LITMIR.BIZ

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      Someone hissed, their secret sound for stop. Everyone crouched and froze.

      “Voices,” Portia whispered, “eight o’clock.” Heads turned west. Nothing.

      And then the chopper returned, following the bends of the wash. They eased into shadows, pressed into bushes, again losing time as the chopper whomped by.

      The sounds gradually faded, the team heard voices more clearly. Portia hand signaled where she thought their competitors’ course lay. Lindsey calculated her options. Since, in true Athena thinking, no points would be gained in paint-tagging another team, only a point loss in getting tagged, she would not let them be sucked into losing time in an ambush. She signaled by pointing away from the voices and toward the rocks.

      Soon they were nearing the area with the most vegetation. This would probably be a shorter route in the long run, anyway. And wasn’t there a cistern, up ahead, a “white tank”?

      An image of the new sign posted above their treasure flashed in her mind. Had that been a clue, the key to success from that point? Lindsey felt a flush of certainty. Going through this region of tanks was the fastest way.

      Dropping down the rock face by rope took less than ten minutes. They reached a passageway so narrow, only one girl at a time could go through.

      “It’s black as starless space down there,” Crystal said.

      Lindsey signaled the others to wait. She moved a limb of a paloverde tree, stepped into the passage, and switched on her flashlight. Left behind, the Dianas blended into shadows. Within ten paces she came upon a rock “tank” filled with water, a deep pool of ink. It would be cold, and no telling what things lurked in it, but they’d be heroes if they pushed through and down to the amphitheater in record time.

      The edges gave no footing, so the only way out was through. She shined her light into the leafy gorge beyond and saw a sight that chilled her to the bone. The beam shimmered across dozens of giant gray spiderwebs. A scream rose in her. She bit her hand in time to keep the scream inside.

      Above her shoulder, a spider dropped along the rocky wall from its line of sticky web, doing a little rappelling of its own. White speckles sprinkled its body. She scurried back to the team, grateful for the dark. Otherwise, they’d see a completely white face. Her hands were sweating and her heart’s beating throbbed in her throat.

      “Can’t go that way. The…uh…water…something moving in it. Like a snake.” She couldn’t return her teammates’ look of surprise, her lie forcing her gaze to the ground. She was the designated leader from this point. The decision was hers to make. Moaning quietly and sulkily complaining of lost time, the girls climbed their way back out, and when they nearly reached the top, the Persephone team popped up, whooping.

      “Kowabunga!”

      Paint balloons flew at the Dianas, Lindsey taking the first hit. Persephones scurried away before Dianas could reach the top and fire back. A clean getaway.

      It was all Lindsey could do to keep from crying. They came in well behind the Persephones, and because of the paint splatters, their score put them at third in the overall triathlon.

      “We’re so proud of you, honey,” Lindsey’s mother gushed at the closing ceremony.

      She stood there with some paint still caked in her hair, wanting to disappear.

      “Third, huh?” Her dad patted her on the cheek. He swiped a finger over her bangs, noting the paint. “Let’s talk about this later, before your mother and I leave. See what you could have done differently.”

      She’d failed. At the big party in the gym the other girls would talk. Her father would hear about the dark passageway and about her retreat.

      For two days, Lindsey could scarcely eat, and her father’s disappointed pat dug itself a nasty little spot in her memory to remind her of the costs of fear.

      Chapter 1

      Perfect pizza!

      So many reasons to come to Naples, Lindsey thought as she finished off the final bite of a slice she’d ordered while waiting to meet her backup man. The fabulous view of Vesuvius and the bay; masterpieces at the Capodimonte Art Museum that took her right out of the here and now and into a different world; an exciting air of danger and intrigue from the city’s long history with the Mafia; and, of course, the best pizza in the world.

      Eager to get into action, she drummed her fingertips on her water glass. She was waiting for Marko Savin at a patio table in the restaurant across the street from the world-famous National Archaeological Museum where she loved to browse, on quieter days, the best finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum.

      A sudden strong breeze stroked her neck. February winds off the bay could be quite chilly. Yesterday it had rained. She flipped up the collar of her black leather jacket, guessing the air temperature probably hung around fifty-six degrees. Billowy, gray clouds raced across the sky.

      She pushed the plate away and took a drink of bottled water. A sturdy Chianti, as the waiter had suggested, would make the wait easier, but she needed to be at her clearheaded best for today’s buyback.

      After a month of investigation and then wangling, wheeling and dealing with a thief, she would buy back a painting, a small masterpiece, for its rightful owner. She would purchase an exquisite work by Artemisia Gentileschi. The little-known oil—three feet by four feet—was entitled Cleopatra at the Bath.

      Artemisia had painted this Cleopatra in 1650. Lindsey loved the artist because she was one of the few acknowledged women masters of the time. During WWII the Germans stole the painting from the parents of Lindsey’s clients. Recently, the grandson of an ex-Nazi officer who’d gone into hiding after the war had apparently stolen the piece from his own grandfather and put it up for sale on the black market. Lindsey’s underground contacts—which were extensive since she had carefully cultivated them after becoming a middle-woman in this business over five years ago—ranged from street sages to shady “fences” to auctioneers, cabdrivers and snooty museum buyers. One had not only been able to help her find the painting, but shared the rumor with her that the grandson, Heinie Gottschalk, wanted the money from the sale to take his little drug-running business to new highs. Or lows, depending on how you looked at it.

      She sighed. Maybe that was true. Maybe not. She didn’t allow herself to judge or guess at what people did with the money exchanged in the buys. Her job was to serve clients who could not get justice through the legal system. Insurance companies, private businesses and individuals—at one time or another, she’d negotiated a deal for them all. The black-market buybacks sometimes felt a little shady. After all, her clients didn’t like paying for items they rightfully owned. But if her fees sometimes felt like thievery, she at least had the consolation of knowing she was a good thief, on the side of justice.

      A man at a nearby table cleared his throat and stared at Lindsey’s hand. She stopped drumming. Why hadn’t she at least ordered coffee? She recalculated the time to reach Capodimonte Park, the site of the exchange. She’d set up the buyback there not just because the location was convenient and public, but also because of the poetic justice involved. The Capodimonte Palace, built in the late 1700s and now the site of the art museum, displayed what was perhaps Artemisia’s best-known piece, done in the chiaroscuro style of the more famous, but in Lindsey’s opinion not more talented, Caravaggio, and entitled Judith Slaying Holophernes. Lindsey would buy back a piece of stolen art under the caring eye, so to speak, of the artist herself in the sense that Artemisia lived on in her work.

      Lindsey checked her watch. 12:56. Still early. But Savin obviously wasn’t. Maybe he’d had a hard time renting a motorcycle on such short notice? She hated last-minute changes.

      If she were meeting a friend or even doing business for NSI—Novak Sicurezza Internazionale, her father’s security company—time could be experienced Italian style…casual. She had, however, never worked with Marko Savin before, and today’s exchange, like all buys, was potentially dangerous. Everything had to be executed with care. That included timing.

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