David shifted onto his knees, grasped the wall to pull himself up. As he did, more stones broke free and the tower bobbled like a rocking horse.
“Easy,” Maddie cautioned.
He glanced over the edge of the window arch. “There’s only one way down.”
His eyes met hers. He looked grim.
“The water,” she whispered.
He nodded. “We’re going to have to jump. Can you do it?”
“I have a fear of drowning. Ever since Cassie’s accident.”
“It’s our only chance,” he said. “I wouldn’t suggest it if we had a choice.”
She rose to stand beside him, her body swaying along with the tower. On one side they could see the jagged rocks lying under the water. No jumping off there. She shifted her gaze to the other side.
“What if it’s not deep enough?” She gulped.
“We’ll be killed.”
“Together.”
“Yes.”
“And what if we’re not killed? What if I drown?”
“You won’t drown. I won’t let you,” he said gruffly.
Maddie placed her right hand in his left. “I’m trusting you.”
She couldn’t have paid him a grander compliment.
“I swear I won’t let you down.”
“This is big for me.”
“I know.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
“You’ll be there for me?”
“Have I ever let you down?” He kept his voice tender, his gaze steady.
She looked deep into his eyes, peered far deeper into him than anyone had ever peered.
More stones broke loose, smashing and bumping as they fell. The tower was going. If they waited much longer, the decision would be out of their hands.
“Ready?” David whispered.
Maddie took a deep breath and nodded.
Together, they moved as close to the ledge as they could.
“Arc your body outward,” David said. “Then roll your legs up and tuck your head down. A cannon ball isn’t the most graceful, but it’s our best chance for survival.”
“All right.”
She stood beside him, poised to jump. She glanced down. “I can’t.”
“Don’t look at the water. Look at me.” He squeezed her hand tightly.
Maddie wrenched her gaze from the water and met his eyes again. She was so brave! His heart wrenched with the intensity of his feelings for this courageous woman.
“Atta girl. We’re just going to step off. We’re taking a stroll. That’s all. No big deal. You can do this.”
“Uh-huh.”
TWENTY-FIVE
A
FTER CALLING IN
the bomb threat, Cassie called the front desk and talked the concierge into buying her an outfit from the gift shop and charging it to Peyton’s account. The preppy black slacks and white wool sweater and sensible loafers were more like something Maddie would wear but she shrugged it off. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Besides, she felt more responsible, more in control, more reliable these days. She might as well look the part. Once she’d acquired her new threads, she took the originals of the El Greco and the Cézanne that she’d hidden under her mattress after she’d made the double set of forgeries, rolled the canvases up in cardboard tubing and went to the Hotel International. Pretending to be Maddie, she claimed to have lost her room key. Once she had access to the room, she stashed the paintings in the open wall safe—good thing David hadn’t found a reason to use it yet—assigned the lock a combination code and sashayed out again.
Mission accomplished. No one could accuse her of being in cahoots with Shriver now. Then she hurried over to the Vivaldi to find out what was happening over there.
And she arrived just in time to see Levy and Philpot being taken from the hotel in handcuffs.
Not wanting to be recognized, she dodged behind a statue and waited until the art brokers had been led away in handcuffs before slipping inside the building. Her heart hammered with excitement.
Had they nabbed Shriver? Was he already in custody? Or had the elusive thief managed to give them the slip?
The place was in chaos with cops and news media and hotel personnel running willy-nilly. To think she’d caused all this bedlam.
Cassie grinned and tried to look inconspicuous as she slinked down the corridor toward the Rialto room.
So far so good.
She was almost there. She quickly skirted past a janitor’s closet that stood slightly ajar. She craned her neck, trying to get a peek around the burly door guard into the Rialto Room.
That’s when a hand clamped over her mouth and an arm snaked around her waist and she was yanked backward into the janitor’s closet.
Floating. Drifting dreamily. Maddie was aware of the cold water, but oddly enough the frigid temperature didn’t register against her skin. Nor was she panicked about being face down in the water.
Her eyes were closed and she didn’t try to open them. She didn’t want to see. She simply wanted to embrace this light airy feeling where nothing seemed hurried or dangerous or even real.
Was she dead? Had she been killed by the fall from the disintegrating tower?
Hmm. Well, this wasn’t so bad.
Only one thing bothered her. Just one tiny flaw marred her peaceful flow. She was dead and she’d never told David that she loved him.
Such a shame.
That’s what you get for holding back. You had a chance for true love and you blew it.
Then she started thinking of all the times she’d held back, afraid to take a risk, afraid of getting hurt, afraid to trust.
And now here she was finally figuring out that dying was no big deal. Her biggest worst case scenario had come to pass and all she had were regrets for the opportunities she’d lost. The things she had never tried.
I should have given it my all at the Olympics. I should have stopped playing cleanup for Cassie years ago and concentrated on taking care of myself.
If she had her life to live over, knowing what she knew now, she would make some very different choices. She would dye her hair punk-rocker red just to see what it looked like. She would eat a doughnut now and again. She would strip off her clothes and dance naked in her backyard during a summer rainstorm.
If only she had a second chance!
Then she thought of the things she was never going to get to do. She’d never be able to apologize to Cassie for not letting her stand on her own two feet. She wouldn’t get to tell her father how much he’d hurt her when he’d abandoned the family. She wouldn’t see her mother one last time or teach another aerobics class or walk in a garden with the sun on her face. She’d never sing lullabies to her babies. Never send them off on their first day of school with a hug and a wave. She would never worry when they didn’t make curfew the day they got their driver’s license.
Something inside her heart ripped. Babies made her think of being married and being married made her think of being in love and being in love made her think of David.
She would never be able to tell David she loved him.
This realization brought a raw, intricate pain, shredding her earlier peace. She didn’t want to be dead. She couldn’t be dead. She had so very much to live for.
“Maddie! Maddie!”
Who was calling her? Was that Cassie? She frowned. Or at least she thought she frowned. She couldn’t really tell. Did dead people frown?
She felt herself being yanked around.
Ow! Who was pulling her hair?
So much for the quiet dignity of death.
She tried to struggle, to fight the water, to fight for her life but her hands seemed leaden and reluctant. Was she dead or not? She couldn’t seem to move or open her eyes, but someone kept yelling her name. A rough, frightened masculine voice.
David. It had to be David.
Her heart gave a crazy little hop and she wondered when she would get to float out of her body so she could see him.
“Don’t you dare leave me, Maddie Cooper,” he raged. “Breathe, dammit, breathe.”
It sounded like he was getting mad. She tried to obey, tried to breathe, but her lungs didn’t want to expand. The languid ease of the water was gone and her back was pressed against something hard. The ground?
“I gave you my word I wouldn’t let you drown,” David was babbling. “And I never go back on a promise. Never. So you can’t drown. Get it. You won’t drown. Don’t give up on me. Fight. Fight. Fight for your life.”
He might have slipped a hand under her neck, but she was so numb she couldn’t really tell.
“Breathe.” She thought he might have been stroking her face. “Breathe.”
She felt pressure against her lips. Heat against her cold flesh. Her lungs, which had been peaceful in the water, now ached and burned. She heard more sounds. A seagull’s caw, a fish breaking the surface of the water, a helicopter rumbling overhead.
And she experienced the heavy rush of David’s life-giving breath forcing its way into her narrowed airway. Her stomach churned. She was going to be sick.
With a sudden gasp, Maddie sat up. David rolled her onto her side and held her tenderly while she purged the seawater from her body.
“That’s my girl,” he soothed, gently running his fingers through her hair, stroking her forehead. “Cough it all up.”
She opened her eyes and looked into his face.
Not dead. Not by half. David had given her the precious second chance she’d mourned so woefully. She was reborn.
“David,” she croaked.
He clutched her to his chest, rocked her back and forth in his arms. The helicopter flew above them, blades whirling. The force of the air sent dirt and debris blowing over them. Luckily the bedsheet was so wet and tangled around her legs, that the breeze from the helicopter couldn’t raise it.
Maddie tilted her head and saw it was a police chopper. Henri Gault was half hanging out the door. He waved to them.
“The cavalry is here,” she whispered.
“Late as always,” David murmured.
“Where’s Blanco?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. All I care about is you.” His eyes shone with the truth of his statement. His words and the concerned expression on his handsome face warmed her in the way nothing else could have.
The helicopter touched down. Henri and a Venice police officer hopped out and hurried toward them in a running crouch.
“You all right?” Henri shouted over the noisy chopper.
David nodded.
Henri pointed to the rubble of the campanile. For the first time since David hauled her from the sea, Maddie looked back at where they’d been. The sight of the demolished building struck her like a slap. If they hadn’t jumped they would both be dead. No one could have survived. She gasped and David tightened his grip around her.
“From the air we could see a man crawling over the rocks,” Henri said.
“It’s got to be Blanco,” David said.
Henri clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Relax,
mon ami,
we’ll take care of this one for you.”
“Thanks.”
Henri and the policeman took off after Blanco and the helicopter pilot came over with blankets. David wrapped Maddie warm as a papoose and although she protested, he insisted on carrying her to the chopper, his casted wrist be damned. She wrapped her legs around his waist and allowed him to tote her like a toddler.
“There are clothes in the helicopter you could change into,” the chopper pilot said in heavily accented English as he eyed their sopping wet garments. “They are costumes my wife and I wore for a Carnevale pageant this morning and I was supposed to take them back to the costume shop but didn’t have time. You can wear them. I wait out here while you change inside.”
“Thank you,” David said.
They found the costumes, wriggled out of their wet things and into the new outfits.
“I look like Jane Austen,” Maddie said.
“Lucky you. I look like Lord Dandy.”
They blinked at each other. They were both wearing Regency era dress. Just like her fantasy. Maddie gulped. Stupid, stupid fantasies.
“I guess we’re both lucky it’s Carnevale. No one will take a second glance,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed huskily and she couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking what she was thinking. “It’s better than being wet.”
Henri and the policeman returned, supporting a hobbling Blanco. They loaded him onto the police boat David had shown up in and the policeman motored Blanco back to the mainland while Henri rejoined them in the chopper.
“Love the costume,” Henri grinned at David as he climbed into the helicopter. “Shall we waltz?”
David shoved a hand through his hair and the shirtsleeve brushed against his cheek. He was expected to believe manly men in the nineteenth century wore crap like this? And to think Maddie’s dream proposal consisted of her beloved dressed up like a pompous ass. Women. Who could figure ’em?
“I’m grateful for your help,” he growled at Henri. “So I’ll ignore that comment.”
“Better be nice to me. I have more news.”
“News?” David tensed and leaned forward. “Good or bad?”
“Is it about my sister?” Maddie interjected.
David shot her a glance. If she didn’t look so cute in that pageant dress, he would have been irritated with the interruption. Now on her, the Regency thing worked. Especially the way the cut of the dress emphasized her assets.
Henri nodded. “Your sister called in a bomb threat to the Vivaldi. At least we suspect that it was her. We traced the call and it came from Shriver’s room at the Hotel Polo.”
Maddie groaned and dropped her head in her hands. “Why would she call in a bomb threat?”
“To get the police to the Vivaldi in time to foil Shriver’s art auction,” David said.
“I don’t understand. Is Cassie with Shriver or against him?” Henri asked.
“Neither do we,” David muttered darkly. “Did they succeed in stopping the auction?”
“They stopped the auction,” Henri confirmed.
“And they caught Shriver?” David fisted his hand and his gut clenched. Was this it then? The compilation of ten years’ worth of police work. Was his dream about to come true? His hand trembled. He was that moved by the notion of finally,
finally
winning this thing.
Henri shook his head. “Shriver disappeared.”
David cursed. Not again!