Tonight she navigated the maze purely by instinct. Il Bacio was just a few minutes walk from the Rialto Bridge and she made her way in that direction.
The phone felt solid and real in her hand, but she needed more than that. It was late, but not so late that a ringing phone would alarm anyone. At the risk of waking his children or irritating his wife, she dialed Tonio. Her toe caught on a loose cobblestone and she stumbled but did not fall, cursing softly.
“Geena? Are you all right?” Tonio answered. He’d heard her swear, which was not the way she’d hoped to begin the conversation.
“I am,” she said. “I really am. I’m sorry to call you so late, but I didn’t want to leave it until morning.”
“So you intend to come back to work tomorrow?”
Geena hesitated. “I … of course I do. This is my project. I should be there.”
“And there’s nowhere I would rather you be,” Tonio replied gently. “But you were attacked by your … assistant. You were stabbed. You should take time to—”
“Tonio, please, just listen.”
A brief silence, and then: “All right.”
“I’ve just been to the police. I’m not going to press charges against Nico—”
“But he stabbed you with a knife!” Tonio said, incredulous. “I know you love him, Geena, but he could have killed you.”
“No. There’s … there’s more to it than that. It’s difficult to explain. Anyway, the knife barely drew blood. There’s barely a mark. I won’t even have a scar.”
“Geena, he
She stopped in the middle of a courtyard where cobblestones were cracked and uneven, the only light aside from the moon coming from an old iron lantern hanging beside the door to a long building that had once been a convent but now contained apartments. If the lantern had run on oil instead of electricity, she might have thought herself in another of Volpe’s memories.
“I know,” she said quietly. “But I promise you there’s more to it.”
“But you can’t tell me what it is.”
She smiled softly to herself, but it faded instantly. “It’s … difficult.”
Tonio sighed. “You love him.”
It wasn’t a question.
“And because you love him,” he continued, “I won’t press charges on behalf of the university. But he no longer has a job here. You understand that, yes? The liability if we were to continue to employ him and there was some further incident of violence would be enormous. But more than that, I won’t have him here. It would seem as if I were condoning his behavior.”
Geena swallowed hard. “I understand. And thank you.”
“You should get as far away from him as you can,” Tonio continued. “I fear for you.”
“You’re a good man,” she told him.
“Rest tonight,” Tonio replied. “Regain your focus. Come in late tomorrow if you need the time, but do come in. Not because we need you, though we do, but for your own sake. This is the biggest moment of your career, Geena. I would hate to see you let it slip out of your hands.”
Il Bacio buzzed with the sounds of humanity. Voices were punctuated by laughter and the clinking of glasses and music that came from small speakers overhead and seemed to rise and fall on the dips and swells of conversation. Geena weaved through the busy cafe with an easy familiarity, tension already easing out of her shoulders. This dose of normality could not erase the madness of the past few days, the horrors of what she had seen and endured just since morning, but it could help her shut it all out for an hour, and she needed that respite.
She spotted Sabrina first, sitting close with another young woman, who Geena recognized as a student at the university but could not name. The two of them whispered to each other in a way that could only be thought of as intimate, and their eyes sparkled in what might have been mischief or flirtation. Geena arched an eyebrow, but neither option troubled her. Sabrina intrigued her and had proven herself a loyal employee, but they weren’t really friends. There were doubtless many things they did not know about each other.
Three tables had been dragged together, and the group was much larger than Geena had anticipated. There were graduate students, several undergrads, lovers and friends and spouses, and even Sandro Pustizzi, a history professor from Ca’Foscari. Coffee cups and wineglasses festooned the table, along with silver trays that had borne many pizzas, most of which had been devoured by now. No matter how long she lived in Italy, she would never get used to how late the Italians often ate their meals.
A waitress bumped her, skillfully managing not to dump the tray of drinks in her hand, and they danced away from each other in the swirl of movement in the cafe. When Geena looked at the table again, Ramus had already jumped up from the table and was rushing toward her with a broad smile on his face, his skin flushed from too much wine.
“Dr. Hodge! I’m so glad you came!” he said, glancing at her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Geena nodded, wondering what Ramus would say if he could see her unmarred skin. She had worn a thin cotton top, but fortunately it hid the absence of a wound.
“A claret wouldn’t go amiss,” she said.
This seemed all the confirmation Ramus needed of her physical and mental well-being, and he went in search of a drink.
That left Geena standing alone and awkward a few feet from the table, but by now perhaps a third of those gathered there had turned to notice her arrival. Sabrina waved, some people whispered to their immediate companions—gossip about her, no doubt—but Domenic stared at her with a relief that made her swell with gratitude that she had such a friend.
He dragged an empty chair from another table and slid it in beside him just as she approached, and he gestured for her to sit. Thankful, she sank into the chair and then, before either of them had spoken a word, she sighed and leaned on his shoulder.
“I’m so glad you called me,” she said, sitting up and turning to face him.
“I’m glad you
Geena surprised herself by laughing, and Domenic joined her.
“You look all right, considering,” he said. “What’s going on? Did you talk to Tonio? Have you seen Nico since …”
The questions stalled as Geena held up a hand. “Please, let’s not talk about it. Just tell me about the project. Where are we?”
Domenic warmed to the subject immediately, happy to provide her with a distraction.
“You’ll never believe it,” he said excitedly. “After you and I left—after all the drama and the bloodletting— Sabrina and our divers and the BBC team were documenting everything down in the Chamber when some men from the city engineer’s office showed up with enormous pumps and hoses and said they’d finished shoring up the canal wall.”
Geena stared at him. “You’re not serious? That quickly?”
“That’s what
“I guess,” Geena said, but she wasn’t so sure. Finch’s people had money, all right, but graft and corruption were nothing new in Italian government. How much money would it have taken to get the local authorities moving so swiftly? Was there enough money in the world?
Or were the Doges somehow involved? She tried to think of a reason they might use their influence in that fashion, why they might want access to the Chamber of Ten, but nothing occurred to her.
