He just nods. “Sometimes it strikes me too, and I gotta just sit there and bask.” His grin takes a while to grow, but it’s infectious enough that I laugh with him.
* * *
Back in the bedroom,I pull up two chairs to the window with the best view of the piazza, and we keep watch. I tell Finch what to look for and answer his questions when he asks why I’m so quick to track one person over another. Some of the questions I have to really think about myself.
“He’s wearing a winter overcoat and a scarf,” I say at last in answer to one of Finch’s queries. “It’s not that cold out.” The weather has been changeable; it was overcast when I woke, but the skies have cleared now as if in preparation for the Pope’s appearance.
Finch is staring at the man I identified. “That guy is, like, ninety. He’d probably feel a chill in the Mojave Desert.”
“Maybe. But you asked why he caught my eye. That’s why. And the scarf allows him to cover his face if he wants to. And if he were justpretendingto be ninety, he could pull all those outer layers off, dump them, have a whole new outfit underneath.”
Finch takes it in. “So does it make more sense to concentrate on faces?”
“Shoes, actually. It’s harder to change shoes than the rest of the outfit. So keep an eye on the shoes, see if they’re incongruous. Or think about whether you’ve seen them before, following you.”
“Shoes,” Finch says thoughtfully, and I have to hide a smile.
As time goes on, though, I give briefer responses, my focus getting more intense as the morning wears on. I see more and more problems and I like the situation less and less.
I don’t know Róisín Donovan at all. She was at my wedding to Finch, but all the Donovans were there. All I know about her is that she is strongly religious, and in my experience, people who believe anything with unwavering devotion tend to have a black and white view of the world. It’s not hard to speculate that Róisín, knowing that Finch and I would be unwelcome guests in Italy, might have alerted the authorities. Might see it as herduty.
Or it could be even worse. The Irish Freedom Fighters, as distant from Róisín’s avowed creed as they may be, are cut from the same cloth. True believers. Róisín was raised by a mother who, at one time,believedin that cause. Fought for it. Just because Tara and Finch and, yes, even Maggie, had no desire to work with the organization, it doesn’t mean Róisín is the same.
It may well be that she simply hasn’t discovered the secret of her mother’s rosary—ifthere’s any secret to discover, of course. Or she may have given it over to the IFF already, and simply be acting as a lure for us, bait left out for us to follow into a trap.
We’ve been shadowed while we’ve been here, despite how careful I thought we were, and Róisín was one of the few who knew where we were headed. Our shadowcouldbe any one of a number of enemies, from international law enforcement, to an Italian Family wondering what our purpose here might be, or even one of my New York rivals keeping an eye on us. But after the attack in Boston, on the townhouse, and then the hospital, my primary concern is the IFF.
“Luca.”
I turn to Finch, blinking.
“I asked, what are you thinking so hard about? It’s making you all frowny.”
He didn’t like it before when I suggested Róisín might have an ulterior motive, but not liking something doesn’t make it go away. “I’m thinking maybe we should abort.”
Chapter Forty-Six
LUCA
“Abort?” His eyebrows shoot up. “You mean—notmeet up with Róisín?”
“That is what I mean, yes.”
“But wehaveto.” When I don’t respond, he keeps arguing. “We already arranged to meet her, and it’s a massive pain in the ass for her. It’d besuperrude to just ghost her.”
“And it would be even ruder for her to have set a trap for us, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t.” I reach out and take his hand. “Don’t be angry. Listen to me, and more importantly,lookwith me. I’ll show you what I’m looking at, explain the problems, and then you tell me what you think we should do.”
A belligerent crunch of his eyebrows is his only response, but he allows me to stand him up in front of me. I put my hands on his arms to move him into position and then I point over one of his shoulders to direct his attention.
“Item one: cameras panning over the crowd in the plaza and showing the pictures on big-screen televisions. If anyone sees us on them, it gives an exact position for them to head towards.” I point to the security checkpoints below. “Item two: security. I don’t have a gun with me in Italy, but Róisín doesn’t know that, and there would be no way to get past those checkpoints with a weapon. No way, no how. Not even a knife. If she wanted me disarmed before I got close, this is an ideal meeting place. Item three—” I wave a hand over the crowd. “People.Lotsof people. Difficult to keep track of anyone down there, which means I might miss something important. And for an assassin, a crowd gives good coverage.”
Under my hand, Finch’s shoulders are slumping. I stop the recital—there were a few more things I was going to say, but obviously my point is made—and wrap my arms around him instead.
“You see what I mean?”
“Yeah.”
I wait, but there is no more forthcoming. “What do you think we should do?” I prompt.
