At the Edge of the Sun (Maggie Bennett 3)

Holly shrugged, and a reluctant smile curled her beautiful mouth. “So we’ve both been seduced and abandoned,” she said. “What are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing,” Maggie said, stretching out on the bed. “It’s happened before, it’ll probably happen again. We’re Sybil’s daughters, and we’re fools, just like her.”

“Maybe. There is something we can do, you know.”

“I’m not going shopping, Holly,” Maggie warned.

“Somehow, for the first time in my life, I’m not in the mood for it,” she admitted. “No, I had something better in mind. Before you showed up I was planning to get drunk on Amaretto and chocolates. Wanna join me?”

Maggie shuddered. “No, thank you. Make mine Scotch.” She shoved the pillow behind her back. “And you can tell me all about Ian’s connection with Flynn, Maeve O’Connor, and the IRA while you’re at it. I’m about ready for a bedtime story.”

“Only if you like nightmares,” Holly said.

Maggie didn’t stir when the phone rang hours later. She’d made quick work of the Scotch, or the Scotch had made quick work of her, and she lay asleep on Ian’s bed, shadows of exhaustion lurking beneath her eyes. Holly reached for the phone, her heart pounding and her palms damp as she spoke into the receiver. “Pronto?”

It was Randall. Holly closed her eyes in aching disappointment for a long moment, then shot them open again. “What did you say?” she demanded.

“I said wake Maggie. We’re going to Venice.”

thirteen

The tiny Palazzo Carboni hadn’t changed in the last four years. It was still a small, somewhat seedy, overwhelmingly picturesque little hotel on a side canal in Venice. It had been slipping into the water when she and Mack had spent their honeymoon there. It appeared to have sunk a few more inches, but there was fresh paint on the striped mooring pole on the canal side of the building, and the musty smell was lightened with fresh flowers.

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A light dusting of snow covered the ancient city when the three of them arrived. Surrounded by the Adriatic, it was cold and blowy, and Maggie huddled beneath her thick wool sweater and thought longingly of California.

Randall had escorted Holly to the Hotel Danieli. They’d decided on the train to Venice that Holly would stay there while Maggie and Randall settled for local color instead of elegance. They needed to spread out. Holly was planning to check in under both her name and Ian’s, and then see if he showed up. The Danieli was the center of the upper-class tourist trade—it was also the hotel Flynn would be most likely to use, if the information Randall had received was true. Patricia Werner had been able to glean Flynn’s destination but not much more, and if the European intelligence community knew anything more about Flynn they weren’t talking to Pattie about it.

So the three of them had taken off. While Randall helped Holly settle in the luxurious hotel, Maggie was supposed to find more reasonable lodgings. And find them she did.

It would have been better if she’d gone someplace new. But the Palazzo Carboni was only a very short walk from the Danieli, the prices reasonable, the rooms full of character, and the service remarkably friendly. Signor Tonetti’s family had owned the hotel for more than a hundred years—it had been the gift of a grateful government for services rendered against the occupying Austrian forces, and Tonetti ran the place with pride and distinction. Maggie remembered him as a charming, garrulous old man, who reeked of lilac aftershave, and his plump wife and army of children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews who kept the Palazzo running smoothly.

But her two weeks with Mack Pulaski permeated every square inch of the hotel. In place of the German, the Dutch, the Japanese tourists she would see Mack, grinning at her, his eyes warm and loving. Not like Randall’s cold, stormy eyes that never warmed except with occasional malicious humor.

It had been fate that during this off-season there were two rooms available, two adjoining rooms. And one of them was the room she’d spent her honeymoon in.

She didn’t even hesitate. Knowing Randall’s room was one door away didn’t interfere with the rush of memories that swept over her. She stretched out on the massive bed and watched the patterns of light the fitful sunlight on the canal made.

She must have slept. When she awoke it was dark, with the sound and smell of the canal outside her drafty window and the noise of someone moving around in the room next to her. Randall must have returned.

She pulled herself out of bed, away from her memories, and silently crossed the room. The worn Persian carpet provided some protection against the draft, and once more Maggie shivered, pausing, her hand on the tarnished brass doorknob between their rooms.

She should knock. Or she could crawl back in bed and wait for him to wake her. No, she wanted to make sure Holly was settled. Who knows, Ian might already have made contact. Slowly, quietly she turned the doorknob.

The room was lit only by the tiny-watt light bulb European hotels considered necessary for proper eyestrain while reading. It was dark, cavernous, and the shadowy figure searching through Randall’s suitcase was barely discernible. But it was about a foot and a half shorter than the registered occupant of that room.

Maggie was still too sleep-fuddled to do more than stand there, open-mouthed, as the figure turned into the light from her open doorway. It was a very young, very pretty teenage girl.

She hissed something, and the sound was dreadful in the chilly darkness. And then she leapt for the open window.

Maggie was almost fast enough. She caught her ankles as she jumped, but the girl was very good. A flash of silver, a sudden stinging sensation, and Maggie fell back into the room as the sound of a motorboat took off into the dark expanse of the side canal.

“Hell and damnation,” Maggie muttered. The floors of the Palazzo Carboni were stone beneath their threadbare carpets, and her behind had very little padding these days. For a moment all she could think about was her bruised posterior. The wind from the open window howled around her like an angry ghost, ruffling her short hair, and her arm began to sting and burn.

Even in the darkness it was easy enough to see the slash. She was bleeding like a stuck pig, and she couldn’t tell from her current position how deep it was. She’d always had a strong constitution for anyone’s blood but her own. She looked down at the bleeding gash and keeled over on the stone floor.

She woke in her own bed. It was warm and smelled like Venice, a strange, wonderful mixture of the sea, mildew, ancient buildings, and even more ancient fish and garlic. She knew the bed, knew the room. She turned with a lazy smile to look at Mack.