Elusive (On The Run Book #1) (24 page)

She broke off at the sound of
voices mingled with sharp footsteps. Jack dropped back to the floor seconds
before the door swung open. Francesca led the way down the steps, a fresh roll
of tape in her hand. Stefano trotted along behind her, his pace brisk. Zoe
palmed the paperclip. She didn’t see the gun, but she was sure it wasn’t far
away. Probably in his jacket pocket. Instead of the gun, Stefano held something
long and narrow and metal in his hand. It was heavy; Zoe could see that by the
way he held it. He shifted and she realized it was a set of industrial-sized
tongs. He gripped the pinching end together in one hand, the other heavier end,
rested in the palm of his other hand.

He paused a moment at the foot of
the stairs, exchanging a glance with Francesca. The tape screeched in her hand.
She gave him an impatient what-are-you-waiting-for nod. Stefano quickly crossed
the floor to Jack. Zoe thought,
Oh,
God. This is it. Francesca won the argument. Instead of killing us here,
they’re going to knock us out, then tip us into the water.
Zoe
shoved with her feet, trying to move away, but Jack lay prone, weighing the
chair down like an anchor. Stefano went for Jack.

He raised his arm. The tongs
whooshed down.

Zoe screamed. Jack flinched away
at the last second, jerking the chair and Zoe around.

The tongs slammed into the stone
with a scratchy sound. Stefano’s arm vibrated with the impact, but he didn’t
pause. He spun to Jack, and his arm whipped down again. Jack shifted, shoving
the chair between him and the tongs. Wood cracked as the metal slammed into the
chair.

Stefano, his face suffused with
red, raised the tongs again. Jack was angled around, trying to keep his body
behind the chair. Zoe, her heart racing, had matched his moves and skittered
around on the opposite side of the chair trying to use it as a shield, but with
both their hands still taped to the arms of the chair, they were exposed. Jack
sent her a quick glance, and Zoe knew what he was thinking. She gave a nod.

Stefano raised the tongs over his
head. Zoe and Jack shoved together, sending the chair into Stefano. He
half-shouted, half-yelped as it smashed into his shins and a caster crunched
over his toes, causing him to pitch forward. The tongs clattered to the floor.
They yanked the chair backward, and Stefano thudded onto the stone, landing
awkwardly on his elbow with a crunching sound that would normally have turned Zoe’s
stomach, but at the moment, she was actually quite glad to hear it.

Stefano lay motionless for a
moment, then groaned and rolled onto his back, his arm draped unmoving along
his side.

“Stop!” Francesca shouted. “Do not
move,” she commanded in a voice trembling with anger.

Zoe halted and realized she was
breathing hard and shivering. Francesca stood with her arms extended, elbows
locked, and the gun gripped between her hands. She’d didn’t have the casual air
that Stefano had when he held the gun. The dark circle of the barrel wavered
back and forth between Zoe and Jack, her knuckles already showing white because
of the hard grip on the gun. She and Stefano exchanged a few words. Except for
his arm, he seemed to be all right. He slowly sat up as Francesca took several
steps to the side so Stefano would not interfere with her line of sight to Zoe
and Jack.

Cradling his arm, Stefano moved
to his knees and stood, grimacing with each movement. Zoe felt as if the scale
had tipped slightly in their favor. With Stefano limited, they stood a better
chance of getting away. Stefano’s blows had damaged the arm of the chair. She
could feel the looseness of it. Francesca’s attention strayed to Stefano, so
Zoe pulled her wrists toward her body and felt the wood give away where the arm
connected to the chair. Unfortunately, it also made a splintering sound. A
loud
splintering sound.

The tear she’d created earlier in
the tape with the paperclip widened, and she rotated her hands and wrists,
catching her breath as she wrenched her hands free. The wooden piece of the
chair arm clattered to the floor as she flexed her fingers a few times. The air
felt cold on the back of her hands where the tape had been.

“Stop!” Francesca screeched. “I
told you,
do not move
.”

Zoe froze.

“You are not good at following
instructions, no?” Francesca said, a slight tremor running through her arm and
down the gun’s barrel. She was not as cool and collected as she had been
earlier, but there was determination and methodical lilt to her words as she said,
“It does not matter what you do. I do not want to kill you here, but I will. I
will do it if I have to.”

Fear spiked through Zoe. Francesca
was serious and intent. She was going to do it. The door at the top of the
stairs creaked open. Roy stepped through the door, closing it gently behind
him. Zoe closed her eyes briefly, feeling the scales tip back out of their
favor again. They were outnumbered again. “Don’t do it, darling,” Roy said, a
look of almost pity on his face.

Francesca took a step back and
swiveled the gun toward Roy.

––––––––

“YOU must leave,” Francesca said.
She checked the position of Zoe and Jack, then refocused on Roy. He took a few
steps down the stairs.

“No, no, no, no!” Francesca said
rapidly. “You must leave. This does not concern you.” She released one hand and
waved him off. “Go home. Go away.”

Roy moved down another few steps
“Of course it concerns me. Everything you do concerns me. That is why I keep an
eye on you and your...activities.” Zoe picked up on an undercurrent in his words
as Roy looked between Francesca and Stefano. A faint blush suffused Francesca’s
cheeks, and Stefano seemed to puff up like a wild animal on a nature show,
defending his territory.

“You didn’t realize I knew about
all this? Your side business, shall we say?” Roy said quietly, circling his
hand to indicate Zoe and Jack. “I know. I’ve known for a long time and looked
the other way, but I can’t anymore. Not about this,” Roy said and looked
directly at Jack for the first time since arriving in the room. There was
regret in his expression. Roy moved down a few more steps.

Francesca tilted her chin up. “It
must be done,” she said. “There is no other way.”

“There is. There is always another
way. We can leave, right now. Go somewhere new. Together. No one will be able
to find us.”

She shook her head sharply. “I do
not want to start over. Not again.”

“Murder, Francesca?” he asked,
moving down another step. “That is not what we planned. The other woman—the one
in Naples—she was already dead. There was nothing we could do, but here...this is
different.”

“It has to be this way because you
did not take care of things. You said you would keep an eye on him.” She
gestured at Jack. “You said you would make sure he didn’t become a threat, but
you didn’t do that. Do you think he will just go away?” she asked, tossing her
head. Her hands were still clinched around the gun, but she’d pulled her arms
in a little. She had to be getting tired. “No, this is the
only
way to make sure I am
safe. This is the only way. I will not run again. I have worked too hard to
start over.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Roy
said, an expression of resignation settling on him. There was a moment of
silence, and then almost as if they’d synchronized it, Roy and Jack moved at
the same time. Roy surged toward Francesca. Jack jumped up, tugging on his
wrists. The wooden chair arm cracked away from the chair. He grabbed the back
of the chair and flung it at Francesca.

A gunshot reverberated through the
room, the sound echoing off the stone walls and floor. Zoe ducked, raising her
hands over her head. There was an eerie vacuum of sound. Her ears felt as if
they were stuffed with cotton. It took a second for her to figure out what had
happened. Jack looked okay. It was Roy who was sprawled on the floor.

Stefano and Francesca exchanged a
look. He was pleased, almost grinning, and Francesca looked relieved. So it was
like that, Zoe thought, a love triangle. She almost felt sorry for Roy. Conned
by the woman he loved, cheated on, and then shot. He had deceived her and Jack,
and before that, he’d duped Jack and set him up to take the blame for
Francesca’s “death,” so Zoe’s sympathy was a bit tempered. Of course, he didn’t
deserve to be shot. Zoe thought she saw a movement from his body, but when she looked
closer, he was motionless.

Roy had been closer to Francesca,
and she’d shot him before he could get to her, but now she had the gun trained
on Jack. “I will do it,” she said, then snapped out a sharp command to Stefano
in Italian along with a toss of her head in the direction of the stacks of
boxes. He moved to the far end of the room.

“Then do it,” Jack said, taking a
step toward her, stripping the tape from his wrists, his face set, not showing
a flicker of pain as the tape ripped away. “Go ahead. It’s not going to make a
bit of difference if you kill me here or if you knock me out and toss me in the
water later.”

“Oh, it does make a difference,”
Francesca said. Zoe glanced between them and the far end of the room where
Stefano was rummaging among the boxes, wincing with each motion that jostled
his injured arm. Zoe realized he was working a flattened box free from a pile.
Great, she thought, another box. That meant they were sticking to their plan,
only they would be dumping three boxes instead of two.

Jack took another step toward
Francesca, and she backed up. Zoe stood uncertainly. No one was focused on her.
Too bad, there was nowhere to go. Roy blocked the stairs, Stefano was at the
other end of the room, and Jack and Francesca were in front of the water.

“Francesca,” Jack said, “I hate to
break it to you, but, in case you haven’t noticed, your little plan has fallen
apart.”

Zoe had to admire how easy and
relaxed his voice sounded. “You didn’t plan for Roy, did you? What will you do
when they come looking for him?” Jack asked. “You know there will be a search
for Roy. A few days, a week, and then someone will realize he is missing. His
movements will be traced. I assume you are used to moving about
carefully—incognito, I’m sure. But Roy? He didn’t have a need for the same
level of stealth. He wouldn’t have taken the precautions you would have.”

As Jack talked, Zoe inched to the
left, positioning herself directly behind Jack so that his body blocked her
from Francesca’s view. She rotated her torso and scanned the desk, looking for
some sort of weapon.

“It may take a while, but the
police will work with the American Consulate, which of course will be involved
in the investigation of an upstanding expat. They will follow his movements
here. To you. Just as the people searching for me will eventually pick up my
trail and follow it to the
campo
and, then eventually, here.”

“That is why there must be no
trace of you—any of you—here.”

Zoe looked around for something to
hold—some sort of weapon, even some sort of distraction—but there was nothing
within reach except that wretched cardboard box and she couldn’t think how it
would help her.

The tongs, Zoe thought. Where were
they? On the floor? There was a blur of movement at the corner of her eye. She
turned, but it was too late. She didn’t even have time to process the thought
that it was Stefano before his good arm whooshed through the air toward her.

––––––––

––––––––

––––––––

A horrible screeching sound
penetrated Zoe’s oozy, half-conscious state. It was right above her, almost on
top of her. Confusion and fear washed over her. She couldn’t see anything. She
was curled up, almost in a fetal position. Her head felt heavy as if it were
too big for her neck, like she was some sort of oversized bobble-head toy, a
bobble-head with a huge, tender bump on the top of her head, she mentally
amended as she gently touched her head.

The awful noise stopped then
started again, like fingernails on a chalkboard only magnified as it echoed
around in her head. She knew that sound. What was it? If she weren’t so sleepy,
she could figure it out. She gave her head a little shake. Big mistake. Pain
rolled through her body topped off with a seasick sensation that made her break
out in a cold sweat. She held herself motionless and concentrated on taking deep
breaths. The nausea cleared her mind and mentally everything came into sharp
focus. That sound. Packing tape. Directly above her head.

She was in that blasted box. She
wiggled and felt the sides press in against her. The air was stuffy and hot,
and now the smell of cardboard registered as she fought to make herself breathe
slowly.
You won’t suffocate
,
she reminded herself. Cardboard boxes aren’t airtight. Are they? Sweat beaded
her hairline and her armpits at the thought.

Of course not. She’d played for
hours in cardboard boxes as a kid. After their move to Dallas, she’d squirreled
away the larger packing boxes and created a hideaway. She’d loved the cozy
feeling of pretending it was her own snug house. Granted, that box had been
bigger than this one, and it hadn’t been taped shut.

She forced another breath in and
out as she ran her hands over the interior, feeling the flaps of the box and
bits of plastic and fabric under her. The contents of her messenger bag, she
realized. Francesca had dumped them in the box. So efficient, getting rid of
all trace of her presence along with her body. Zoe heard a sound and frowned,
then realized it was a half-sob that had come from her.

She had to get a grip. What was
it Jack had said? Something about keeping your head when everyone else was
losing theirs.
Okay, keep your
bruised, lumpy head, she lectured herself. Don’t panic. You’re just taped in a
box. Surely it can’t be that hard to get out of a box. It’s just cardboard.

Where was Jack? Taped into his own
box for easy transport as well? She heard sounds that she realized had been
going on, but she’d been too freaked out to process. It was as if someone had
turned up the volume and the noise suddenly came through, making Zoe feel even
queasier than during the initial wave of nausea.

Thumps and thuds. Grunts. Ragged
breaths. Blows landing and bodies struggling. A fight.

She crunched herself down and
folded one of the interior flaps down, exposing a sticky line of the underside
of the tape running overhead along the seam where the two exterior flaps of the
box met. On the sides, above the edge of the folded down interior flaps, there
were gaps, thin slivers of light interrupted only by the thick press of tape.

She wormed her way around and
pressed her face to the slice of light. Two forms, Jack and Stefano, writhed on
the floor, locked together, each struggling to gain an advantage over the
other. Francesca was pacing around the room, her head tipped over, her gaze
raking the floor. She surged forward, dipped out of Zoe’s sight, and reemerged
with the gun gripped in her hands. She spun toward the men and shouted in
Italian.

Zoe’s heart seemed to stop, but
the men remained locked together, ignoring Francesca’s shouts. She circled to
the left, the gun trained on them, but they were a bundle of flailing, twisting
arms and legs.

Zoe’s heart seemed to start
beating again, this time double-time. Francesca didn’t have a clear shot at
Jack. Zoe wasn’t sure if Jack was keeping himself glued to Stefano in
self-preservation or if they were both so intent on their fight that they had
blocked out Francesca’s voice. Zoe let out a shaky breath and wiggled her
fingers into the sliver of light. She pulled with all her strength. The
cardboard crunched down a bit, but no more than a quarter of an inch.

Until that moment, Zoe realized
she hadn’t truly appreciated the strength of cardboard—or of tape, either, she
thought as she tried to pry the flap away from the tape. Her nail broke, and
she came away with a pitifully thin strip from the outer layer of cardboard. At
this rate she’d work her way out of the box by next Christmas.

Francesca yelled commands. The
men’s bodies shifted heavily over the floor.

Zoe scrabbled through the items at
the base of the box—makeup, breath mints, tissue, billfold, and passports.
Nothing useful. Not even a paperclip. The one she’d used to puncture a
perforated line in the tape that bound her hands was somewhere on the floor.
Pity Francesca hadn’t scooped it up and dropped it in the box. If she ever got
out of this alive, Zoe vowed she would never go anywhere without a nail file,
scissors, and pepper spray, at a minimum.

There was a burst of movement from
the men. They tumbled across the floor and knocked into the box, sending it
skidding across the floor. Zoe managed to contort herself around and put her
eye to the small slit on the other side of the box. All she could see was the
strip of water and the wall on the opposite side of the room. She edged as far
as she could over to the other side of the box, the side that was farther away
from the water.

Another few bumps like that would
send her straight into the water, and she’d be trapped inside. How fast would
the water break down the cardboard? How fast would the box sink? How fast would
it fill with water? Would the water weaken the cardboard quickly enough for her
to get out before the box sank too deep? She didn’t want to find out. She
wanted out now.

She scrabbled at the tiny slit of
the opening, pushing, pulling, and trying to work it away from the tape. She
attacked the corner where the seam of the box had been glued together, but it
was stuck fast. The background noise of Francesca’s screams and the mens’
struggle went on. They hit the box again as they flailed around. It shuttered
as it scooted another inch toward the water.