Day Of Confession

146

'When you reach the far doorway, turn right,' Danny said as Elena pushed him through the Room of the Popes, the last of the rooms of Borgia Apartments.

There was a rush and anxiousness to Father Daniel that Elena hadn't seen before. The abrupt turning in the hallway outside the men's rest room, the urgency in his voice now. It was more than concentration on what they were doing. It was fear.

Passing through the doorway, she turned him right, as he had said, moving him down a long corridor. Halfway down on the left was an elevator.

'Stop there,' Danny said.

Reaching it, they stopped and Elena pushed the button.

'What's wrong, Father? Something happened – what is it?'

For a second Danny watched people move past, going from one gallery to another, then he looked up at her sharply. 'Eaton and Adrianna Hall are in the museum looking for us. We can't be found by either of them.'

Abruptly the elevator door opened. Elena started to push him in when they heard an all-too-familiar voice behind them.

'We will be first, if you don't mind.'

Looking, they saw the pushy white-haired woman in the wheelchair and her dutiful middle-aged daughter from the shuttle bus. For the second time they were face-to-face with a couple from that bunch. And Danny wondered if it was a curse.

'Not this time, madam. I'm sorry.' Danny looked at her with a glare and Elena pushed him into the elevator.

'Well, I never-' the woman ranted. 'I shall not ride in the same lift with you at all, sir.'

'Thank you.'

Danny leaned forward and punched a button, and the door slid closed in the woman's face. As the elevator started down, Danny reached in his pocket and took out the set of keys Father Bardoni had given him in Lugano. Sliding one into a lock underneath the panel of elevator buttons, he turned it.

Elena watched the elevator pass the ground floor and continue down. When it stopped, the door opened onto a dimly lit service corridor. Danny took the key out and pushed a button that read lock.

'Okay. Out and to the left and then to the corridor immediately to the right.'

Fifteen seconds later they were moving into a large mechanical room housing the museum's massive ventilating equipment.

10:10 a.m.