The Bride of Montefalco. Rebecca Winters
your husband was up to, explain what those pictures are doing in your laptop.”
Pictures? Ally rubbed her bloodshot eyes with her palms. She was so desperately tired, maybe she was dreaming this horror story.
“I asked you a question, signora.”
No—she wasn’t dreaming. He was sitting there next to her, intimidating her by his very presence. All two hundred pounds of him, hard as steel physically and every other way.
“It’s my husband’s laptop. I don’t know anything about any pictures.”
She heard a sharp intake of breath.
“So you carried his laptop with you all the way to Montefalco for no particular reason?”
“I didn’t say that!” she protested. “I told you earlier that I came to have a private talk with Mr. Montefalco and no one else.”
“In order to show him the photographs and extort thousands of dollars in the process.”
Thousands of dollars? What pictures would be worth that kind of money? She took a deep breath, scared of what she might discover.
“If there are pictures, I haven’t seen them.”
At her hotel in St. Mortiz, Ally would have looked inside the laptop, but she hadn’t brought an adaptor to fit in the foreign outlet and figured she would have to wait until she returned to Portland. Part of her knew that was just an excuse. She didn’t want to know.
“I planned to talk to him about things that aren’t your business or anyone else’s.”
After a pause, he said, “You can tell me. I have his ear.”
“Prove it! For all I know you’re just a lowly policeman pretending to be Mr. Montefalco’s bodyguard.”
Suddenly he was on his feet. She could feel his rage as he pushed the chair away. She hid her face behind the sheet even though it was dark in the room.
Still bristling she said, “Now you know how it feels to be told you’re a liar and a sleazy con artist out to cash in on someone’s private tragedy. I repeat.” Her voice throbbed. “I’m not saying another word until I can speak to someone from the Embassy.”
While she waited for his response, the door opened, then slammed shut.
The next thing she knew the light in her cell went on.
She checked her watch, which she’d changed to Italian time on the train. It said 7:30 a.m.
How long were they going to leave her in here before allowing her to freshen up?
In desperation she dragged the chair over to the door so she could push the button he’d pressed earlier.
Suddenly the door swung open, almost causing her to fall.
A guard she didn’t recognize waited for her to climb down, then ordered her to follow him.
She grabbed her purse and trailed him down the hall and around the corner to the bathroom. There was no sign of her captor. She sincerely hoped she would never have to see or talk to him again.
After brushing her hair and putting on some lipstick, she felt a little more human. When she emerged minutes later, the guard escorted her back to her cell where a tray of food was waiting on the chair.
Just looking at the chair reminded her how her interrogator had shoved it across the room in a fit of anger.
In spite of the precariousness of her situation, the fact that she’d been able to infuriate him caused her to smile.
The guard noted it before disappearing.
Locked in once more, her gaze fell on the sparse continental breakfast. Rolls and coffee. But she wasn’t about to complain. It might be a long time before she was allowed to eat again, so she consumed everything in short order.
She kept thinking about those pictures he’d mentioned. Jim had evidently stored some in one of his files. Maybe they were photos of all the women he’d had affairs with in Europe. At this juncture she didn’t put anything past him. Her husband had truly lived a double life.
Ally let out a sound of abnegation.
What a fool she’d been not to have confronted him when she’d first suspected there was another woman.
Her abductor’s words stung more than ever.
If you’re telling the truth, and you really are the hapless wife who was the last person to know what your husband was up to, explain what those pictures are doing in your laptop.
Ally hadn’t been hapless. It was a case of not wanting to admit something was wrong and have her mother say, “I told you so. A man with good looks and knows it can’t be satisfied with one woman.”
Ally didn’t believe that. She knew too many attractive couples who had wonderful marriages.
Hers had started out that way, but when she saw changes happening, she should have questioned him point-blank. But she’d been scared. They could have talked things out and maybe salvaged their marriage. Now it was too late. There was no use wishing she’d acted on her suspicions a long time ago.
She looked around her claustrophobic cell. What she needed to do was get out of here.
Her abductor was waiting for her to cooperate. Maybe if she made up a lie, he’d believe her and allow her to go free with a slap on the wrist.
Without hesitation she pushed the chair over to the door and climbed up to press the button.
While she waited for a response, she put it back against the wall.
In a minute the door swung open to reveal the guard who’d brought her breakfast.
“Signora?”
“I hate it in here and I’m ready to talk.”
He took the tray off her bed and started out the door.
“Did you hear me?” she cried. “I’m ready to confess!”
He shot her an oblique glance before the door closed.
“Ooh—” She pounded her fists against it. “What kind of a lunatic place is this?” she shouted.
When she realized she was only hurting herself, she gave it up and walked around her cell, trying to rub the pain from the sides of her hands.
Five minutes later she experienced déjà vu to hear the door open and see her captor enter the room. When she glimpsed the forbidding look in those fiery black eyes, she backed away from him.
“You’re ready to tell the truth, signora?”
“Yes, but not in here. I can’t abide enclosed places.”
He gave an elegant shrug, reminding her what an amazing physique he had.
“It’s either in here, or not at all.”
“Oh all right!” She took a deep breath. “It’s true I pretended to be Mrs. Parker to get the duc’s attention.
“I do freelance stories for a local magazine in Portland. One of my boyfriends works for the police department and once in a while he tells me something interesting.
“A couple of months ago he told me his boss was working on a missing persons case involving a married man from Portland and another woman who died with him in Europe. Just the other day he mentioned that they’d finally identified the woman and had pictures of her.
“I asked him if he would let me see them. He did, so I scanned them and downloaded them to my laptop.
“All I wanted to do was talk to the woman’s husband and ask if I could do an exclusive story on him. In case he didn’t believe I was serious, I planned to show him the pictures. But I wouldn’t have allowed them to be published, or have bribed him for money. I just wanted