Consumed by Fire

  Which was the least of his worries. If he had to silence this particular witness he was going to be in a thoroughly rotten mood himself.

  She had stopped and looked at Corsini, and he wondered if she could see anything. She didn’t look perturbed, just continued down the aisle toward him, and for a crazy moment he thought of a bride walking to meet her groom. Some bride, he thought, the trace of a smile tugging at his mouth. She looked as if she’d been rolling in dust, she had scrapes on her long legs, and her hair beneath the bandanna was a mess.

  She finally reached him, and if there was a slight hesitation in her step only he would have noticed. She looked him in the eye, plastered a totally fake smile on her face, the same one she’d given them before, and greeted him as she had before, in American-accented Italian, though this time with a hint of a question in her greeting.

  He answered in the same language, with a better accent. “Good afternoon, signorina. It’s a very fine church, isn’t it?”

  She was definitely nervous, looking up at him uneasily despite her friendly smile, but that could be simply because she was alone in a deserted place with an unknown man. For Claudia that would be enough to blow her head off. He wasn’t as trigger-happy. “Very fine,” she agreed. “I’ve been studying it.”

  “You are a student?” He was stringing out this inconsequential conversation while he covertly watched her. She was looking at him as if he were a murderer, he thought resignedly. He was going to have to kill her after all.

  “Sort of,” she answered, and he wondered why she was prevaricating. It raised his suspicions. “If you’ll excuse me, signor, I have to get back to town . . .”

  “You’re American, aren’t you?” he said suddenly in English. Maybe he could get a better sense of her in her own language.

  She looked startled. “Y . . . yes. And you?”

  “From Connecticut,” he lied, but an East Coast polish went better with his current incarnation. He was actually from the endless winters of Wyoming, from miles and miles of emptiness and spiky mountains and bone-deep cold. “What is your area of interest?”

  She clearly wasn’t in the mood for idle conversation. She seemed anxious to get away from him, and that might have sealed her fate. “Medieval clerical architecture,” she admitted finally. “With an emphasis on walled towns. And now I really need . . .”

  “You picked a good town for it then,” he said, cutting off her excuse to leave. “I haven’t been back home for a number of years, but unless things have changed drastically I wouldn’t think there’d be a whole lot of jobs in that area.”

  “I teach college. I already have my degree, I’m just working on a project.” She seemed to struggle with the words, and he wondered what she really wanted to say. What was she covering up?

  “You’re an academic?” he said, and she winced.

  “I suppose so,” she said reluctantly. “Excuse me, but I really need to go.” She was already edging away, and he kept himself from reaching for her. If she ran he could catch her. That, or bury a bullet in the back of her brain with the same amount of care it took him to tie his shoes.

  “Do you have a car?” he asked, stalling her as she turned to leave.

  She blinked those gorgeous green eyes of hers. They were startling—a clear emerald color that had to be from contacts, just as his own eye color was.

  She was looking at him warily, filled with distrust. Shit.

  “I don’t need a car.”

  “Look, I’m driving down into Cabrisi. You must be staying there—it’s the only town in the area, and you’re on foot. Let me give you a ride. Trust me, I’m perfectly harmless.” He held up both hands in a surrendering gesture.

  “I don’t think . . .”

  “Look, I saw you here, and I don’t like to leave a single woman alone up in these hills with no protection. Not when it’s getting dark.” He gave her his patented engaging grin. “For all I know you’re some kind of super-spy, with epic martial arts skills and lethal weapons all over you. But in case you’re not, I just thought I should hang around and offer you a ride.”

  She was judging him, he thought, looking at him as if trying to decide whether he was as harmless as he appeared. When she said nothing, he simply shrugged. “It’s no skin off my ass,” he continued. “I’m trying to be the good guy here. I know, I’m a stranger—you have no reason to trust me, but I’m not about to hurt you. Just give you a ride into town before the storm hits.”

  She jerked her gaze to the sky, and he knew she hadn’t even noticed the storm clouds swirling down on the Tuscan hills. “I wondered why it had grown so dark this early,” she said inconsequentially. And then she met his gaze, and her doubt and distrust had vanished. “I was going to ask Signor Corsini for a ride when he finished his prayers but I think he’s fallen asleep.”

  He froze, all sentimental weakness vanishing. If she was connected to their recent hit then he’d have no choice. “Signor Corsini?” he echoed. The less he said, the more she’d have to come up with. It was an old trick, but an effective one.

  “The old man who’s praying. He’s staying at the same hotel I am. I see him at dinner. He’s very sweet.”

  She was staying at the Villa Ragarra, the same hotel they were using. That made things both easier and harder. Easier if she really was a liability and he had to dispose of her. Easier for him to find out what she knew if they were staying beneath the same roof, harder to keep Claudia from going after her. Claudia liked to kill.

  “At that age he’s probably got a lot to answer for,” he said easily. “I wouldn’t count on him being ready before the storm hits, and maybe he needs to atone while he drives down the hill. He’s probably got any number of Hail Marys to make.”

  She gave him a look then, her head tilted questioningly, and he laughed. “Recovering Catholic,” he said lightly. “I was a close acquaintance with repentance when I was a kid.”

  She nodded, believing it. It was nothing more than the truth. “Good point,” she said finally, then glanced at the threatening sky. She took a deep breath. “I’d appreciate a ride.”

  So far so good, he thought. She hadn’t made a fuss over her friend Corsini—she hadn’t noticed anything odd. She was also willing, albeit grudgingly, to accept a ride from him down into town. If she knew the old man was dead, he would be an obvious suspect and she would never get in his car.

  She still might bolt, but he knew people, women in particular, and he could tell when her uneasiness began to fade. Either that, or she was a first-rate actress, and he doubted that. He pointed to the Fiat Claudia had left for him. “I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got to offer, but it works.” He walked over and opened the passenger door, waiting for her, every sense alert. If she suspected something now would be her time to run for it.

  She barely hesitated, stripping off her knapsack before slipping into the front seat, looking up at him questioningly. He closed the door, very gently, and moved around to the other side. She was already fiddling with the seat belt.

  “You can put your knapsack in the back,” he suggested, starting the car. It looked like the classic European rental, solid, reliable, and boring. This one had a lot more under the hood than anyone would ever suspect, and he could give Claudia’s Lexus a run for the money, but the girl was unlikely to notice.

  “I’ll hold it, thank you,” she said politely.

  He nodded, putting the car into gear, and then they were off down the twisting roads that led to Cabrisi at relatively sedate speeds. She was staring out at the countryside as they sped past, doing her best to ignore him, which gave him the luxury of watching her. She had a good profile—sweet lips, a firm chin, a high forehead, and gorgeous eyes. She really was darling, and he idly considered what he’d like to do with her, exactly where he’d kiss her, which way he’d move. He’d like to drive the shy wariness from those wonderful eyes; he wanted her screami
ng beneath him as she came. He’d taken one look at her in the front hall of the old church and wanted her, and the more innocent she was appearing, the more he was allowing himself to fantasize.

  He was getting hard, and that wasn’t a good idea, so he tore his mind away from her dusty, gorgeous legs and concentrated on the road. The Fiat could handle these twisty turns even better than the Lexus, and on impulse he let the car loose, just a bit, taking the next curve at a speed that would have caused a normal person to blanch.

  The woman beside him didn’t. She watched the countryside whiz past, and her eyes were shining, her breath coming faster. But her hands had let go of the knapsack and grabbed the cloth seat, her knuckles white, and there was no disputing that she was both terrified and exhilarated by his driving.

  He immediately slowed the car. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I drive a little too fast for most people’s comfort. It comes from living in Rome for years.” He’d never spent more than a week in Rome at one time, but it made for a good explanation for his excellent Italian, which he was sure she’d noticed. She was the kind of woman who noticed things.

  She turned to look at him, giving him a wry smile. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit of a chickenshit. Though I have to admit it was fun.”

  “When you weren’t terrified for your life?” he suggested.

  “There’s that,” she agreed. “By the way, my name’s Evangeline Morrissey.”

  “James Bishop,” he replied, reaching out to shake her hand. Now what in the hell had prompted him to give her his real name? He really must be off his game.

  It didn’t matter. He was going to disappear as soon as he was certain she wasn’t a problem. Claudia wasn’t one for accepting his gut feelings anymore, but if he could just keep the girl safe until Claudia left then he wouldn’t have to worry. The ancient Romans might have been into sacrificing stray lambs—he wasn’t.

  “Evangeline,” he murmured. “That’s very pretty. What do people call you? Vangie?”

  She shuddered. “God, no. They call me ‘professor.’ ”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You want me to call you ‘professor’?”

  “No, of course not. Evangeline will do.”

  He smiled at her, and he watched her melt a little bit. He’d perfected that smile, that look, and it worked on everyone, male and female. “In that case, Evangeline, will you have dinner with me tonight?”

  She’d just been beginning to relax, but those words made her tense up once more. Why? “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

  “Why not? We both have to eat, and there are only two decent restaurants in town. We’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of ending up at the same place. Why don’t we just plan to eat together?”

  “What about the woman who was with you?”

  She’d been observant. She’d only seen Claudia for a minute, but he had no doubt she’d be able to describe her perfectly. She was a detail-oriented academic. A liability, Claudia would say.

  Not if he could help it.

  “Claudia is a business associate, nothing more. She already has plans for dinner, and I don’t.” He smiled at her, and her eyes widened at the force of his full frontal assault. No woman could withstand him when he was being charming. An insecure professor from the States would be child’s play.

  “No,” she said. “It’s not a good idea.”

  Bishop stared at her, momentarily silenced. He could get past this, call in a few favors once they got back to town. It would be easy enough to find out where she was, bump into her. He knew women well enough to know she was reluctantly attracted to him. But why the reluctance? He glanced at her hands. No wedding ring, no engagement ring, so it couldn’t be that.

  “Are you involved with someone and think it would be cheating? I promise, I’m only talking about dinner.”

  She hesitated, and he homed in on the weakness. “Come on, Evangeline. I hate to eat alone, and it’s been so long since I’ve talked to another American.”

  She was no longer clutching the seat now that he was driving more sedately, but her fingers were playing nervously with the cord on her knapsack. For a moment he let his imagination go. She could be something far from what she appeared—Corsini usually traveled with a bodyguard as well as a chauffeur. Maybe she had a gun in that harmless-looking bag.

  No, if she was a bodyguard then she was a piss-poor one, and she hadn’t even checked to see if her employer was sleeping or dead. She would have shot him and taken the car, or at least she would have tried. He was becoming as paranoid as Claudia.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “It’s just that I usually work in the evenings. Transcribe my notes, that sort of thing.”

  “I won’t keep you out too late, I promise you,” he said. They were approaching town. “Where are you staying?” She’d already given that away, but he had to appear oblivious.

  “Villa Ragarra.”

  “Perfect. So am I.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t sound particularly happy about it. He couldn’t dismiss her as harmless until he figured out her reluctance. He had no illusions—he could seduce a mother abbess if he put his mind to it, and Ms. Evangeline Morrissey was acting as skittish as a virgin. Which she wasn’t—he was pretty sure of that much, though he suspected she hadn’t had a great deal of experience. Made his job a whole lot easier—he wouldn’t have to put himself out to show her a good time.

  So he simply smiled at her, knowing the smile never reached his eyes, knowing that no one ever noticed that it didn’t. “Very convenient,” he murmured. “When you get bored with me you can just walk away.”

  As if she’d get bored with him, Evangeline thought. That was exactly the problem—he was too mesmerizing. His smile never reached those unreadable eyes—for all his abundant charm, there was something else, something dark, coiled and waiting behind that flattering gaze, and if she had half the brains her brilliant parents had bequeathed her, she would run far and fast.

  But . . . there was no reason he should be a danger to her, not unless she made the mistake of thinking all that charm meant something. There was no reason she couldn’t enjoy a meal with someone, no reason she couldn’t even go to bed with him if she wanted. She prided herself on being a healthy, normal young woman, despite . . . everything . . . and she and Lester had broken up nine months ago. That was a long dry period, but not unusual for her. She was usually too focused on her research and her career to worry about dating. If someone appeared, fine. If someone didn’t, more time to concentrate on work.

  James Bishop had appeared, and he seemed to be interested in her. Unless his simple words had been the truth—that he’d just been longing to speak to another American. Because she found him incredibly attractive didn’t mean the feeling was mutual. She suspected he was that flirtatious and charming with every single female he met, old and young.

  He pulled up in front of Villa Ragarra, an expensive little hotel that Evangeline could ill afford, but where she’d stayed every year she’d come to Italy. It was her one indulgence, and she knew Silvio, the concierge and half-owner, would look after her.

  “Shall we eat here?” James Bishop said, looking at her. “Say, nine o’clock? Or would you like to eat earlier?”

  “Nine’s perfect,” she said, gathering her knapsack and opening the door. “I’ll see you then.” She didn’t care if it looked as if she were running away. She was. He was overpowering, particularly in the confines of that boring Fiat, which wasn’t boring after all. In an open room his effect on her might not be so potent.

  She disappeared into the cool darkness of the hotel before he could say anything, breathing a sigh of relief. She had no idea what time it was—sometime after five, she suspected, but that gave her plenty of time to make up her mind, to come up with an excuse if need be. That, or put things in perspective and enjoy a meal with a handsome man. Surely there was nothing so risk
y in that?

  But she couldn’t rid herself of the feeling it was exactly that. Risky, dangerous, and the smartest thing she could do would be to run away. She could do it, too. There was a late-night bus to the next town, where she could sleep in the youth hostel. He’d never find her there.

  What the hell was wrong with her? She’d been reading too many thrillers. He was simply a handsome man who was bored, and she was available, at least for conversation. She needed a nice hot shower and a rest and everything would fall into place.

  Chapter Two

  “Did you kill her?” Claudia was stretched out on the chaise longue, her slender ankles crossed, her solid gold ankle bracelet glinting in the late-afternoon sun. She was filing her already perfect nails, and she barely looked up at him, her question desultory.

  He was tempted to lie to her, but it wouldn’t take much for her to catch him in it, and there was no reason for him to bother. “I’m having dinner with her tonight,” he said, stripping off his shirt.

  Claudia looked at his bared torso with all the interest of a snake handler. They’d worked together for so long that dressing and undressing in front of each other meant absolutely nothing, though in her Claudia-mode she tended to be a bit more modest. “Why? You could have dumped her with the chauffeur and the carabinieri would just think it was an organized crime hit with an unfortunate witness.”

  “Which is nothing more than the truth,” Bishop snapped. “As far as I can tell she noticed nothing out of the ordinary. I’m having dinner with her to make absolutely certain, and then we can move on without worrying about it.”

  “Killing her would be more efficient,” Claudia pointed out, her eyes narrowing. Claudia was like a terrier with a dead rat—she never let go.

  “In the short run, maybe. In the long run—who knows? No one likes unnecessary bodies complicating things, least of all the Committee, now that Peter Madsen is in charge.”

  Claudia shrugged, unconcerned. “The Committee doesn’t like witnesses complicating things either. No one’s supposed to know the organization even exists. I’d choose dead bodies as the lesser of two evils.”