Juliet

IV.III

WALKING AWAY FROM THE OWL MUSEUM, I was torn. On the one hand it was a relief that the cencio and Romeo’s dagger were now in Peppo’s safe; on the other hand I regretted giving them away so quickly. Suppose my mother had wanted me to use them for a specific purpose? Suppose they somehow held a clue to the location of Juliet’s grave?

All the way back to the hotel I was resisting the urge to return to the museum and reclaim my treasures. I was successful mainly because I knew that the satisfaction of getting them back would soon be overshadowed by fear of what would happen to them next. Who was to say they were more secure in Direttor Rossini’s safe than in Peppo’s? After all, the thug knew where I lived-how else could he have broken into my room?-and sooner or later, he would figure out where I kept my things.

I believe I stopped in the middle of the street. Until this moment it had not even occurred to me that going back to the hotel was the least intelligent thing I could possibly do, never mind that I no longer carried the artifacts. Without a doubt, the thug would be waiting for me to do just that. And after our little hide-and-seek in the university archive, he was probably not in a particularly generous mood.

Clearly, I would have to change hotels, and it would have to be done in such a way that my trail went cold. Or maybe this was, in fact, my cue to hop on the next plane back to Virginia?

No. I could not give up. Not now, when I was finally getting somewhere. I would change hotels, maybe tonight, when it was dark. I would become invisible, cunning, mean. This time, Juliet was going to the mattresses.

There was a police station on the same street as Hotel Chiusarelli. I lingered outside for a bit, watching the officers come and go, wondering whether this would be such a smart move-making myself known to the local law and risking their discovering my double identity. In the end I decided it was not. Based on my experiences in Rome and in Copenhagen I knew that police officers are just like journalists; sure, they’ll hear your story, but they much prefer to make up their own.

And so I walked back downtown, turning every ten steps to see if I was being followed, and wondering what precisely my strategy should be from now on. I even went into the bank in Palazzo Tolomei to see if Presidente Maconi had time to see me and give me advice; unfortunately, he did not, but the teller with the slim glasses-now my best friend-assured me that he would be more than happy to meet with me when he returned from his vacation at Lake Como in ten days.

I HAD WALKED PAST the forbidding main door of Monte dei Paschi several times since my arrival in Siena. My steps had always quickened to bring me past this Salimbeni fortress without detection, and I would even duck my head, wondering if the office of the Head of Security was facing the Corso or some other way.

But today was different. Today was the day I took the bull by the horns and gave it a good shake. And so I walked up to the Gothic front door and went inside, making sure the surveillance cameras got a good shot of my new attitude.

For a building that had been burnt down by rival families-my own being one-torn apart by an angry populace, rebuilt several times by its owners, confiscated by the government, and finally reborn as a financial institution in the year 1472, making it the oldest surviving bank in the world, Palazzo Salimbeni was a remarkably peaceful place. The interior design blended medieval and modern in a way that made sense of both, and as I walked up to the reception area, the gap of time between now and then closed seamlessly around me.

The receptionist was on the phone, but held a hand over the receiver to ask me-first in Italian, then in English-whom I had come to see. When I told him I was a personal friend of the Head of Security, and that I had urgent business to discuss with him, the man smiled and said I could find what I was looking for in the basement.

Pleasantly surprised that he let me enter just like that, unescorted and unannounced, I started down the stairs with deliberate detachment, while a chorus line of little mice were riverdancing on the inside of my rib cage. They had been oddly silent while I was running from the tracksuit thug earlier on, but here they were full force, just because I was going to see Alessandro.

When I had left him at the restaurant the night before, I had, quite frankly, harbored no desire ever to see him again. The feeling, I am sure, was mutual. Yet here I was, walking straight into his lair for no other reason than instinct. Janice used to say that instinct was reason in a hurry; I was not so sure about the reason part. My reason told me it was highly likely that Alessandro and the Salimbenis were involved in all the nastiness currently coming my way; however, my gut told me I could count on him, even if it was only to let me know how much he disliked me.

As I descended into the basement the air got considerably cooler, and traces of the original building structure began to emerge as the walls became rough and worn around me. Back in the Middle Ages this foundation had carried a tall tower, perhaps as tall as the Mangia Tower in the Campo. The whole city had been full of these tower-houses; they had served as fortifications in times of unrest.

At the bottom of the stairs, a narrow corridor went off into the darkness, and ironclad doors on either side made the place feel like a dungeon. I was beginning to fear that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, when there was a sudden outburst of voices, followed by cheers, coming from behind a half-open door.

I approached the door with some apprehension. Whether or not Alessandro was actually down here, there would be a lot of explaining to do, and logic had never been my strong suit. Peeking inside, I could see a table full of metal parts and half-eaten sandwiches, a wall of rifles, and three men in T-shirts and uniform pants-one of them Alessandro-standing around a small television screen. At first I thought they were watching the input from a surveillance camera somewhere in the building, but when they all suddenly moaned and clutched their heads, I realized they were watching a soccer game.

When no one reacted to my initial knocking, I pushed through the door-just a little bit-and cleared my throat. Now finally, Alessandro turned his head to see who had the gall to interrupt the game, and when he saw me standing there, attempting a smile, he looked as if someone had knocked him over the head with a frying pan.

“Sorry to disturb,” I said, trying hard not to look like Bambi-on-stilts, although that was precisely how I felt. “Do you have a moment?”

Seconds later, the two other men had left the room, grabbing guns and uniform jackets as they went, half-eaten sandwiches wedged in their mouths.

“So,” said Alessandro, killing the soccer game and tossing aside the remote, “satisfy my curiosity.” He clearly did not think I needed the rest of the sentence, although the way he looked at me suggested that-notwithstanding the fact that I was a barnacle on the criminal underbelly of society-he was secretly pleased to see me.

I sat down on a vacant chair, looking around at the hardware on the walls. “Is this your office?”

“Yeah-” He pulled the dangling suspenders up on his shoulders and sat down on the other side of the table. “This is where we interrogate people. Americans mostly. It used to be a torture chamber.”

The dare in his eyes almost made me forget my general unease and the reason why I had come. “It suits you.”

“I thought so.” He put a heavy boot against the side of the table and tipped back to lean against the wall. “Okay, I am listening. You must have a very good reason for being here.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it reason.” I looked away, trying in vain to remember the official story I had rehearsed coming down the stairs. “Obviously, you think I’m a conniving bitch…”

“I’ve seen worse.”

“… and I haven’t exactly signed up for your fan club either.”

He smiled wryly. “Yet here you are.”

I folded my arms across my chest, choking back a nervous laugh. “I know you don’t believe I am Giulietta Tolomei, and you know what? I don’t care. But here is the bottom line”-I swallowed hard to steady my voice-“someone is trying to kill me.”

“You mean, apart from yourself?”

His sarcasm helped me regain my cool. “There’s some guy following me,” I said, gruffly. “Nasty type. Tracksuit. Bona fide scum. I figured he was a friend of yours.”

Alessandro didn’t even flinch. “So, what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know-” I searched for a spark of sympathy in his eyes. “Help me?”

There was a spark all right, but it was mostly one of triumph. “And remind me why I would do that?”

“Hey!” I exclaimed, genuinely upset with his attitude. “I’m… a maiden in distress!”

“And who am I, Zorro?”

I swallowed a groan, furious with myself for thinking he would care. “I thought Italian men were susceptible to female charms.”

He considered the idea. “We are. When we encounter them.”

“Okay,” I said, sucking in my fury, “fair enough. You want me to go to hell, and I will. I’ll go back to the States and never bother you or your fairy godmother again. But first, I want to find out who this guy is, and have someone bust his ass.”

“And that someone is me?”

I glared at him. “Maybe not. I just assumed someone like you wouldn’t want someone like him running loose in your precious Siena. But”-I made a move to get up-“I see that I got you all wrong.”

Now, finally, Alessandro leaned forward with mock concern and put his elbows on the table. “All right, Miss Tolomei, tell me why you think someone is trying to kill you.”

Never mind that I had nowhere else to go; I would have walked right out of there, had it not been for the fact that he had finally called me Miss Tolomei. “Well-” I moved uncomfortably on the edge of the seat. “How about this: He followed me through the streets, broke into my hotel room, and then, this morning, he came after me with a gun-”

“That,” said Alessandro, deploying a great deal of patience, “doesn’t mean he intends to kill you.” He paused to study my face, then frowned. “How do you expect me to help you, if you are not telling me the truth?”

“But I am! I swear!” I tried to think of some other way of convincing him, but my eyes were drawn to the tattoos on his right forearm, and my brain was busy processing the impulse. This was not the Alessandro I had expected to find coming into Palazzo Salimbeni. The Alessandro I knew was polished and subtle, if not downright square-toed, and he certainly did not have a dragonfly-or whatever the heck it was-etched into his wrist.

If he could read my thoughts, he didn’t show it. “Not the whole truth. There are a lot of pieces missing in the puzzle.”

I snapped upright. “What makes you think there is a big picture?”

“There is always a big picture. So, tell me what he is after.”

I took a deep breath, only too aware that I had chosen to put myself in this situation, and that a more substantial explanation was due. “Okay,” I finally said, “I think he is after something that my mother left for me. Some family heirloom that my parents found years ago, and which she wanted me to have. So, she hid it in a place where only I could find it. Why? Because-whether you like it or not-I am Giulietta Tolomei.”

I looked at him defiantly and found him studying my face with something akin to a smile. “And have you found it?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet. All I’ve found is a rusty box full of paper, an old… banner, and some kind of dagger, and quite frankly, I don’t see-”

“Aspetta!” Alessandro held up a hand to make me slow down. “What kind of paper, what kind of banner?”

“Stories, letters. Silly stuff. Don’t get me started. And the banner, apparently, is a cencio from 1340. I found it wrapped around a dagger, like this, in a drawer-”

“Wait! Are you saying you found the cencio from 1340?”

I was surprised to see him reacting even more strongly to this news than my cousin Peppo had. “Yes, I think so. Apparently it is very special. And the dagger-”

“Where is it?”

“In a secure place. I left it at the Owl Museum.” Seeing that he did not follow, I added, “My cousin, Peppo Tolomei, is the curator. He told me he would take care of it for me.”

Alessandro groaned and ran both hands through his hair.

“What?” I said. “Was that not a good idea?”

“Merda!” He got up, reached into a drawer to pull out a handgun, and slipped it into the holster in his belt. “Come on, let’s go!”

“Wait! What’s going on?” I got up reluctantly. “You’re not suggesting we go see my cousin with that… gun?”

“No, it’s not a suggestion. Come on!”

As we hurried down the corridor, he glanced at my feet. “Can you run in those things?”

“Look,” I said, struggling to keep up, “I just wanna make one thing absolutely clear. I don’t believe in guns. I just want peace. Okay?”

Alessandro stopped in the middle of the corridor, took out the gun, and wrapped my hand around it before I realized what he was doing. “Can you feel that? That’s a gun. It exists. And there are a lot of people out there who do believe in it. So, excuse me for taking care of them so you can have your peace.”

WE LEFT THE BANK through a back entrance and ran all the way down a street that was open to motorized traffic. This was not the way I knew, but sure enough, it brought us right to Piazzetta del Castellare. Alessandro took out the gun as we approached the door of the Owl Museum, but I pretended not to notice.

“Stay behind me,” he said, “and if things go bad, lie down on the floor and cover your head.” Not waiting for me to respond, he put a finger on his lips and slowly opened the door.

I dutifully entered the museum a few steps behind him. There was no question in my mind that he was overreacting, but I was going to let him reach that conclusion on his own. As it was, the whole building was completely silent, and there was no evidence of criminal activity. We walked through several rooms, gun first, but in the end I stopped. “Okay, listen-” But Alessandro immediately put a hand to my mouth to silence me, and as we stood there, both tense, I heard it, too: the sound of someone moaning.

Moving faster through the remaining rooms, we soon circled in on the sound, and once Alessandro had made sure it was not an ambush, we rushed inside to find Peppo lying on the floor of his own office, bruised but alive.

“Oh, Peppo!” I cried, trying to help him. “Are you okay?”

“No!” he shot back. “Of course I am not okay! I think I fell. I can’t use my leg.”

“Hold on-” I looked around to see where he had put his crutch, and my eyes fell on a safe in the corner, open and empty. “Did you see the man who did this?”

“What man?” Peppo tried to sit up, but winced in pain. “Oh, my head! I need my pills. Salvatore! Oh no, wait. It is Salvatore’s day off-what day is it?”

“Non ti muovere!” Alessandro knelt down and spent a moment examining Peppo’s legs. “I think his tibia is broken. I will call an ambulance.”

“Wait! No!” Peppo evidently did not want an ambulance. “I was just going to close the safe. Do you hear me? I must close the safe.”

“Let’s worry about the safe later,” I said.

“The dagger… it is in the boardroom. I was looking it up in a book. It must go in the safe, too. It is evil!”

Alessandro and I exchanged glances. Now was not the time to tell Peppo that it was far too late to close the safe. Clearly, the cencio was gone, as was every other treasure that my cousin had been safeguarding. But maybe the thief had not noticed the dagger. And so I got up and walked into the boardroom, and sure enough, Romeo’s dagger was lying right there on the table, next to a collector’s guide to medieval weaponry.

The dagger clutched in my hand, I returned to Peppo’s office just as Alessandro was calling an ambulance.

“Ah yes,” said my cousin, seeing the dagger, “there it is. Put it in the safe, quickly. It brings bad luck. See what happened to me. The book says it has the spirit of the devil in it.”

PEPPO HAD SUFFERED a minor concussion and a broken bone, but the doctor insisted on keeping him at the hospital overnight, hooked up to various machines, just in case. Unfortunately, she also insisted on telling him precisely what had happened to him.

“She says someone hit him over the head and stole everything in the safe,” Alessandro whispered to me, translating the spirited conversation between the doctor and her cranky patient, “and he says that he wants to speak to the real doctor, and that no one would hit him over the head in his own museum.”

“Giulietta!” exclaimed Peppo, when he had finally succeeded in driving out the doctor, “What do you make of this? The nurse says someone broke into the museum!”

“I’m afraid it’s true,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t-”

“And who is that?” Peppo eyed Alessandro suspiciously. “Is he here to write a report? Tell him I didn’t see anything.”

“This is Captain Santini,” I explained. “He was the one who saved you, remember? If it wasn’t for him, you’d still be… in a lot of pain.”

“Huh.” Peppo was not ready to quit his belligerent mood just yet. “I’ve seen him before. He’s a Salimbeni. Didn’t I tell you to stay away from those people?”

“Shh! Please!” I tried to hush him up as best I could, but I knew Alessandro had heard every word. “You need to rest.”

“No, I don’t! I need to speak with Salvatore. We must find out who did this. There were many treasures in that safe.”

“I fear the thief was after the cencio and the dagger,” I said. “If I hadn’t brought those to you, none of this would have happened.”

Peppo looked perplexed. “But who would-oh!” His eyes became oddly distant as he stared into some nebulous past. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of this? But would he really do that?”

“Who are you talking about?” I squeezed his hand, trying to make him stay focused. “Do you know who did this to you?”

Peppo grabbed my wrist and looked at me with feverish intensity. “He always said that he would come back. Patrizio, your father. He always said that one day, Romeo would return and take it all back… his life… his love… everything we took from him.”

“Peppo,” I said, stroking his arm, “I think you should try to sleep.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Alessandro weighing Romeo’s dagger in his hand, frowning as if he could sense its hidden powers.

“Romeo,” Peppo went on, more drowsily now as the sedative finally began to take effect, “Romeo Marescotti. Well, you can’t be a ghost forever. Maybe this is his revenge. On all of us. For how we treated his mother. He was-how do you say-un figlio illegittimo?… Capitano?”

“Born outside of marriage,” said Alessandro, joining us at last.

“Sì, sì!” nodded Peppo. “Born outside of marriage! It was a big scandal. Oh, she was such a beautiful girl-so, he threw them out-”

“Who?” I asked.

“Marescotti. The grandfather. He was a very old-fashioned man. But very handsome. I still remember the comparsa of ’65-it was Aceto’s first victory you know-ah, Topolone, a fine horse. They don’t make them like that anymore-back then, they didn’t twist their ankles and get disqualified, and we didn’t need all sorts of veterinarians and mayors to tell us we couldn’t run… oof!” He shook his head in disgust.

“Peppo?” I patted his hand. “You were talking about the Marescottis. Romeo, remember?”

“Oh, yes! They said the boy had evil hands. Everything he touched… it broke. The horses lost. People died. That’s what they say. Because he was named after Romeo, you see. He came from that line. It’s in the blood… trouble. Everything had to be fast and noisy-he couldn’t sit still. Always scooters, always motorcycles-”

“You knew him?”

“No, I just know what people say. They never came back. Him and his mother. Nobody ever saw them again. They say he grew up wild, in Rome, and that he became a criminal and killed people. They say-they say he died. In Nassiriyah. With a different name.”

I turned to glance at Alessandro, and he met my stare, his eyes unusually dark. “Where is Nassiriyah?” I whispered. “Do you know?” For some reason, the question made him glower, but he did not have time to reply before Peppo sighed deeply and went on, “In my opinion, it’s just a legend. People like legends. And tragedies. And conspiracies. It’s very quiet here in the winter.”

“So, you don’t believe it?”

Peppo sighed again, his eyelids getting heavy. “How do I know what I believe anymore? Oh, why do they not send a doctor?”

Just then, the door burst open, and the entire Tolomei family came pouring into the room to surround their fallen hero with wails and lamentations. They had obviously been given an overview of the situation by the doctor, for Peppo’s wife, Pia, gave me the hairy eyeball as she pushed me aside and took my place next to her husband, and no one expressed anything that could possibly be construed as gratitude. To complete my humiliation, old Nonna Tolomei doddered through the door just as I was eyeing my escape, and there was no doubt in her mind that the perpetrator in this whole business was not the thief, but me.

“Tu!” she growled, aiming an accusatory finger at my heart, “Bastarda!”

She said plenty more, but I did not understand it. Transfixed by her fury like a deer before an oncoming train, I just stood there, unable to move, until Alessandro-fed up with the family fun-grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me through the door to safety.

“Phew!” I gasped. “That’s one angry lady. Can you believe she’s my aunt? What did she say?”

“Never mind,” said Alessandro, walking down the hospital hallway with the expression of someone who wished he had a spare hand grenade.

“She called you a Salimbeni!” I said, proud to have understood that much.

“She did. And it was not a compliment.”

“What did she call me? I didn’t catch that one.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” I stopped in the middle of the hallway. “What did she call me?”

Alessandro looked at me, his eyes suddenly tender. “She said, ‘Bastard child. You’re not one of us.’”

“Oh.” I paused to swallow the words. “I guess nobody believes I am really Giulietta Tolomei. Maybe I deserve this. Maybe this is some special kind of hell reserved for people like me.”

“I believe you.”

I looked at him, surprised. “Really? That’s new. When did that happen?”

He shrugged and started walking. “When I saw you standing in my door.”

I did not know how to respond to his sudden kindness, and so we walked the rest of the way in silence, down the stairs and out the front door of the hospital, to emerge in that smooth, golden light that marks the end of day and the beginning of something far less predictable.

“So, Giulietta,” said Alessandro, turning towards me, hands on his hips, “anything else I should know?”

“Well,” I said, squinting against the light, “there’s also a guy on a motorcycle-”

“Santa Maria!”

“But he’s different. He just… follows me around. I don’t know what he wants-”

Alessandro rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what he wants! Do you want me to tell you what he wants?”

“No, it’s okay.” I adjusted my dress. “It’s not really an issue. But this other guy-tracksuit guy-he broke into my hotel room. And so… I think maybe I should change hotels.”

“You think so?” Alessandro was not impressed. “I’ll tell you what, the first thing we’re going to do is go to the police-”

“No, not the police!”

“They’re the only ones who can tell you who did that to Peppo. I don’t have access to the crime register from Monte dei Paschi. Don’t worry, I’ll come with you. I know these guys.”

“Yeah, right!” I all but poked him in the chest. “This is just a cunning way of having me end up in jail.”

He held out his hands. “If I wanted you in jail, I wouldn’t really have to be cunning about it, would I?”

“Hey, listen!” I stood as tall as I could. “I still don’t appreciate your power games!”

My posture made him smile. “Then why do you keep playing?”

THE SIENA POLICE headquarters was a very quiet place. At ten to seven at some point in the past, the clock on the wall had run down its battery, and as I sat there that evening, dutifully scrolling through page after page of digitized bad guys, I began to feel the same way myself. The more I looked at the faces on the computer screen, the more I realized that, to be honest, I had no idea what my stalker looked like up close. The first time I had seen the creep, he had been wearing sunglasses. The second time it had been too bloody dark to see much, and the third time-this very afternoon-I had been too focused on the gun in his hand to dwell on the finer details of his mug.

“I’m sorry”-I turned to Alessandro, who had sat very patiently next to me, elbows on his knees, waiting for my eureka moment-“but I don’t recognize anyone.” I smiled apologetically at the female officer in charge of the computer, knowing full well that I was wasting everyone’s time. “Mi dispiace.”

“It’s okay,” she said, smiling at me because I was a Tolomei, “it won’t take long before we have matched the prints.”

The first thing Alessandro had done when we arrived at the police station was to report the break-in at the Owl Museum. Two patrol cars had been dispatched immediately, and the four officers had been only too thrilled that a case of actual crime had come their way. If the thug had been dumb enough to leave any traces of himself at the museum-fingerprints especially-it was only a matter of time before we would know who he was, provided, of course, that he had been arrested before.

“While we wait,” I said, “do you think we should look up Romeo Marescotti?”

Alessandro frowned. “You really believe what Peppo said?”

“Why not? Maybe it’s him. Maybe it was him all along.”

“In a tracksuit? I don’t think so.”

“Why not? Do you know him?”

Alessandro took in air. “Yes, and he’s not in that computer. I already looked.”

I stared at him, too amazed to speak. Before I could question him further, two police officers entered the room, one of them carrying a laptop, which he placed in front of me. Neither of them spoke English, so Alessandro had to translate what they were saying to me. “They found a fingerprint at the museum,” he explained, “and they want you to take a look at some pictures to see if anyone looks familiar.”

I turned to look at the screen. It had a lineup of five male faces, each of which looked out at me with a mix of apathy and disgust. After a moment, I said, “I can’t be a hundred percent, but if you want to know which one looks most like the guy who followed me, I’d have to say number four.”

After a brief conversation with the officers, Alessandro nodded. “That’s the man who broke into the museum. Now they want to know why he broke into the museum, and why he has been following you around.”

“How about telling me who he is?” I looked around at the grave faces. “Is he some kind of… murderer?”

“His name is Bruno Carrera. He’s been involved in organized crime in the past, and he’s been linked to some very bad people. He disappeared for a while, but now-” Alessandro nodded at the screen. “He is back.”

I looked at the photo again. Bruno Carrera was definitely past his prime. Strange that he would come out of retirement in order to steal a piece of old silk with no commercial value whatsoever. “Just out of curiosity,” I said without thinking, “was he ever connected to a man called Luciano Salimbeni?”

The officers exchanged glances.

“Very smooth,” whispered Alessandro, meaning the exact opposite. “I thought you didn’t want to answer any questions.”

I looked up and saw the officers studying me with renewed interest. They were clearly wondering what exactly I was doing in Siena, and how much crucial information I had yet to disclose about the museum break-in.

“La signorina conosce Luciano Salimbeni?” one of them asked Alessandro.

“Tell them that my cousin Peppo told me about Luciano Salimbeni,” I said. “Apparently he was after some of our family heirlooms twenty years ago. It has the benefit of being true.”

Alessandro made my case as best he could, but the police officers were not satisfied and kept asking for more details. It was an odd power struggle, for they obviously respected him very much, and yet there was something about me and my story that just didn’t fit. At one point they both left the room, and I turned to Alessandro, mystified. “Is that it? Can we go now?”

“You really think,” he said, wearily, “they’ll let you go before you explain to them why your family is involved with one of Italy’s most wanted criminals?”

“Involved? All I said was that Peppo had a suspicion-”

“Giulietta”-Alessandro leaned towards me, not wanting anyone else to overhear us-“why didn’t you tell me about all this?”

Before I could reply, the officers returned with a printout of Bruno Carrera’s file, asking Alessandro to question me about a specific passage.

“It seems you’re right,” he said, skimming through the text. “Bruno used to do odd jobs for Luciano Salimbeni. He was arrested once, and told them some story about a statue with golden eyes-” He looked at me, trying to gauge my honesty. “Do you know anything about that?”

A little shocked by the fact that the police knew about the golden statue-even if what they knew was not accurate-I nevertheless managed to shake my head vigorously. “No idea.”

For a few seconds, our eyes were locked in a silent battle, but I did not budge. Eventually, he returned to the printout. “It looks like Luciano might have been involved in your parents’ deaths as well, just before he went missing.”

“Missing? I thought he was dead.”

Alessandro did not even look at me. “Careful. I am not going to ask you who told you that. Am I correct in assuming that you do not intend to tell these officers any more than you already have?” He glanced at me for confimation, then continued, “In that case I suggest you start looking traumatized, so we can get out of here. They’ve already asked for your Social Security number twice.”

“Lest we forget,” I said under my breath, “you were the one who dragged me in here!”

“And now I am dragging you out again.” He put an arm around me and stroked my hair as if I needed comforting. “Don’t be upset about Peppo. He will be fine.”

Playing along, I leaned against his shoulder and drew a deep, tearful sigh that felt almost genuine. Seeing my emotional upset the officers finally backed off and left us alone, and five minutes later we walked out of the police station together.

“Nice work,” said Alessandro, as soon as we were out of hearing range.

“Likewise. Although… this has definitely not been my kind of day, so don’t expect pinwheels.”

He stopped and looked at me, a small frown on his forehead. “At least now you know the name of the man who followed you. Wasn’t that what you wanted when you came to see me this afternoon?”

The world had turned black while we were inside the police station, but the air was still warm, and the streetlamps cast a soft yellow light on everything. Had it not been for the Vespas shooting past us in all directions, the whole piazza would have looked like a stage setting in an opera.

“What does ragazza mean?” I asked. “Something nasty?”

Alessandro stuck his hands in his pockets and started walking. “I figured that if I told them you were my girlfriend, they would stop asking for your Social Security number. And your phone number.”

I laughed. “And they didn’t wonder what the heck Juliet is doing dating a Salimbeni?”

Alessandro smiled, but I could see that my question bothered him. “I’m afraid they don’t teach Shakespeare at the Police Academy here.”

We walked for a while in silence, heading for nowhere in particular. It would have been a natural time for us to part, but then, I did not feel like parting. Never mind the fact that Bruno Carrera might very well be waiting for me when I returned to my hotel room; staying close to Alessandro felt like the most natural thing to do.

“Would now,” I said, “be a good time to thank you?”

“Now?” He checked his wristwatch. “Assolutamente sì. Now is the time.”

“How about dinner? On me?”

My proposal amused him. “Sure. Unless you’d rather hang around on your balcony, waiting for Romeo?”

“Someone broke in through my balcony, remember?”

“I see.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “You want me to protect you.”

I opened my mouth to fire back something cheeky, but realized I didn’t want to. The truth was, after everything that had happened, and everything that might happen still, I would like nothing more than to have Alessandro-gun attached-within arm’s length for the remainder of my stay in Siena. “Well,” I said, swallowing my pride, “I suppose I would not object if you did.”