"All right, all right, I get the message. When you or Ca.s.sie gets the chance, I could use some euros. She enclosed what she had in the office when she packed my bag, but I want to stay off credit cards if I can to avoid the tracking risk. Paying for cabs and lodging and food adds up quick. Plus, I want to go exploring a few hours around Florence tomorrow, play tourist. To see what I can see."

There was a pause, then he said with a fake Cuban accent, "What are you up to now, Lucy?"

I laughed at his Lucille Ball reference.

"Don't worry, Ricky," I said. "I won't make you and Fred have to come and get me."

Nico returned, "Seriously. Be careful. We know one forgery has come from Italy. Florence may be the origin or at least a major stop along the line. The people responsible for this aren't about to let anyone snooping around come between them and their money."

"I told you, I'll behave like a tourist. Don't forget I still have your magic escape bag."

"Laurel..."

"I promise. No risks, only touristy fun. Last, but not least, would you let me know where the nearest Vespa rental place is with regard to my housing and arrange for a rental? I'm in the mood for something hard and fast that doesn't talk back."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

A little before seven in the evening, the signora who ran the bed-no-breakfast knocked on my door. "A cab is here, signorina."

I looked around the room making sure I'd forgotten nothing. I hid my Fendi inside my luggage and hoped my landlady remained as disinterested in my things as earlier in the day. Now, my taxicab chariot awaited, and I would soon come out in my "Florence debut."

I walked down the stairs, breathing deeply and visualizing calm success for the evening. The heels felt like a dream, as did the various silks rubbing against my skin.

The leather clutch in my hand held all the necessary accoutrements for a woman in my position: the invitations, pink lip dew, compact, comb, tissues, mints, both telephones, mini-flashlight, and my favorite traveling set of various sized tools-AKA picks and weapons. I wasn't planning anything heavy duty, but I wanted to be as prepared as possible.

I was already running through the euros faster than I'd planned, and it wasn't completely dark yet, so I had the cab drop me a short distance from the bridge, and I walked to the rendezvous point to meet Jack. It always amazed me how st.u.r.dy heels could feel when they appeared as light and unsubstantial as a cloud. If Max kept up the austerity plan, I might be able to drop my gym membership. I slipped the battery into my phone as I neared the bridge to give Jack the heads up. He didn't answer. I didn't know if I should be concerned or if he was still miffed at how I'd run away from him again.

The Ponte Vecchio, as usual, was packed with people. Most of the excruciatingly expensive shops were closed, but a few of the lights were still on, showing jewelers catering to select clientele. I pa.s.sed a shop I remembered from a trip with Grandfather, where he knew the owner and had a special necklace and earrings made for my grandmother. I'd have to see if I could stop and say h.e.l.lo before I left Florence. The older jeweler was gone now-he was a contemporary of my grandfather-but his son and grandson still kept the family business alive.

The sunset view of the Arno about midway down the bridge was breathtaking. I smiled at teenage couples more interested in viewing each other than watching the shifting light over the water. Their loss. I loved the romance of the bridge. Not just the young lovers, of course, but also the fact the bridge had stood over six centuries in that one spot and survived! Hitler bombed all the other Florentine bridges when the n.a.z.is retreated during World War II, but he spared the Ponte Vecchio. I raised my gaze and saw the upper corridor the Medicis used to keep from having to mix with the common folk, as the upper crust traveled from their palace to their offices, now the Uffizi Gallery and the Town Hall. There was so much to love in this glorious city.

My mind was again lost in the movement of the water when I felt Jack behind me. He didn't say anything. Didn't touch me. Yet I knew it was he. I didn't want him to know I was so aware of his presence and pretended to remain captivated by the view.

"You really shouldn't stand out here in the open," he finally said.

I made a slow turn to take in the almost wall-to-wall experience of humans around us. There was no point in arguing. I knew where his remark came from. I looked at him and smiled. "h.e.l.lo, Jack. Ready to put me on display?"

He should have been on display himself. He was magnificent in a black tie and custom Armani tux. A silver-tipped ivory rose, matching my wrap, graced his silk lapel.

"You've been busy." I smiled and tilted my head.

He held out another ivory rose, this time long stemmed, and said, "A beautiful rose for a beautiful woman."

I shockingly felt my skin heat at the hackneyed phrase and tried to stop the blush, but it came anyway. I quickly looked down as I took the rose. "You must have spoken to Ca.s.sie."

He held his hands up in a what can I say? gesture. "She told me your colors, but the beautiful part comes from me."

"A compliment twice in one day. Thank you, Jack. It's lovely." I sniffed and found the flower smelled equally terrific. "Do I need to be worried about a tracking device?" I teased, peeking into the bloom.

I looked up in time to see his freshly shaved jaw tighten. "No. No tracking, listening, or any other gadget tonight. I trust you to stay with me. Be my partner." He took my arm.

Wow! Someone had his knickers in a twist again. He smelled wonderful, however-clean with a faint afterthought of a woodsy cologne, Bulgari Man, maybe, that my nose picked up even over the floral aroma of the rose. Time to lighten the mood. I pretended to pout as we headed for the cathedral side of the bridge. "The whole time? What will everyone think?"

"Does it matter? We're trying to set in motion a series of events that will get us somewhere in this hurry-up-and-wait investigation. I'm sick of being on the outside looking in. Don't worry. I'm not going to stop you from talking to your friends."

We took our time getting to the gallery. I could tell he was still on edge, but the conversation stayed light, and he kept any further orders to himself. Since we had no idea what to expect, there was no way to plan. I decided to just enjoy the city.

He apparently had other plans. "What's going on in the Ca.s.sie and Nico world?"

"You spoke with Ca.s.sie earlier."

"Just for color combinations. She was busy and said you would fill me in on their work."

In other words, she was letting me pick and choose what he needed to know. Good girl, but under the circ.u.mstances I figured I'd better play completely fair. First, however, I needed to think. I delayed by sniffing the rose. Jack brought a halt to that ploy by placing a hand over mine and pulling the flower away from my face. "Laurel, spill."

I did a little smoothing move down my dress. "Not until I have your solemn oath to tell me what you did today."

"I slept. Tried to find out something more about the snuffbox without success. Got in touch with a few of my contacts to discreetly inquire if they had heard anything at all about forgeries. Your turn."

"Had they heard anything? Information on Tony B or Moran?"

"No. I'm hoping this little get-together will bring someone or something out in the open. Nico, Ca.s.sie?"

"This might be bigger than we had originally thought." I quickly ran through the little I'd been told. "Often, as I'm sure you know, the social world is the first place to start checking out anything big. Tonight we should work on forming or re-forming social contacts, play the game, as it were. If Florence is the key and it's as big as Nico thinks it is, we need to immediately create a reason for our presence here separately."

"You've read my mind. The tickets indicate Beacham Foundation, and I'll make sure everyone knows I'm your plus one. Nothing official, but wherever you go tonight, I go as well. We need to see what happens. Play up your relationship with Flavia as the reason for the last-minute decision to show up tonight. Our joint interest in the art world is our common bond."

Even if I still didn't trust him and he irritated the heck out of me, Jack, his contacts, and his brawn and ease with a gun had proven to be helpful a few times already. His idea didn't seem to be asking too much. After all, it didn't take much of a stretch for me to catch on to the staked goat a.n.a.logy, so my subconscious obviously agreed with the idea. My conscious mind, of course, kept saying, "Watch it!"

"Okay, casual but cautious. You point out your bogeymen, and I'll point out mine."

"Deal."

My mind started fast-forwarding to find any hitches we might need to antic.i.p.ate in the plan. "If anyone asks, where do you want to say we met?"

"We'll stick to the truth as much as possible. Giovanni Nicoletta's castillo is where we met, and since then we've kept in touch."

Silence lasted about a minute. "I can do this if you can."

"Shake to seal the deal?" Jack smiled wryly and held out his hand.

My much smaller hand slid into his smoothly calloused palm, and we shook on it.

Before he released my hand, he said, "A deal is a deal, Miss Beacham. I fully expect you to honor your word." He said word like it meant a vow.

I pulled my hand away. "I expect exactly the same from you, Mr. Hawkes."

The look he shot my way was every bit as suspicious as the one I sent back at him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Too busy thinking, I hadn't paid much attention to where we were going. Jack kept my arm secure in the crook of his elbow, and my feet followed his lead, but my heart double-timed its pace as my vision finally filled with our destination. The entrance had been retooled a bit, huge pots of shrubs and flowers, probably hired for the event, rested in front, but the building was the same.

"La Galleria del Giardino della Vita," I breathed.

"Not anymore. The new owners renamed it."

"I thought it had been made into a bank after Andrea Tessaro died."

"That's true, but several years ago the bank moved, and the people who purchased the property wanted to bring back the art. They have big dreams," he finished a bit sardonically as we climbed the steps, my hand on his proffered arm.

I looked at him questioningly. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Its new name is La Galleria del Sogno Infinito."

"The Gallery of the Infinite Dream," I repeated as we walked into the lobby, and I was transported back in time. The simplicity of the entry, now filled with a long centrally placed table and surrounded by people dressed to maximum effect in a variety of colors and textures, remained exactly as I remembered. "It hasn't changed."

His very British sarcasm knocked me out of memory lane. "Whatever changes the bank made, the new owners apparently restored it to its former glory."

"You know, if I knew you better, I might think you had a grudge with the new owners," I murmured.

We reached the table, and he handed over the invitations while I picked up a couple of brochures. A few seconds later we arrived in the main section of the gallery, moving slowly but steadily with the rest of the crowd. Again, the place was as I remembered it.

"That's just it. No one really knows who the new owners are. They've applied for and received the proper permits and all, but as far as putting a real name or names to the buyer, there's nothing to report. A company called Ermo Colle purchased it, and their front man is an Italian exporter/importer who has fingers in lots of distant and varied company pies but no real stake or public connection to any of them."

"Ermo Colle? I think colle is hill, but ermo?"

"Solitary, lonely. Actually a Greek word. Goes back to a nineteenth-century poem by Giocomo Leopardi, and the gallery's name is taken from the poem's t.i.tle, 'L'Infinito.' Leopardi was a gifted student who outpaced his instructor and resorted to long hours of self-study. Before he even reached age twenty, however, he had compromised his health from spending so much time hunched over books. 'L'Infinito,' his best-known work, is a poem beginning with a solitary or lonely hill the poet can't see because his sight is blocked by a hedge, so he must use his mind to open up a vision of the limitless world for himself."

"I had no idea you possessed such an interest in poetry, Jack."

He grimaced as we moved into the main salon and took two gla.s.ses of Franciacorta, a sparkling wine from the Lombardy region. One of my favorite Italian wines, but not one I expected to be served at a Tuscany region event. I hadn't bothered to check, but the tickets to this party must be pretty steep or the owners cut a great deal with the winery to be able to serve this vintage en ma.s.s.

"I'm not. When I take on a project, part of the investigative research I do includes finding out as much as I can."

"You? Or some kind of team?"

"I'm a.s.suming from your reaction when we walked in, you visited this gallery during Tessaro's time. You must have been a kid."

Okay, he was obviously changing the subject to keep from answering, no surprise there, but I decided to play along. Maybe if we explored his non sequitur for a moment, he would return the favor and give me a bit of new data. "Yes, I was here-"

"Jack! I had no idea you were in Italy." A tall, thin red-haired man, with the same type of public school accent Jack had when he employed the full Brit, greeted him with a smile and handshake. "You remember my wife, Milli." Milli and Jack briefly hugged. "Tell me you haven't been in Florence long, or I may be offended."

Milli had a friendly, well cared for, middle-aged Italian vibe and wore a spectacular Valentino that flattered her figure and her skin. Though well turned out, she appeared several years older than her husband, who had the English fuddy-duddy formal thing happening.

"Hamish, I had no idea you were still here. Continuing to plug away at teaching art students to appreciate their masterpieces' British counterparts?"

A teacher? No way could a teacher afford Valentino.

"You know me, Jack. Never say never. Someday the ungrateful whelps will appreciate quality when they see it. Besides, I'm saved from teacher purgatory by the two English and five American transfer students I've got this semester."

We all laughed. University professor. Still not enough for a designer gown-this year's line, if I wasn't mistaken. Maybe family money on one side or the other. My guess was on the wife's.

"Hamish, Milli, please let me introduce my friend and companion, Laurel Beacham. Laurel, this is Hamish Ravensdale and his wife, Milli. Hamish and I went to school together."

"Nice to meet you," I said.

"Went to school together? Modesty doesn't suit you, Jack." Hamish looked over at me. "He saved my life from the cruelties of English schoolboys more times that I can count." He pretended to flex a nonexistent bicep. The loose, expensive material of his suit didn't tighten. "Never had much bravura or stamina as a kid. Jack, on the other hand, had enough for all in our year."

"Hmm, Jack as the overly protective type. Not hard to see him in that role." I lifted my eyebrow and eyed him over the rim of my gla.s.s as the others laughed.

"See you've come up against his white-knight side," Hamish said.

I nodded. White knight, my a.s.s. More like control freak. But I judiciously kept my thoughts to myself.

The resonance of tinkling gla.s.s and a microphone slowed conversation until everyone turned toward the sound.

"Mi scusi, mi scusi..."

The rest of the brief introduction gave a potted history of the gallery, thanked the many people, especially the donors of special pieces, who had made this venture possible, hoped everyone had a wonderful time, and explained a bit about what we would be viewing-the same rhetoric on the brochures as well as Flavia's e-mail-women artists and women subjects beginning with the Renaissance through the Baroque period with a few noteworthy current women painters and paintings.

He turned the microphone over to a woman who had just entered the room from a side door.

Flavia. From the distance, she didn't appear to have aged. I hadn't seen her in person in probably five years. She basically thanked all of us for coming and told everyone to be on alert for some unexpected and exciting surprises throughout the gallery, specifying a few of them to whet our appet.i.te. She also mentioned a private bar for everyone's pleasure-not free of course-and the very great need to continue to provide revenue for the important artistic exposure of women artists. Especially in Florence, considering the historical significance. In other words, she meant that historically, in Florence, women were used as art subjects to display their husband's prominence, magnitude, and wealth. Women were exemplified as representations of their husband's property. Women artists also were typically not appreciated, definitely not encouraged, and their art dismissed as of lesser importance.

She finished speaking to scattered applause and slipped out again through the same side door. Strange. I would have thought she would have immediately taken advantage to mingle with the crowd. Maybe a problem existed elsewhere only she could handle. People ebbed slowly toward the rooms of displayed art. Hamish continued talking to Jack. His wife, after a smile to us and a brief word in her husband's ear, moved to speak to another couple. I took advantage of the men's conversation to observe other people. I saw some faces I could put a name to but not as many as I thought I would. At this point, those whom I recognized were individuals I considered too unimportant to our current interests. However, I made a point of speaking to them since the whole exercise was for me to be noticed.

The main salon looked basically the same. Hamish's voice became an inconsequential murmur as I lost myself in thoughts of the last time I'd been here fifteen years ago.

As far as current events ran, I had not really kept up with what was happening in Florence except in a very superficial way. I hadn't heard the gallery reopened under another name or knew of Flavia's connection to it. I did find it strange she hadn't said anything in her e-mail. She knew all about what had happened here those many years ago with the theft of The Portrait of Three, not just from a newsstand point of view, but from a shared emotional viewpoint with my own. She and her family attended the gallery event that fateful night as well.

"Ready?" Jack's voice was as clipped and steady as his hand on my arm and refocused my attention. I realized Hamish had moved away.