“A few days, at the outside. That’s why you need to get back home as fast as you can. Sarah said she would wait for you-and you know how it is when she makes up her mind to do something,” Gary said, starting to break down. “But this is just too much for her-she’s not going to be able to hold on much longer.”
When they hung up, David sat on the sofa, staring blankly at another bust, this one in the center of the mantel. It was a woman with a haughty expression, her face turned to one side and a mane of luxuriant curls falling onto her bare shoulders.
His immediate thought was to call the airport right away and book the first flight back to the States. With luck, he could be back in Chicago in eight or nine hours.
But to do what? Kiss his dying sister good-bye? To tell her that he had failed in his mission to save her-and right when the answer was nearly in his grasp? If the journey he had been on had taught him anything, it was that the world was a far stranger place than he had ever imagined. His eyes strayed again to the bust on the mantel, and for some reason, even now it captured his attention. He found himself rising from the sofa to inspect it more closely.
And that was when it struck him, just as it had when he’d come across the sketch of Athena in the pages of The Key to Life Eternal. There was a real-life model for this antique bust, and he had met her.
“I carved that myself,” came a voice from the doorway. It was Sant’Angelo, in a silk smoking jacket worn over a pair of dark slacks and a crisp white shirt with billowing sleeves. “Ascanio bought the marble from Michelangelo himself.” He came into the room, studying David for his reaction. “Does she remind you of someone?”
“She does.”
“She should. I first met her at the court of the French king, and she was my muse from that day on. Her name was Caterina.” He touched the stone. “What does she call herself now?”
“Kathryn.” What was the use of concealment any longer?
Sant’Angelo, the tip of his cane grazing the floor, nodded. “It’s just like her to have kept her name like that all these years. She was always stubborn.”
“And you?” David said, hardly believing that he had entered into this conversation at all. Could he actually be speaking to his boyhood idol, the legendary Benvenuto Cellini? “Weren’t you famously hard-headed, too?”
The marquis tipped his head to one side in agreement. “We were alike in that. I’m no more likely to give up the name Sant’Angelo. It’s the prison from which I was reborn, and I will never forget, or deny, that.” Taking a seat in a chintz-covered armchair, he waved at David to sit opposite. “May I say what a relief it is, after all these years, to have encountered someone who so readily… understands.”
David did not reply. He would not have known what words to use. But he noticed that Olivia, still in her robe, was standing silently in the doorway. How long had she been there? he wondered. What had she overheard? The marquis glanced her way, and said, “You may as well join us.”
She sat beside David and reached out to clutch his hand.
“May I assume that there are no secrets here?” the marquis asked.
“You may,” she answered, and David nodded his confirmation. Sant’Angelo’s shoulders relaxed and he settled more deeply into the chair.
“That call you just made-it was to your sister?” Sant’Angelo remarked to David, as if resuming a perfectly ordinary conversation.
“Her husband,” David answered.
“And?”
“She has only a day or two left.”
“Oh, David,” Olivia lamented, and squeezed his hand in sympathy. “I am so sorry. You must go to her, right away.”
Sant’Angelo nodded thoughtfully, then lifted his head and said, “You could do that. By all means. You could return to her as quickly as you can, only to stand at her bedside helplessly and watch her succumb to the inevitable.” He let that dreadful option sink in for a few seconds, before gripping the head of his cane with both hands, and saying, “Or you could fight!”
The words hung suspended in the air. David knew what a sensible librarian at a well-respected institution like the Newberry would do.
And he knew what the fearsome Cellini would have done. The choice was as clear as day, and he made it.
Before he could even speak, he noted his host’s lips curving into a subtle smile of victory. “I knew you had it in you,” the artisan declared, his dark eyes flashing. “And now, it’s time you knew the rest,” he said, removing a silver garland from the pocket of his smoking jacket.
Chapter 35
It had been many years since Ernst Escher had tried to cram himself into such a tiny car, but the beige Peugeot was all that the rental agency had left-and besides, it was a good car for surveillance purposes. Easy to park, and utterly inconspicuous. And Escher was pretty much living in it now.
After leaving the hotel the night before, he hadn’t dared to check in anywhere else. Who knew how many desk clerks might be on the take from those murderous Turks? He’d parked down under one of the bridges, slept for a few hours, and after looking over the last photos and text that Julius had sent him, he’d driven to the quiet street across from the boating park.
The town house was impressive, with a walled garden and a driveway on one side. Escher had slowly cruised past, then turned around and parked fifty yards up the street. The rearview mirror was positioned to show him anything that happened at the house. This was the last place Jantzen had tracked them to, and when Escher had done some checking at the Crillon he discovered that Franco and his friend Olivia had not spent the night in their room.
Chances were they’d spent it in the town house, with what was apparently some very well-heeled friend.
When his own phone rang, he saw it was the ex-ambassador Schillinger, calling from Chicago for his regular progress report. But Escher, who’d been circumspect all along (omitting any mention, for instance, of that bloody fracas in Florence), was even less inclined to tell him much now. He no longer knew whose side anyone was playing on.
“Where are you?” Schillinger complained the moment Escher picked up.
“Still in Paris.” He wasn’t about to be any more specific than that.
“With Jantzen?”
“No.”
Schillinger sighed. “Don’t tell me you’ve had a falling-out with him, too? Julius is no fool. He might be able to help you.”
Escher knew that Schillinger had no great regard for his intelligence, but then, he was happy to return the compliment.
“Have you made any progress at all? Or, more to the point, has Franco? I’d dearly like to know what he’s up to. That information could be very important-and valuable-to certain people.”
“Would one of them be me?”
“When have I ever not rewarded you for a job well done?” Schillinger snapped.
“The job is getting done all right,” Escher replied, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, “but it has gotten a lot more complicated.” He’d checked the morning newspapers, but so far the murders in Pigalle hadn’t made it into print.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Schillinger said, losing what little patience he had ever had. “Please don’t tell me you’re trying to renegotiate the terms of your employment? I have sometimes regretted my generosity as it is.”
“I’m way past that,” Escher said, leaning back in the seat with one eye fixed on the rearview mirror. As far as he was concerned, he wasn’t even working for Schillinger anymore. He’d been a fool-a lackey working for a
