He only rubbed his captive’s face into the stone until he whimpered.
“FYI, buddy, zipped up your ass is a stupid place to keep a weapon.” He pushed his prisoner up the ramp toward the road. “Someone might jump you from behind.”
The afternoon was not going to include gelato from the café at the other end of the ruins.
He shoved the guy through the first gap in the rubble across the street.
Today was not going to involve a pleasant blend of beer, sun and a frisky woman.
Shoving hard, they zigged and zagged deeper into the unkempt section of the ruins.
This outing was not going to end in Theresa’s hotel room. To the ever-sucking contrary, it was going to be soldier shit, him and this fucker hidden deep in seared grass past rows of mausoleums, while the woman he wanted until he ached—who also controlled his future if she talked to the wrong people—boarded a bus and rode away, like he’d told her.
He’d had more successful dates after sacking a convent.
The stacked stone arch in front of Theresa framed more stone blocks and sun-dried weeds, the opposite of the dampness where her shirt clung at her armpits.
After the amphitheater and guild mosaics, she’d realized the tail had vanished. The tour guide had called the boulevard that divided the ruins the Decumanus Maximus. The unmowed area south of it, away from the tourists and gift shop, was the logical place to find Wulf and, by extension, the man who’d pursued them.
Now that she had no doubts they’d been followed, she’d realized an unfortunate truth: Wulf might not be who the man was keeping an eye on.
Another plane roared overhead for Fiumicino Airport as she rubbed her palms on her pants and reminded herself that there were dozens of people in the park who could hear her. She wasn’t alone. She stepped into the open space through the arch, expecting to find nothing.
Something—someone—spun her and smashed her body against a wall. The iron tang of blood mixed with chalky dust to become a foul paste that glued her lips to her teeth. Crumbling bricks dug through her clothes to chafe her thighs and chest. Next to her ear, a man’s breath hissed in and expelled like an espresso machine.
“Why aren’t you with the tour?” The anger in Wulf’s whisper flayed her skin. His mass pressed her against the stone, but without the care he’d shown during their kisses.
She couldn’t suck enough air to reply.
“I mistook you for an accomplice.” He moved an arm’s length away. “I could have hurt you, dammit.”
After she peeled herself from the wall, she scrubbed the back of her wrist across her lips and tried to swallow.
“Why’d you disobey me?”
“I’m not under your command.” She’d done nothing wrong, but she gave in to the urge to slide along the wall before she continued. “The guy in the car—”
“What about him?” Wulf stalked her. His head and shoulders loomed in her space.
“He could be...” She took a deep breath. “One of my sort of stepcousins.”
No rocks fell on her. No lightning bolts. The ground did not open.
“Why do you say that?” His alert stance didn’t change.
“I need to see him.” Don’t let the guy be a misguided emissary of Her Nosiness.
“First answer me.” His face matched their surroundings, hard and dry. “Why do you think he’s a relative?”
“I told you my family’s Italian.” She brushed her pants, but her sweaty hands smeared the dust that had transferred from the wall. “My last name, Chiesa, it’s from the Piedmont region. Maybe my mother called some—local relatives. Asked them to look me up.” They were from Naples, not part of the Chiesas or her mother’s side, but she was sticking close to the truth.
His look changed to disbelief. “What kind of family do you have?”
That she really didn’t want to answer.
“Anyway, he’s not Italian.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you. No need to explain her family to Wulf, or anything about Wulf to her family.
“See for yourself.” He gestured behind a collapsed pillar.
She shuffled around rubble that had once stood vertically. On his side among smaller stones, eyes closed, lay the American who’d offered to take their picture at the Mouth of Truth. Wulf’s belt bound the man’s elbows behind his body, shoelaces crisscrossed his wrists and it looked as if he had a sock stuffed in his mouth.
Wulf had captured a prisoner, but they weren’t in Afghanistan.
Only one thing could be worse. “Is he dead?”
“I wouldn’t have wasted time on restraints. Carotid artery sleeper hold.”
Not dead was good. “Have you checked his circulation?” If she focused on the man’s well-being, maybe she’d fool herself into thinking they had a prayer of getting out of whatever mess tying him up was going to cause. “Those bindings look painful.”
“Not compared to this.” Out of his waistband, Wulf pulled a Beretta identical to the one she’d locked in the arms room before catching her flight. “I took it from his fanny pack.”
Her neck and shoulders prickled to think that this man had followed them yesterday, even into the church, with a weapon.
Wulf rested the Beretta near his torso, pointed at the ground like an extension of his hand. Eyes narrowed, he stared at her. “Have you seen him in the sandbox?”
“What?” If their stalker wasn’t a member of her extended family, she had no clue what was going on. “Other than yesterday at the Mouth of Truth, I’ve never seen him. You’re the one who said this was army business.”
“It is. Look at his feet.”
The tan suede boots, minus the laces employed on his arms, were common to everyone with the army in Afghanistan, from general officers to privates, including most civilian contractors. Looking closer, she realized his receding hairline showed a white strip where he usually wore a hat, but the rest of his face and neck were tanned. “Is he a soldier?”
“Age, gut, shiny watch. I’d guess contractor.” He slipped the Beretta into his waistband and untucked his shirt, its bottom creased by sweat. From a row of items on another rock, he chose an unfamiliar cell phone. “Have anything in your purse to copy his call history?”
The only paper inside the leather bag hanging diagonally across her body was a postcard she’d bought at the Ara Pacis, a reminder of the morning before the world had shifted at the Mouth of Truth. The tourist who had reveled in the beauty of the altar celebrating Roman peace was gone, replaced by a dry-mouthed woman whose mind raced past branching consequences faster than she could search her purse.
Hunting for a pen, her fingers wrapped around a plastic rectangle that made a familiar tick-tick sound. The mints from Jennifer, weeks old but brought along for the trip because she’d wanted to be prepared for any hot guys who thought she was like ice cream. Simple problems.
Today absolutely called for two of the white mints, which hit her tongue like a shot of epinephrine.
Wulf fanned the man’s wallet contents in one hand and silently held out the other to her.
She shook two into his palm, but he kept his hand open. “I’m rationing.” Like hell she was giving him another. “For the next happy surprise.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded and examined the plastic cards in his hands. “Texas driver’s license says our buddy is Jack Spencer.”
Sitting on a chunk of rock, she studied the phone. A simple disposable like hers, it didn’t seem to have fancy locking functions. Finding the call history wouldn’t be hard.