Day Of Confession

48

Cortona, Italy. Still Saturday, July 11. 9:30 a.m.

Nursing sister Elena Voso finished her shopping and came out of the small grocery on Piazza Signorelli with a large bag of fresh vegetables. She had picked the vegetables carefully, wanting to make a soup that would be as palatable and nutritious as possible. Not just for the three men who were with her but for Michael Roark. It was time at least to try to feed him solid food. Earlier she had moistened his lips and he had swallowed automatically in reaction. But when she had tried to get him to sip some water he'd only looked at her, as if the effort were too much. Still, if she offered a warm puree of fresh vegetables, perhaps the aroma itself might be enticing enough to make him at least attempt to get it down. Even a spoonful was better than nothing, because it would be a beginning, and the sooner he began taking solid food, the sooner she could get him off the IV and help him start regaining his physical strength.

Marco watched her come out and turn down the narrow cobblestone street toward the far end, where they had parked the car. Ordinarily he would have walked beside her and carried the bag. But not now, not here today in the bright sunshine. And even though they would drive off in the same car, it was not good that they be seen shopping or walking together. It was something someone might later remember. They were Italians, yes, yet strangers to Cortona – a nun and a man, obviously together, gathering supplies, taking them away. Why? What were they doing? It could be enough for someone to say, 'Yes, they were here. I saw them.'

Ahead of him Marco saw Elena stop, glance back, then turn and go into a small shop. Marco stopped, too, wondering what she was doing. To his left, a narrow street dropped steeply downward. Below he could see the distant plain and the roads leading up from it to the ancient walled city of the Umbrians and Etruscans, where he now stood. Cortona had been a fortress then; he hoped he would not have to make it one again.

Looking back toward the shop, he saw Elena come out, turn her head toward him, and then walk away in the direction of the car. Five minutes later, she reached a small, silver Fiat, the car Pietro had driven when he followed them north from Pescara. A moment later Marco came up, waited for several pedestrians to pass, then took the bundle from Elena and unlocked the door.

'Why did you go into the store?' he asked as they drove off.

'I'm not allowed?'

'Of course. I just wasn't prepared.'

'Neither was I, which was why I went in.' She lifted a package from the bag in her lap.

Sanitary napkins.

By eleven o'clock both soup and puree were simmering on the kitchen stove and Elena was in the second-floor bedroom with Michael Roark. He was in an armchair, a pillow tucked under each arm, sitting upright for the first time. Marco had helped get him out of bed and into the chair and then had left, anxious to go outside for a cigarette. Above them, Luca slept in a third-floor bedroom. He was the night man, the same as he had been in the hospital in Pescara, sitting in the van outside from eleven at night until seven in the morning. Coming every two hours to help Elena turn her patient. Then going back out to wait and watch.

For what? Or whom? she wondered again, as she had wondered about the men all along.

From the bedroom she could see Marco, smoking and walking the southern periphery of the yard atop a stone wall. Below the wall was the road, and up from it, the gate and the driveway leading up to the house. Across the road was a large farm that went as far as the eye could see into the summer haze. A tractor worked it now, dust rising behind it as it plowed a stretch of open field behind the main house.

Abruptly Pietro appeared, crossing between the cypress trees in front of the window and walking toward Marco, his sleeves rolled up, his shirt open against the growing heat of the day, the gun in his waistband no longer hidden. Reaching him, he stopped, and the men talked. After a moment Marco glanced back at the house, as if he knew the two were being watched.

Elena turned to look at Michael Roark. 'Are you comfortable sitting up?' she asked.

He nodded ever so slightly, just a small tip of his head. But it was a definitive response, much more dynamic than his previous blinking in reaction to her squeezing of his thumb or toes.

'I've made something for you to eat. Would you like to try and see if you can get it down?'

This time there was no response. He merely sat looking at her, then his eyes moved away and to the window. Elena watched him. His head, turned as it was against the light, gave him, despite the bandages, a profile she hadn't before seen. She hesitated, studying him a moment longer, then went past him and into the nook that was her part of the room.

Yes, she had turned into the store for sanitary napkins. But the move had been an excuse. Something else had caught her eye: a storefront rack with newspapers and a copy of La Repubblica with the bold headline fugitives in CARDINAL PARMA MURDER STILL AT LARGE, and beneath it, less bold, 'Police Screen Victims of Assisi Bus Explosion.'

They were both stories she knew of, but in little detail. The assassination of the cardinal had, of course, been the talk of the convent, and then had come the explosion of the Assisi bus. But very shortly afterward she had gone to Pescara and had seen no papers or television since. Yet the moment she'd glimpsed the headlines, she'd reacted, making an instinctive correlation between the headline and Marco and the others – men who were armed and guarded her and her patient twenty-four hours a day. Men who seemed to know a great deal more about what was going on than she did.

Inside the store, she'd picked up the paper and seen photographs of the men the police were looking for. Her mind raced. The bus explosion had taken place Friday. Michael Roark's automobile accident had occurred in the mountains outside Pescara on Monday. Tuesday morning she'd been given the order to go to Pescara. Could not a survivor of the bus explosion be badly burned and in a coma? Perhaps even have broken legs? Could he have perhaps been secretly moved from one hospital to another, or even to a private residence for a day or more before arrangements had been made to bring him to Pescara?

Quickly she'd bought the paper. And then as an afterthought – as a way to hide it from Marco and an unquestionable excuse for why she'd gone into the store – she'd bought the sanitary napkins and had both put into the same brown paper bag.

Back at the house, she'd gone immediately to her nook and put the napkins on a shelf where they could be seen. And afterward she'd carefully folded the newspaper, putting it away under clothing still in her suitcase.

'Dear God,' she'd thought over and over. 'What if Michael Roark and Father Daniel Addison are the same person?'

Washing her hands and changing into a fresh habit, she'd started to take the newspaper from her suitcase, wanting to hold it up next to her patient. To look at the photograph and see if there was any resemblance at all. But Marco had called her from the staircase, and she had not been able to do so. Putting the paper back, she'd closed the suitcase and gone to see what he wanted.

Now Marco and Pietro were outside and Luca was sleeping. Now there was time.

Michael Roark was still looking out the window, his back to her, as she came in. Moving closer, she folded the paper back and held it up so that the photograph of Father Daniel Addison was level with her patient. The bandages made it difficult to tell; moreover, Michael Roark's beard was growing, while the photo of Father Daniel showed a man clean shaven, but… the forehead, the cheekbones, the nose, the way the-

Abruptly, Michael Roark turned his head and looked directly at her. Elena started and jumped back, jerking the paper out of sight behind her as she did. For a long moment he seemed to glare at her and she was certain he knew what she had been doing. Then slowly his mouth opened.

'Wa – a – ah – t – errr,' he garbled the word hoarsely. 'Wa – a – ah – trrrrrr…'