Part 3 (1/2)

”Good!” She smiled and started away. Then she paused, coming back. ”Don't let it bother you if people whisper about you today. They whisper about me all the time, and I've survived!”

Before Jordan could say more, Tiff had walked back to her friend. Jordan was surprised to realize that she felt much better after her conversation with the very blunt woman. She smiled, starting out of the hotel again. She mused over the woman's rea.s.surance without really having to wonder why people would whisper about Tiff. Surely, it had something to do with her lifestyle.

Outside the hotel, vendors displayed their goods. The usual T-s.h.i.+rts were for sale, as were dolls and masks by the hundreds. By day, many people were in street clothes, as she was, but even by sunlight, many people were costumed. Walking in broad daylight, Jordan saw the masked and elaborately dressed strollers for what they were-revelers enjoying the beauty and make-believe of the immense party which was Venice at Carnevale. The air was cool, the day was bright, the sky was blue. Crossing the bridge outside the Danieli, she paused, looking down the ca.n.a.l to the Bridge of Sighs, connecting the Doge's Palace and the old prisoners to the new, where many a poor man had pa.s.sed to his imprisonment, or his doom. That had been the past. This morning, a gondolier with a young couple in his sleek black gondola was singing an Italian love song. As he then came through the ca.n.a.l and glanced up at Jordan, he broke into English verse. ”When the moon hits your eye like a big piece of pie, that's amore!” He winked. Jordan lifted a brow with a half smile and waved to the happy couple.

The gondolier stopped rowing, drifting slowly as he pa.s.sed beneath her. ”Buon giomo, signorina!” he called to her. ”Care for a ride?”

”You have pa.s.sengers!” she told him.

”Ah, but they are in love. I am alone.”

”Ah, well, such is life,” she teased. ”Your gondola is occupied.”

”Then you must ride another time. I'm Sal. Salvatore D'Onofrio. The best. The most fun, the most handsome.”

”And the most modest!” she supplied.

He grinned and shrugged. ”No, not the most modest. But you look for me, some other time, eh?”

”If I decide on a gondola ride, I will definitely look for you,” she promised.

The girl in the back of the gondola, huddled to a young man who couldn't be much more than twenty, called out to Jordan, her accent French. ”He is the best!”

Jordan laughed. ”Thanks! Enjoy!”

As the gondola drifted beneath the bridge, Jordan moved on.

St. Mark's Square was crowded with people. Pa.s.sing the entrance to the basilica, Jordan looked over the heads of the ever-moving horde to see that a costume parade was going on by the makes.h.i.+ft bandstand at the opposite end of the Square. A rock band was playing, and a jester was introducing the contestants in English and Italian, throwing in a few words of French here and there. Those in the most fetching and extravagant costumes posed at the columns around the Square for tourists who snapped endless photos. With their masks, most of the elaborately dressed people were wholly anonymous-it was impossible to tell a person's nationality, color, or even s.e.x.

Anonymous . .. there is the key, she thought. It's so easy to come here, don a mask, slip into the crowd, and ...

The thought brought back a strange sense of unease. In truth, she wouldn't know anyone she had seen at the ball last night. Except for the contessa, of course. They had met face to face. But the others who had been there ... they might be in the Square with her now, and she would not know.

She walked through the crowd, suddenly anxious to reach the streets beyond the Square where she would not be quite so tightly packed in by the throngs. An excellent Napoleon- followed by his court-was at her side. He stopped, bowed low, and indicated that she should precede them. She thanked him quickly and walked on by.

Pa.s.sing by a plate gla.s.s window that displayed mannequins in various costumes, she suddenly went dead still, staring into gla.s.s.

For a moment.. .

No. It was just a mannequin. This one with a male form, with a short cut, sable brown wig. For a moment, she thought she had seen Steven's face on the mannequin. Serious hazel eyes, lean features, firm chin. But she was looking at a plastic mold, expressionless features. No hat and no mask adorned the dummy; it was just a well-painted figure in the typical cape. Still, her heart raced, and she mistrusted her own judgment more than ever.

Maybe Jared was right. Steven had been dead only a year. He had died chasing down deadly game players. Cultists-with a yen for murder, for sacrifices to their cruel beliefs.

She studied the mannequin again, forcing herself to think logically.

Yes, she could see why she'd had the momentary vision.

The lean features were similar to Steven's. The eyes had been painted hazel; the hair was his color as well. The size was about right.

A surge of sorrow swept through her. A year wasn't such a long time.

He had come suddenly into her life, and she had found herself suddenly responding. He had been charming, intelligent, impressive . .. n.o.ble.

He shouldn't have been a cop, she thought. He had been too trusting. He had hated violence, but had come on the force in homicide-a man who had believed in rehabilitation, who was completely against the death penalty, and was determined that suspects must be taken alive.

Taking suspects alive had cost him his own life.

She had known what had happened when she heard the sirens in the night, when she looked out her door and saw the cop car, and the officer coming down her walk. She had known what he did; she shouldn't have been shocked. That hadn't stopped her from being horrified, devastated. She had gone through the stages of grief: denial, anger, pain. But she had remained sane.

She had come to the stage of acceptance. She hadn't lost her reason or her mind in any way.

Maybe she had, she mocked herself, if she was seeing his face in the features of a store-window dummy.

Steven was gone. She still felt the sorrow, but she was living her life. He had died under cruel circ.u.mstances, and she would be a fool to forget that horrible things did happen.

A breeze whispered. Soft, cool, beautiful. She forced the past to the back of her mind. She loved Italy, adored Venice, and was not going to let the contessa ruin that simple fact.

She looked away and kept walking. She was not to blame in this. If it had all been a charade, it had been a deplorable one. Jared had no right to be so callous, and she had every right to be furious.

Beyond the Square, she came to streets filled with cafes and shops. Glancing through the window of a restaurant specializing in fish, she noted that many people had doffed their masks for the singular pleasure of eating. They all looked so... normal. A chubby little businessman had his cape thrown over his shoulder while his dottore mask lay on the chair by his side. A half moon mask and a large plumed hat lay on the table by the side of his companion, an equally chubby woman with a charming laugh that rang all the way to the streets. Americans, Jordan thought. Vacationers, like herself, loving this fantasy.

Looking into the restaurant had made her smile. Yet even as she watched, smiling back at the woman who had seen her, she felt an eerie feeling creep up her spine.

Stop! she commanded herself.

But the feeling persisted.

And it had nothing to do with memories of Steven. She had been smiling at a plump and friendly looking American woman when the strange sensation began a trek along her spine.

She felt again that she was being watched.

Whispers seemed to sweep by her, s.n.a.t.c.hes spoken in the wind, there and then gone.

Whispers, swift, staccato, like an evil, raspy breeze, just touching her ears, her nape. For a moment, the street seemed to go dark. Reflected in the gla.s.s of the restaurant window, darkness seemed to descend, like huge wings sweeping over the daylight.

The woman seated inside the restaurant was still laughing. The darkness disappeared as swiftly as if it had flown away on wings of light. And still ...

That feeling.

Something... someone. . . right beside her. A cold, fetid, whisper of menace ...

Jordan swung around, feeling as if bony fingers of sheer ice touched upon her shoulder.

Gino Meroni did not at all dislike his work.