The Medici Return (Cotton Malone #19)

Chapter 70

CHAPTER 70

C OTTON’S ATTEMPT TO FIGHT BACK TO CONSCIOUSNESS WAS LIKE peeling a scab from a sore. Every heartbeat sent new waves of pulsating pain through his skull. Breathe. Keep the lungs in rhythm. Check the extremities. Both arms and legs moved and had feeling. As did his fingers and toes. Nothing seemed broken. But bouts of pain came from bruised flesh. Relief, disbelief, and a touch of anger all tumbled through his mind. He recalled the drop over the side of the road and the tumbling. Then the crash. And stillness. He’d partially come to once before with a light piercing his face. Bouncing on and off. He’d managed a peek through a tight squint and caught sight of someone inside the car. Searching. And the face. Seen only for an instant. But enough. The same man from the train and in Siena. Here? He hadn’t been able to stay awake long and had lapsed back into the darkness.

Now he forced himself to come awake.

“Cardinal,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

“I… hear you.”

“You okay?”

“I think so. But my arm hurts. I smell gasoline.”

He did too. The odor hung heavy in the air, clammy and close.

Not good.

“Do you have the pledge?” he asked Richter.

“It has to be in here somewhere.”

But he knew that was not going to be the case. The man from the train had come and retrieved it. Why else would he have searched? He released his seat belt and slipped out of the harness. Which hurt. He was below Richter, the driver’s side of the car resting on the ground. “You need to climb out first.”

Richter released his seat belt.

He wondered why the man from the train had not finished them off.

He heard a swish in the distance, then something pinged off metal.

What the hell?

Another pop.

And the rear half of the car erupted in flames.

T HOMAS WAS SATISFIED.

It would take only a few moments for the fire to heat up and the car to be engulfed. The gasoline would feed it and obliterate everything. Job done. He headed for his car and laid the rifle across the back seat.

His phone vibrated with a text.

Return to Siena. Bring it to the fountain in the campo and wait for me there.

He climbed inside.

And drove away.

C OTTON WAS HAVING TROUBLE brEATHING . H EAVY SMOKE brOUGHT an ache in his chest with each inhalation.

“We need to get out of here,” he said to Richter.

“I am trying.”

He helped Richter free himself of the shoulder harness. The cardinal then used his good arm and climbed from the car, coughing from the smoke. Cotton started hacking too as he followed Richter out.

They moved away to fresher air.

The fire was spreading, flames licking the night. Although on television or in the movies wrecked cars always explode at just the right dramatic moment, that rarely happens in real life. More a slow and steady burn that’s hard to stop. Hot too. Fed by gasoline. Intense enough to melt metal. And the smoke. That was what could really get you.

“Stay here,” he said to Richter.

And he risked going back to the car. He had to know if the pledge was there. So he held his breath and plunged inside the destroyed interior cabin for a quick look. Nothing there. Gone. He returned and led Richter farther away and into the trees, putting more distance between them and the car. Moonlight gauzed the ground and partially lit the way. Thankfully the underbrush was thin, the trees scattered. He swallowed hard, an empty feeling shooting up from his gut.

“What happened?” Richter asked when they stopped.

“Someone was lying in the road. I think we had two blowouts from rifle shots. Then we had a visitor.”

He told Richter about the man on the train who’d come to the car.

“You never mentioned that guy to Stamm,” Richter said.

“It wasn’t important at the time. You’ve got a nasty cut on your forehead.” Which wasn’t actively bleeding, but still needed some attention. “How’s the arm?”

“Jammed up, but I don’t think it’s broken.”

His head felt light, his mouth dry. The events of the past few days seemed far away, easy to believe it all a dream.

But it wasn’t.

Now what?