Heedless, half-crazed with fear, she turned left as he had suggested.
And then, like Lot’s wife, she turned back.
A dottore stood there, in the calle where she had been, between her and the archway where she had seen Roberto.
She stood still, startled, watching.
The dottore lifted his mask. His face remained in shadow. He reached into his pocket for something.
A knife? Was he a psychotic, hidden behind a mask, running through Venice, his cape flying behind him like some modern-day Jack the Ripper?
He did not draw out a knife. He’d reached into his pocket for cigarettes and a match. She stared, remotely thinking that she would see his face, that it would be important to do so, when he lit the match.
The match flared; he lit the cigarette. She could not see his face, for he bowed his head as he cupped his hands around the match.
No knife.
Yet somehow, he seemed more dangerous than if he had pulled out a machete. There was a carelessness in his movements. He did not need a large weapon to torture, destroy, commit murder.
She could run, and it would not matter, because he could catch her, no matter how fast she tried to flee . . .
She pulled in a ragged breath, fighting for reason, for sanity, for movement She started to back away, then stopped dead.
There was a new menace.
Behind her.
She saw nothing, felt a second shadow approaching from behind. Around her, above her, in a strange cascade, darkness, deeper than night, seemed to be overtaking her. Terror, unlike anything she had ever known, assailed her. She was paralyzed where she stood, trembling violently, unable to do so much as open her mouth.
She saw the darkness soaring over her then.
She watched it, certain that the dottore saw it, too.
He did. He backed away, as if from her.
She heard, as if in echo of Roberto Capo’s warning, “Run!” She ran.
And as she did so, she mocked herself. She was running like an idiot from shadows.
No, from the dottore in the street, from a menace of evil stalking the streets of Venice, the innocent, the unwary.
She burst upon a broad calle; the vaporetto stop was right before her. People milled there. Families, tourists, business people. Dear God, she could hardly breathe! Her lungs were killing her, her calves felt as if knives were stuck in them. If her heart pounded any harder, she would go into cardiac arrest.
Because of a man in a dottore mask who had paused to light a cigarette!
He had just been a costumed reveler, a tourist in love with Carnevale, one of the dozens of people who chose the dottore costume for dress-up . . .
She could think rationally now as she paused, breathing hard, joining the group at the vaporetto stop.
Everyone looked normal. Unafraid. They talked. A woman excused herself as she stepped around Jordan to rejoin her group. Jordan realized that she had shoved her way right into the center of the crowd.
Did fear create fear? Was she doing this in her own mind? What had she actually seen?
A man in a dottore costume, lighting a cigarette.
But what about Roberto Capo, shouting at her, warning her away?
A vaporetto arrived. She got on, realizing afterward that she didn’t have a ticket, and she didn’t know where it was going.
Luckily, the vaporetto was crowded. No one asked her for a ticket. After it first stopped somewhere she couldn’t begin to recognize, she asked a man in her faulty Italian if the boat went to the area of St.
Mark.
“Si, si,” the man told her. “A Hotel Danieli.”
She thanked him. As the vaporetto made other stops, as people got on and off, she found that she was doubting her own sanity again. It was like going to a well-made horror movie. While the film was rolling, you were transfixed, caught in the fear. Then, when the credits rolled and the lights came on, the smell of popcorn and the sounds of conversation caused the fear to slip away. She almost wished that she could hold on to the feeling; perhaps then she could make some sense of it.
But she had seen Roberto Capo. And he had told her to run!
The vaporetto at last pulled up to the dock at the Danieli. She walked up to the hotel, then paused on the street. There were so many people out. They all seemed fine. Was she the only one in the entire city concerned about the fact that a severed head had been found floating in a canal?
She asked for her key, but before she could head to her room, she saw that Ragnor was sitting in the lobby, reading a newspaper. There was an empty coffee cup in front of him. It appeared that he had been there for some time.
He saw her and folded his paper, frowning and rising. As she walked over to him, he demanded,
“Where the hell have you been?”
She arched a brow at his tone. “That’s really none of your business.”
“Your cousin has been worried sick.”
A small twinge of guilt assailed her.
“They were sleeping. I went out.”
“I was worried.”
“I’m sorry. But I didn’t see you either.” She felt a flush of warmth spreading through her, being near him again. To her he had lost none of his attractiveness, even though last night dispelled any physical mystery they had between them. If anything, intimacy had made him more appealing.
But she hadn’t elected anyone as her guardian, and as much as she liked being close to him, there were other mysteries still not solved. She didn’t want him knowing that she had been to the police, nor did she want to share her strange experience of the night. She was a wary moth, drawn to the flame. So tempted, so impelled, and yet so aware of the fire.
“Have you had dinner?”
“I should check with Jared and Cindy.”
“They ate and went up to bed.”
“This early? When they were so worried about me?”
“I told Cindy that if you didn’t appear soon, I’d go out and find you. But give their room a call. She’ll want to know that you’re back.”
She left him and called. Cindy answered the phone; she sounded exhausted.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. A touch of the flu. I slept all morning, and I’m tired again. But you! We’ve been worried to death!”
“I went out. Remember, Venice is a really safe city. The cops carry big guns.”
“Venice is a safe city, but still .. .” Cindy’s voice trailed off. “I don’t know. I just get scared when I don’t know where you are.”
“I’m fine.”
“Great. Are you going to get something to eat with Ragnor?”
“Um ... I guess.”
“Well, have a nice night. And please, don’t take off tomorrow without telling us that you’re leaving, and where you’re going, please?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Cindy that she was well over twenty-one, and that she lived alone in Charleston, and that she knew a smattering of Italian?bad Italian, but enough to get around. But Cindy was earnestly concerned, and Jordan didn’t want to hurt or worry her anymore.
“Are you sure you’re all right? Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“I will, if I don’t start feeling a little bit better ... well, it’s not so much better... I don’t really feel ill, just exhausted.”
“If you don’t perk up, you’ve got to see a doctor,” Jordan insisted.
Cindy promised she would, then asked Jordan to hang on a minute, Jared was saying something.
She sighed when she came back to the phone. “He wants you to watch out for Ragnor. Don’t trust him, and don’t let him up to your room.”
Jordan didn’t tell them that that particular warning was too late.
“I’m going to dinner,” she said simply. That wasn’t a lie. How could she argue with her cousin when she wasn’t sure what she felt herself?
“Dinner,” Cindy said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Personally, I think he’s the best in the world for you!”
“Thanks. Okay, get some sleep.”
She rang off and came back to Ragnor. He was reading his paper again.
“All right. They’ve gone to bed.”
“So you do want to go to dinner.”
“Might as well. Give me a minute; I want to run up to my room.” He frowned slightly, as if not certain that she should. He started to fold the paper as if he’d go with her.
“I’ll be right down,” she promised, and headed for the stairs before he could stop her.
She hurried to her door and into her room. She quickly checked her E-mail. There was another note from the cop in New Orleans. It was simple, brief, and to the point.
Please call me anytime.
She considered putting through a phone call right then, but she didn’t want to take too much time. She’d call him around noon tomorrow. That would be very early in the morning in the States but the cop’s message had read any time.
And at noon, for some reason, everyone she knew tended to be sleeping.
She washed her face quickly, switched jackets, and opened the door. Ragnor was waiting for her in the hallway. “I was getting worried.”
She sighed with exasperation. “Why is everyone worried about me all the time?”
“I’ve told you?I think you might have stirred up trouble.” He was quiet as they walked to the restaurant, a little place just a hundred feet away once they had left the hotel and crossed the bridge to their left. There were many people in the restaurant, and many people in the streets.
It felt very safe.
They ordered wine and joked with the waiter, a man who seemed to know Ragnor. Then they ordered their food. When the wine arrived, along with an antipasto, Ragnor drew the newspaper from the pocket of his black suede jacket. He opened it, smoothed it out, and pointed to a picture.
“Do you recognize that person?”
She stared at the face and at the headlines. The words meant nothing to her, except that she thought she recognized the word for death.
“I’ve never seen the man before. Why?”
“That’s an artist’s rendition of the man whose head was found in the canal.” She stared at the picture again. She shook her head slowly. “No, I’ve never seen him. I’m positive I’ve never seen him.”
