Chapter 3
The taxi was hot, the defroster blasting warm air into the backseat and Becky’s face.
“Can you turn that down?” she asked.
The driver reached forward and appeared to turn a knob, but the hot air assault continued unabated.
She unwound her scarf from her neck.
Rowan looked so scared on TV.
Gazing out her window, memories of the last time she saw Rowan played in her head. They were at the hospital, waiting for Colin to get out of surgery.
Becky was getting candy out of a vending machine when he came up behind her.
“Hey,” he said.
A package of licorice fell from its perch, and she felt her heart rate pickup at his nearness. “Hey yourself.”
“How’s Gwen?”
Becky inserted a dollar bill and sipped at a Hawaiian Punch.
She liked Colin’s brother. Maybe too much, even.
The guy was eye candy, for sure, but he was also sweet and stubborn, two of her favorite character traits.
She’d seen the way he looked out for Gwen after her husband died, the way he stood up for what he thought was right with Colin.
“Good. The gunshot was purely superficial.” A pair of cupcakes dropped. “She’ll have a scar on her arm, but they didn’t even admit her.” She began feeding coins into the slot.
“Hungry?” he asked.
She heard the humor in his voice and added ‘funny’ to her list of things she liked about him. Her eyes dipped to his chest, then back to his eyes. “Why, you want something?” A chocolate bar landed with a thud.
He shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. “No, I’m good. Have you seen Colin yet?”
“He’s still in post-op. They got the bullet.”
“Good. Good. They say anything else?”
They said you should make mad passionate love to me. Doctor’s orders.
She took a swig of her drink. “Nope.”
He was staring at her lips and she couldn’t help the direct words that flowed out of her mouth. “You sure you’re not hungry?” she asked, putting one hand on her hip. “Because you’re looking at me like you’re starving.”
His eyes widened. “Sorry.”
“Right.” She took another sip, slowly turning and walking beside him, her arm lightly brushing his and sending tingles through her whole body. “So, you live in Italy?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you end up over there?”
“I followed a woman.”
“Ah, I see. How did that work out?”
He didn’t answer for moment, the sound of their footsteps the only noise. “We got married.”
She stopped walking. “Married?”
He nodded.
“Wait, you’re married?” This had to be some kind of joke. Who the hell was this guy that he’d been hitting on her, flirting from the moment he met her, only to be married to some other woman?
“I am.”
Loser.
The Gardener Museum came into view and the cab stopped at a red light. Somewhere inside was Rowan, and her pulse jumped at the knowledge.
Don’t get too close, Becky.
She would stay aloof, distant. She would do her best to be a good friend until Colin and Gwen arrived, and that was all.
Rowan’s eyes took in the grotesque arch of the dragon’s back, its jaw wide with fangs exposed.
A spike penetrated its mouth, the serpentine curve of the monster’s neck allowing that same thorn to reemerge and pierce its own breast. St. George stood on horseback, golden sword extended for the kill, himself neither boy nor man, an unlikely hero for the princess on the distant hill.
Rowan knew the story of the painting before him, a Crivelli from the fifteenth century, and the irony did not escape him.
As he sat in the Raphael Room of the Gardner Museum, Rowan knew he had entered into a battle with an evil so fine, it could reach into his life and steal an innocent babe and its mother right out of his own careful hands.
Adrenaline flowed freely through his veins, making him sweat, and his fists long to hit something, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
A gruff voice interrupted his thoughts. “I got you some coffee.”
“Thanks, Marco.”
Marco Santori was about Rowan’s age, with a thicker middle and shaved bald head. “The local FBI guy wants to ask you a few questions.”
“Aren’t you good enough?”
“You know how it is.”
That, he did. He nodded and Marco left the room as a man with yellow hair entered.
“I’m Agent Ellington with the Boston FBI. I just need to ask you a few questions.”
The agent settled into an antique chair and opened a small notebook. “When’s the last time you saw your wife?”
“I already told Agent Santori.” He knew Ellington had to ask, but it was just so damn stupid. This was how the FBI was going to spend their time, questioning and requestioning him while the kidnappers got farther away?
“Tell me.”
Turning away, Rowan’s eyes found an image of the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel telling Mary she was to bear a child. Tamra’s face appeared in his memory, telling him he was going to be a father, her brown eyes oddly expressionless. She’d been lying to him, playing on his emotions.
Using up his life to fuel her own.
“I watched her give her speech, then she was showing off the baby to some people by the bar.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No.”
“Mr. Mitchell, were you and your wife getting along?”
Rowan didn’t speak for a beat. “Did someone suggest that we weren’t?”
Ellington didn’t answer.
Rowan laughed, a humorless sound. He stood. “No. We were not getting along.”
“Why not?”
He settled for a half-truth. “Things have been difficult since Anthony was born. My wife has been struggling with post-partum depression.” Or so she said.
Rowan had often wondered if the vague generalities of PPD were simply an easier way of hiding her dissatisfaction with her marriage.
Tamra never seemed depressed around the baby; quite the opposite. She was a loving and doting mother.
She was only depressed around her husband.
“Was she seeing anyone for the depression?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long have you and your wife been married?”
“It was a year in November.”
He imagined the agent counting in his head, and Rowan’s mind wandered back through time right with him. Had Tamra been planning, even then, to destroy him? Or had that plan only surfaced later?
“Was that unusual, for your wife to bring the baby to a function like this?”
“No.”
“He’s seven months old?”
“Eight on Tuesday.” Rowan felt his jaw shake as he said the words, emotion suddenly overwhelming him. He had known he would not see Anthony again after today, and that was enough to bring him to his knees. But kidnapped. The baby had been kidnapped.
“Can you think of anyone who could have done this, Mr. Mitchell?”
“No.”
Movement at the doorway caught Rowan’s attention. A uniformed policeman walked into the room, his mouth opening, then closing again.
“What is it?” asked the agent.
“There’s a woman here to see Mr. Mitchell. Becky O’Connor?”
The image of a sultry redhead who smelled like cinnamon and sugar flashed in Rowan’s brain. He narrowed his eyes. “Redhead?”
The officer nodded.
“I know her.”
What the hell was Becky doing here?
The officer stepped out of the room and Becky entered, her ivory cheeks flushed red from the cold.
Rowan hadn’t expected to see her again, and certainly not under these unlikely circumstances.
At a barbeque, maybe, or a family get-together at Colin’s house.
Then he might have been prepared for the wildly inappropriate shot of lust that slammed into his gut as she approached.
“I saw on the news,” she said, her big green eyes round with concern. “I was right down the street.”
Right down the street?
“You live in Boston.” This woman had invaded his memory several times since they met earlier this year, yet he had relegated her to some corner of his mind that was reserved for people who didn’t really exist, like Superman or Cat Woman.
But she did exist. She lived here, in Boston. He could have walked right by her.
“Yeah.” She threw her coat over a chair and opened her arms. Rowan realized she was going to hug him a moment before she did, time slowing as her body pressed against his.
He slipped his arm around her shapely back, feeling the softness of her sweater against his palm.
The lightest hint of alcohol surrounded her like perfume, making him wonder where she had been before this.
On a date, with a man? Of course. She was young, beautiful, single.
Why shouldn’t she be on a date with a man?
“Thanks for coming.” He reluctantly released his hold on her.
“Gwen and Colin are on their way, too. I called them.”
Relief came first, quickly followed by wariness. Rowan wasn’t used to relying on his brother.
The two of them had been on shaky ground for too long, their recent reconciliation yet to be truly tested.
It seemed like just yesterday they worked together to find what really happened to David, a close friend who died years earlier in what was thought to be a skiing accident.
Colin went on to marry David’s widow, Gwen, and the couple was expecting their first child this spring.
Rowan frowned when he thought of his sister-in-law. “Is Gwen up for the trip?” The last time he’d spoken with his brother, Colin said she was having a difficult pregnancy.
“I think she’s fine. She wanted to come. You know Gwen.”
He did, and he grinned. She was eccentric and good hearted, and he loved her a great deal. “Yeah.”
Ellington stepped forward and introduced himself to Becky. “And you are?” he asked, taking notes when she explained their relationship. “Just one more thing, Mr. Mitchell,” he said.
“Yes?”
“I’d like you to come back to the hotel. We’re going to go through your wife’s personal effects, see if we can find anything relevant. You can help.”
“Sure.”
Becky sat down with a great thud that belied her small frame. “So, what the hell happened?” she asked.