front of them started forward, and the two of them followed the other passengers to passport control.
The terminal at Leonardo da Vinci was crowded with travelers speaking a babel of foreign languages. Following Griffin’s lead, she dug her passport out, then stepped into the line for non-European Common Market passengers, careful to listen as he was questioned, though she was certain he wasn’t giving accurate answers.
“Business or pleasure?” the short and rather sour-faced passport control officer asked in English, eyeing his passport, then him.
“Business.”
“Nature?”
“Newspaper. A series on vacationing in Italy.”
“Destination?”
“Rome.”
“Length of stay?”
“A week.”
“Fast writer?”
“Very.”
“Thank you.” He stamped Griffin’s passport, then waved him through.
Sydney went through the same drill, but when he asked her the nature of her visit, she nodded toward Griffin and said, “I’m illustrating his articles.” Her return ticket was for a week as well, since Levins had booked it to match Griffin’s.
As they walked off, Griffin said, “Quite the cover story.”
“No worse than yours.”
If she had any hopes that Griffin might forget about babysitting her until her plane, they were crushed as he took her by her arm and led her to the Alitalia departure desk. “When is the next flight back to…” He glanced at Sydney, then the attendant as he said, “San Francisco.”
The woman tapped at her keyboard, eyeing her screen. “The soonest we can get you on a connecting flight via New York is tonight-”
“She’ll take it.”
“She won’t,” Sydney said. “She has some
“We have a mid-afternoon flight that leaves at two-forty.”
“Perfect,” Griffin said. He took out a credit card, slapped it on the counter. “Give her your ID and your ticket, Fitzpatrick.”
Sydney tried to keep her expression neutral as she handed over her passport and plane ticket. The clerk eyed the ticket, punched in some numbers, and said, “It’ll be an additional one hundred dollars for the change, not including the charge to get to San Francisco.”
To which Sydney told Griffin, “You should just save your money and time. I can do this myself.”
“You could, but I get the feeling you won’t.”
The clerk dutifully ignored their conversation as she finished up the reservation, printed out the ticket, then gave everything to Sydney. Griffin reached over, took possession of the new plane ticket as if he didn’t trust her at all.
“Gee, thanks,” Sydney said to Griffin as they walked away.
He didn’t respond, and judging from the expression on his face, she wasn’t sure she’d have wanted him to. Deciding it best not to push him further, thereby ruining any chance she had of changing his mind, or at the very least, making a break, she slung her bag over her shoulder and walked quietly beside him as he stepped out to get in the long line of passengers waiting for a taxi.
After five minutes they arrived at the head of the line. As soon as Griffin gave the driver the name of the Albergo Pini di Roma on the Aventine, they were off. The taxi careened through the flat marshlands that bordered the airport and veered in and out of the insane traffic that congested the roads leading to Rome, past the rather nondescript modern apartments. Cabdrivers in the States had nothing on this guy. She gripped the seat to keep from sliding around, while the driver gave a monologue of the sights in heavily accented English: the Baths of Caracalla to the left, the Palatine Hill with its sprawling Palace of the Caesars to the right, a glimpse of the Colosseum in the distance as they turned into the sycamore-lined Viale Aventino. He was proud of his knowledge and probably hoped for a substantial tip. Sydney, more frightened than impressed, wondered if she’d be killed in a taxi before she had a chance to find out who had murdered her friend, then tried to murder her.
As far as she knew, the moment she stepped back in the United States, they’d come after her again. Too late to take back that burning curiosity that compelled her to find the murder scene, determine what they were covering up, and follow the trail here. Now she’d be damned if she would sit back and put her life in some other government agency’s hands. At the moment she knew of only one person who held her best interests at heart, who cared about what happened to her and those she loved. That person was she.
“Have you ever been here?” Griffin asked.
“A few times as a kid,” she said, noting that he seemed unfazed by the wild taxi ride. “My parents brought me to visit some of my mother’s relatives. She actually lived here for a few years before she married my father.”
“You speak Italian?”
“Not enough to traverse the country without a dictionary and some very patient natives who don’t mind me massacring the language, but my mother can.”
“Massacre it?”
“Speak it. Pretty fluently.”
The taxi drove up the steep Via Santa Prisca and turned into the wide and surprisingly traffic-free piazza, stopping in front of the Albergo Pini di Roma. Griffin, who apparently spoke fluent Italian, instructed the driver to wait for him while he checked Sydney in. They exited the cab, and Sydney took a good look around the hotel. With its terra cotta-washed stucco facade into which a gleaming glass entrance had been set, the Pines of Rome Hotel managed to look rustic and modern at the same time. Two low travertine steps led into the marble-floored lobby in which comfortable armchairs had been grouped at intervals around red Turkish carpets. A long reception desk ran the length of one wall.
“Nice place,” she said.
“You’ll need your passport to book the room,” he told her when they reached the desk.
Sydney surrendered her passport to the desk clerk, who punched the information into her computer. When she finished, she slid Sydney’s key across the counter and said, “Enjoy your stay.”
Her room was on the fourth floor, tastefully decorated and refurbished, a mix of vintage 1920s, the height of the fascist era, and modern updates. A large oak wardrobe occupied a corner and she set her bag on a chair beside it, then walked to the window. Her room looked out toward the Tiber River and across to the Gianicolo Hill. “Wish I really was here to paint. It’s gorgeous.”
“Perks of the job,” he said. “Drawbacks are that you don’t get much time to enjoy the perks.” He didn’t move from the door. “You think you can stay out of trouble until I come by for you?”
“As much as I’d love to get out there, the first thing on my agenda is a nap.”
“That makes two of us. I’ll give you a call this evening after I visit the ambassador for the death notification.”
“You know, I might be able to help. With the ambassador.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. Mind if I use your bathroom before I leave?”
“All yours.” She stepped out onto the narrow balcony to get a better look at the immediate area. The pine- scented air was brisk, but she found it refreshing.
After a few minutes she felt his presence before he made it known, and finally she turned, saw him staring at
