Chapter One
Madison Montgomery stopped and pressed herself flat against the stone wall. She listened, but the footsteps stopped as well. She waited. Nothing. The sound of far-off traffic reached her ears, but she could barely hear it over her own harsh breathing. Maybe she was imagining things. Who would follow her? She shouldered her bag and crossed a narrow cobblestone street from one lane to the next.
The sun was just setting, but it was dark in the lane. The old Florentine buildings blocked the light so effectively she was having trouble seeing. She moved as quickly as she dared but running on cobblestones in high-heeled boots was not something she wanted to try unless absolutely necessary.
The darkness got thicker the deeper she moved into the small lane. Was that the sound of footsteps again?
Not for the first time, she regretted taking this assignment from Jameson Drake. If she’d just said no, she could have been back in her cozy New York apartment on the Upper West Side. But she wasn’t good at saying no, at least not to Drake.
A pebble rolled along the street, but she hadn’t kicked anything. She stopped again. The person following her wasn’t as quick this time, and a few more steps echoed off the buildings before silence fell. There was only another twenty feet before she rounded the corner into an even narrower lane that the smallest cars couldn’t go down. She didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t go back. She went forward and turned onto the tiny lane. Screw it. She broke out into a run. Her shoulder bag banged against her as her boots clomped over the cobblestones. She raced down the lane, fear chasing her every step.
She burst from the lane into the piazza, startling a few passersby so she immediately resumed a more sedate pace. She kept her head down and stood close to a large group of tourists that were gathered in the piazza. They were taking pictures and listening to a guide who held a white flag with an Adventure Travel logo.
Glancing back over her shoulder, Madison glimpsed a man emerging from the lane she had just exited. She left the tour group and quickly joined a queue of customers waiting outside one of the restaurants. Hiding behind a group of American tourists, she watched as the man searched the square for her. He was tall, over six feet, and lean. His face was pockmarked, and he looked to be in his late forties. Russian or Ukrainian or possibly some other former Eastern Bloc country. Probably Russian. He just had that look.
Why the hell would some Russian be following her? She moved forward with the crowd. They were only two groups away from the seating hostess. The smell of tomato sauce and cheese wafted over. Her stomach churned. If the guy didn’t move soon, he would see her when she didn’t enter the restaurant. Madison bit her lip and watched as the man moved toward the middle of the square. Once there, he turned in a slow circle.
She stepped behind the group so they were between her and the man. She waited, minutes ticking by. When the line moved, she hazarded a quick glance. The man was gone. Madison peered around the square. Where did he go? In the far corner of the piazza, he was just disappearing down another narrow lane.
Madison’s shoulders sagged in relief. She stepped around the Americans and hurried along the perimeter of the square until she came to another street. This one was bigger and two over from the smaller lane the Russian had gone down.
She kept pace with the crowd, shuffling along with another group of tourists, this group Asian. Luckily, she had dark hair and blended with the rest of them. It was only a five-minute walk to her place from here, but she didn’t want to increase her pace and stick out in anyway. A shiver danced across her skin. She wanted to go home. Back to the relative safety of New York. No one ever followed her there .
Florence had seemed like just what she had needed to get her out of her funk. She normally loved to travel with her job but, lately, it was all getting on her nerves. Florence, however, was one of her favorite cities, and who didn’t like pasta?
When Drake had asked her to take the assignment, she’d accepted. Getting the opportunity to have an up-close look at the account logs of a fashion company was good for her, since her ultimate goal was to get into the fashion business herself.
Madison loved numbers, and forensic accounting was usually so interesting. She liked the investigative edge it brought to regular accounting. Doing it in the fashion world in Italy seemed like a dream come true. Now it was just a nightmare.
She needed to call Drake and tell him of her suspicions. But what did she suspect? She wasn’t sure. Madison shook her head. She knew the spreadsheets looked good. Too good maybe? The numbers just didn’t feel right, and she trusted her instincts. They hadn’t let her down yet.
She turned the last corner onto her street and came to an abrupt halt. The Russian was standing in front of her Airbnb , talking to Mrs. Rover, the British woman who looked after the building. She spun around and went back around the corner. Leaning on the adjacent building, she struggled to pull oxygen into her lungs. What the hell was going on?
She adjusted her bag one more time, from one shoulder to the other, wondering why it felt so heavy. She had her laptop and her wallet and keys, but she always carried that stuff. The clutch. The damned clutch purse that Giovanni had given her. It wasn’t even her taste. It was black with rhinestones and huge rivets. Not her style at all. It was also frickin’ heavy. She’d planned on giving it back to him first thing in the morning. Now she wondered if she’d get the chance.
She peeked back around the corner. The Russian was still speaking with her landlady, only now the Polizia were beside him. The officer said something, and the Russian pointed. Then he turned and pointed to another officer that was back by the car. While the man was nearly facing her direction, she pulled out her phone and opened her camera. As he gestured for him to follow the other officer into her building, she snapped a picture. The Russian was a cop?
She watched as the cops entered her building. They must be going to search her apartment, but why? What were they looking for? What could they possibly want from her?
She eased back around the corner and leaned against the wall. She should just walk over there and ask what was going on. That was what a reasonable person would do, and she had always considered herself reasonable above all else. But she was in a foreign country, and she didn’t speak the language. Worse yet, she was unfamiliar with the legal system in Italy. Did she have the same rights as she would at home?
She ran a shaky hand through her shoulder-length hair. This was all so surreal. She reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone. She started to make a call, but then stopped. Should she really call Drake? He’d helped her so much already. She didn’t want him to think she couldn’t take care of herself.
Then another thought hit her. Could the people after her be tracking her? She half-choked on a laugh. If they were tracking her, she wouldn’t still be standing a few hundred feet down the street from the people that wanted to speak to her. She touched the screen on her phone as she turned and walked away from her street. She put the phone to her ear and said a silent prayer.
She had the distinct feeling she was going to need all the help she could get.