74

8:00 a.m.

Elena Voso crossed the square and started down the steps toward the lake. Shops catering mainly to tourists lined either side of the walkway down. Most of them were already open. Salespeople and customers alike, cheery, smiling, seeming happy about the prospects for the day.

In front of her Elena could see the lake. Boats crisscrossed on it. Across the street at the bottom of the stairs she could see the hydrofoil landing, and she wondered if the first hydrofoil had come yet, if Luca and Marco and Pietro were already in Como or maybe at the station, waiting for the train to Milan. At the bottom of the stairs was something else too – the Hotel Du Lac – and even now she wasn't certain what she would do when she got there.

After Edward Mooi left the grotto in the motorboat, Elena had taken Salvatore and Marta to where Michael Roark, or – and now she had to think of him this way – Father Daniel, was. He had been awake and moved up on one elbow, watching as they came in. Elena had introduced Salvatore and Marta as friends, saying she had to leave for a short while and they would care for him until she got back. Even though he was beginning to regain full use of his vocal chords and could talk for short periods of time, Father Daniel had said nothing. Instead his eyes had searched hers, as if somehow he knew she had found out who he was.

'You will be all right,' she'd said finally and left him with Marta, who had mentioned that his bandages should be changed and said that she would do it herself, indicating she had some training in medical care.

And then Salvatore had led Elena into a part of the caves she had not seen before. A twisting, turning route through a series of stone corridors ending, finally, at a cage-like service elevator that took them up several hundred feet through a natural cut in the granite.

At the top they had emerged into a heavy thicket and walked down a forest path to a fire road. There Salvatore had helped her into a small farm truck, told her how to get to Bellagio and what to do once she reached it.

Well, she had reached it and was at the base of the steps across from the Hotel Du Lac, and all she saw were police. They were right in front of her – an ambulance and three police cars and a crowd of onlookers directly across the street near the boat landing at the edge of the lake. To her left was the little park with the public telephone she had been instructed to use to call Father Daniel's brother at the hotel.

'Someone drowned,' she heard a woman say, and then other people pushed past her, coming down the steps, rushing to see what had happened.

Elena watched for a moment, then glanced toward the telephones. Father Daniel was in her care, Edward Mooi had said. Maybe so, but reason told her that when she got the chance she should go directly to the police. Whether her mother general knew what was going on made no difference. Nor was it her business what Father Daniel had done or had not done. That was what the law was for. He was wanted for murder and so was his brother. There were the police. All she had to do was go.

And she did, moving away from the phones, crossing the street toward them. As she reached the far curb, a loud noise went up from the crowd at the water's edge. More people hurried past, anxious to see what was going on.

'Look!' someone said, and Elena saw police divers in the water near the boat landing lift a body from the lake. Policemen onshore hefted it from them and put it down on the landing. Another rushed to throw a blanket over it.

That breathless moment in time, that uncounted second, when the public glimpses the suddenly dead and becomes instantly silent, froze Elena Voso where she stood. The body fished from the lake was that of a man.

Luca Fanari.

75

Harry watched the police and the crowd across the street I moment longer, then turned from his hotel room window to look back to the television. Adrianna in her L. L. Bean field jacket and baseball cap stood in a pouring rain outside the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization. A major story was coming, piecemeal, from mainland China. Unofficial reports from the city of Hefei in eastern China indicated that a major incident had taken place concerning the area's public water supply – thousands of people were rumored to have been poisoned and more than six thousand were already dead. Both Xinhua, the New China News Agency, and the Chinese Central Broadcasting Bureau dismissed the reports as unfounded.

Abruptly Harry hit the mute button and Adrianna was silenced. What the hell was she doing in Geneva reporting on an 'unfounded' incident?

Unsettled, he glanced back out the window. Then at the bedside clock.

8:20 a.m.

No calls. Nothing. What had happened to Edward Mooi? Had he not reread the fax? And now Adrianna was in Geneva when she should have been in Bellagio. Crazily, he felt abandoned. Left in a tiny hotel room while the world went on.

He turned back to the window. As he did, a police car pulled up directly across the street. The doors opened, and three men in plainclothes got out and headed for the boat landing. Harry's heart stopped. The man walking first, leading the others, was Roscani.

'Jesus.' Instinctively he twisted back from the window. At almost the same instant there was a knock at the door. Every nerve stiffened. The knock came again.

Quickly he went to the bed, opened the suitcase, and took out the sheet of paper with Edward Mooi's telephone number. Ripping it in pieces he went into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.

The knock came once more. Softer this time. Not the authoritative strike of the police. Eaton – of course. Harry relaxed, then walked to the door and opened it.

A young nun stood there.

'Father Roe?'

Harry hesitated. 'Yes…'

'I am nursing sister Elena Voso…' Her English was accented with Italian but clear nonetheless.

Harry stared, unsure.

'I would like to come in.'

He looked past her to the hallway. He saw no one.

'Yes, of course…'

Stepping back, Harry watched her turn and close the door behind her.

'You phoned Edward Mooi,' Elena said, carefully.

Harry nodded.

'I've come to take you to your brother…'

Harry stared. 'I don't understand…'

'It's all right…' She could feel his caution, see his uncertainty. 'I'm not with the police…'

'I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.'

'If you are not sure… follow me out. I will be waiting on the steps leading up to the village. Your brother is ill… Please… Mr Addison.'

76

Harry took her down the backstairs and at the ground floor opened the door to a rear hallway.

uscita. Exit.

The sign with the arrow pointed off. Harry hesitated – he wanted to go out a rear or side door, anything but through the front and out onto the street where Roscani was. But there was only one sign, and he followed it, moving them off in the direction the arrow pointed. A minute later they pushed through a door and into the hotel lobby. The only way out was through the front door.

'Damn it,' Harry breathed. People were at the front desk, checking in or out. Past them, a rotund man was in animated conversation with the concierge. Harry looked back. If there was another exit he had no idea how to find it. Just then the elevator doors opened, and two couples and a porter pushing a luggage cart came toward them. If they were going out, this was the time.

Taking Elena's arm, Harry timed his move to keep in step with the porter. As they reached the door he motioned for the man to go ahead. The porter nodded and pushed the luggage cart through. Harry and Elena came out just behind. The sunlight hit, and Harry turned them abruptly left along the sidewalk, walking with other pedestrians.