The guard spread his hands guiltily. “No.”
Bellasar stormed toward the casement windows, scowled at each of them, and noted that one was open a crack – enough space for fingers to pry in and open it farther if someone had gone out that way, closed it, and wanted to reopen it easily. “Damn it, find him. Go to his room! I want to know where he is!”
As the guard hurried into the hallway, Bellasar went after him. In the vestibule, he yelled for the three bodyguards who’d been with him to follow. Taking the curving staircase three steps at a time, he rushed up, passing the guard he had sent ahead of him. At the top, he slowed just enough for the group to catch up to him, then charged along the corridor, reached the door to Malone’s room, thrust it open, turned on the light, and blinked at the empty bed, the covers of which weren’t turned back.
“Search the grounds! Search everywhere!”
The guards scrambled to obey.
Following, Bellasar encountered Sienna as she wearily reached the top of the staircase.
“He’s missing,” Bellasar said. “If I find him where he shouldn’t be, you won’t need to worry about posing for the second portrait. He’ll be dead.”
Brushing past her, Bellasar charged down the stairs. “Check every room!” he ordered a group of guards who had heard the commotion and run into the vestibule. Seeing the Russians and another group of guards at the open doorway, he told them, “Search the Cloister! Give me your pistol!” he ordered a guard who raced past. He worked the 9-mm Sig-Sauer’s injection slide to make sure a round was in the firing chamber, paused long enough to be satisfied that his commands were being obeyed, then rushed outside to join the search.
Flashlights zigzagged as guards searched under bushes and among trees.
To Bellasar’s left, glass crashed. Voices shouted. One, louder than the rest, was terribly clear.
“We’ve found him! Here! Over here!”
5
Pretending to have been shocked awake, Malone jerked up from the settee on which he lay in the darkness. Men barged into the sunroom with such force that the glass door slammed against the huge window next to it, shattering both panes. Shards of glass hit the stone floor, exploding into smaller pieces, crushed by the boots of the men who charged in, aimed pistols and flashlights, and yanked him to his feet.
“What the -” Malone tried to sound disoriented.
A man rushed outside. “We’ve found him! Here!
Over here!”
“What the hell’s going on?” Malone murmured. “Why are you…” The lights still hadn’t been turned on. The flashlights were aimed at his eyes, one of the beams so blindingly close that he raised his left arm to brush it away, only to have his arm thrust down and the flashlight whacked across the side of his face.
The impact sent a burst of colors through his mind. For a moment, those colors swirled. His legs bent. He started to fall, but the men jerked him to his feet, and the flashlight was cocked back to strike him once again when several more people rushed into the room.
Bellasar demanded, “Where is he? Show me the son of a bitch!”
The overhead lights came on. The blow to Malone’s face had blurred his vision, but now he managed to focus it, seeing Bellasar stalk through the guards.
Bellasar’s normally handsome features were twisted with rage. “The first time we met, you were tied to a chair. You’d pissed your pants.” Bellasar’s chest heaved, driven by the force of his emotions as he put on leather gloves.
“I don’t understand,” Malone said. “Why -”
“Shut your mouth!” Bellasar punched it.
Malone’s head jerked back. For a moment, he saw more colors flash. His ears rang. As his disorientation cleared, he became aware of blood trickling down his chin from his split lips, joined by blood from a throbbing gash on his left cheekbone where the flashlight had struck him.
“That first time I saw you, as I looked at the piss beneath your chair, I said you were a fool for refusing to cooperate with me.” Bellasar’s voice trembled. “But I also said that I was reasonable, that I was willing to give you a second chance. I warned you, though.” He punched Malone again, mangling his lips further. “I never give third chances.”
The men holding Malone were jolted back by the strength of the blow.
Malone needed a few seconds longer before his mind stopped spinning. “I don’t give third chances, either. You’ve hit me twice. Try doing it again.”
“What?”
“Without your guards hanging on to me.”
“This close to dying, you have the nerve to talk to me like that?”
“Why in Christ’s name are you threatening me?”
“You actually think you can bluff your way out of this?”
“Out of what?”
“You deny sneaking out of the library window?”
“Sneaking out of the library window? Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”
“You deny you were in there?”
“Of course I was in there! You made such a big deal about Dante and Beatrice, I read the book you suggested! You want a question and answer session? You want me to tell you what Beatrice was wearing when Dante first saw her? A red dress! Do you want to know the color of her dress the next time he saw her? White! The time after that, he saw her in church! The time after that, she was at a -”
“Why was the library window open a crack?”
“Beats the shit out of me! I didn’t know it was!”
“The guard didn’t see you leave the library.”
“That makes us even, because when I left, I didn’t see him, either.” Malone wiped blood from his face. “Reading about Beatrice got me thinking about sketching Sienna without her being in front of me. So I came over here and tried something new, but I was sleepier than I thought, and I took a nap on that settee. The next thing I knew, your storm troopers were barging in.”
“Prove it! Where’s the new sketch?”
“On the floor next to the settee. One of your guards is standing on it. I’m afraid it got a little smeared from my blood spattering over it.”
The guard who was standing on the sketch stepped away. Frowning at the blood and boot marks on it, Bellasar picked up the wrinkled page. “I’ve seen all the sketches you did of her. If this is the same as…” His voice faltered when he looked at it.
Malone had sketched it two days previously, when his obsession with Sienna had compelled him to depict an idealized version of her beauty.
Bellasar’s mouth opened as if he wanted to say something. When he finally managed to get the words out, his voice was a whisper. “It’s stunning.”
“Yeah, with the boot marks and the blood. I can’t wait to see it framed.”
Bellasar gazed at it, awestruck. “Breathtaking.” At last, he lowered it. “… Apparently, I was mistaken.”
“That makes my face feel a whole lot better.”
“I’ll send for a doctor.”
“While you’re being so kindhearted, how about telling your goons to take their hands off me?”
Bellasar gave him a warning look. When he nodded to his men, it was as if he had pressed a switch – they instantly let Malone go.
Malone wiped more blood from his mouth. Glancing past Bellasar, he saw Sienna in the doorway. She seemed even more dazed.
Bellasar noticed her. “There’s nothing to worry about, my dear. You’ll be able to pose tomorrow.”
Sienna didn’t respond. The dark of her eyes was huge, her expression listless. Malone wondered if she’d been drugged.
6
Outside on the harshly lit terrace, the two Russians waited. As Bellasar went to speak to them, Malone made another attempt to memorize their faces. Then, knowing he couldn’t keep staring at them, he did what he wanted to do more than anything – to look at Sienna, to try to get a sense of what had happened in Istanbul, of what she was thinking and feeling. Something sank within him when she turned away. He couldn’t tell if it was from fear or because she was horrified by the injuries to his face. But in that case, if she had any regard for him, wouldn’t she have given him a look of sympathy?