He considered telling her, and then simply gave her the literal translation. “Almond.”

“Well, the center is almond-shaped, I suppose.” Her touch stilled. “There’s something hard under your skin in the middle of the tattoo.” She pressed gently so he could feel the small, rod-shaped object. “Were you shot in the back?”

“No.” He heard the sound of the men’s voices approaching the front of the truck. “They’re coming.” He put the bags back in place and then led her over to where the discarded canvas lay on the floor. There he waited until he heard the cab doors slam and the engine start. He tugged at her, guiding her to the back door.

“I can’t jump out like this,” she whispered, gesturing at her bare legs and feet.

“Not yet,” he agreed, and used the noise of the truck accelerating to mask the sound of him raising the rolling door. He held it up a few inches with their joined hands as he reached outside. Once he had what he wanted and carefully closed the door, he led Lilah back to the cases.

“What were you doing?” she demanded.

“The door.” His gaze shifted toward her feet. “They forgot.”

“Forgot what?”

He held up the padlock in his hand. “To lock it.”

Chapter 8

Once the GenHance corporate jet was in the air, Tina Segreta took on her usual role as hostess, and supplied Eliot Kirchner with a glass of soda water, adding a twist of lemon and enough sedative to knock out the geneticist for several hours. Since she had arranged to have the rest of his team follow them on a commercial flight, and the pilots had been instructed to stay in the cockpit, she had the doctor and the plane all to herself.

Once Kirchner had fallen unconscious, Tina carefully searched through his clothing. “Let’s see what color boxers you’re wearing today, Doc.” She smiled a little as she opened his trousers. “Ah, the navy blue. My favorite.”

Groping a brilliant scientist’s flaccid genitals and searching his body cavities never thrilled Tina, but it didn’t repulse her, either. Almost from birth she’d been trained to perform the most intimate tasks without emotion; it was just another part of her job. That her touch made Kirchner erect startled her only a little; perhaps the cold fish wasn’t as sexless as Genaro believed him to be.

“Good to know.” She patted his erection and chuckled as it bobbed. “Maybe we can do something about this before we land.”

Once she had gone over every inch of his person, Tina searched Kirchner’s carry-on bags and then walked from one end of the plane to the other, scanning the interior with a handheld bug detector. Only when she felt sure the plane was as clean as Kirchner did she boot up her netbook and engage the transceiver.

Genaro’s face appeared on the screen a few moments later in a video call screen. “Report.”

“Kirchner doesn’t have anything on him.” Tina had already had one of their people at the airport search the bags the doctor had checked before boarding the jet. “All he brought in his cases are a few changes of clothes and some toiletries.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Genaro’s expression tightened. “Chief Delaporte told me that there was a last-minute acquisition taken in central Florida yesterday. A female.”

“Devereaux, the animal control officer. I remember.” Tina pretended to think. “Dr. Kirchner mentioned her once or twice. I believe he flagged her from a news report about an encounter between her and a black bear.”

“Why was she taken without my knowledge?”

Because Tina had destroyed every report about Devereaux that Kirchner had sent to Genaro, not that she would admit it. “I’m not sure, sir. Dr. Kirchner said only that she was the right age, had no known family members, and her identity has only existed for ten years.”

“Who authorized the capture, and where is she now?”

“Let me check with Denver on that, sir.” She opened another window, checking the bogus files she’d brought with her, which included fake operations reports. She might have to transmit them to Genaro, but by the time he authenticated them, she would be finished with the real reason she was traveling to Denver. She reopened the call screen. “It appears that Dr. Kirchner personally arranged the capture and transport. The female is on a truck carrying some lab supplies and a cadaver to the new facility.”

“Call ahead to the facility,” Genaro said. “I want the bodies and everything on that truck thoroughly searched before Kirchner is given access.”

“Yes, sir.” Tina waited until Genaro terminated the video call before she logged off, and then glanced at the sleeping doctor. “You bad, bad man. You just got caught with your hand in the cookie jar.”

She used the air phone to call ahead to the ground crew at the new facility, and learned that the truck wasn’t expected to arrive until sometime after midnight. She couldn’t help but smirk a little as she hung up the phone. Genaro had no idea that the truck would never arrive, and neither would his assistant. She was tempted to take Kirchner as well, but she suspected selling a world-renowned geneticist to the highest bidder wouldn’t be as simple as bribing a couple of thugs to snatch an orphaned, friendless civil servant who’d just lost her job. She returned to her seat to review the file she had prepared on Devereaux, and then removed a mobile phone that she wasn’t supposed to be carrying and hit speed dial.

“It’s Tina,” she said, and waited to be connected. When her employer answered, she said, “I’ve acquired what you wanted; we’ll be arriving in Denver in a few hours. How do you want to do this?” She listened to his instructions, and then checked the balance in her offshore bank account, which had been increased by three million dollars. “I appreciate the prompt payment, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As she electronically transferred the new funds to a different account, Tina felt the last of her anxiety melt away. She’d done several similar jobs over the last five years, but this was the last, big payoff. All she had to do was finish setting up Kirchner to take the fall for stealing the bodies from Genaro as well as Tina’s own disappearance, which she had meticulously planned to make it appear as if Kirchner had murdered her.

As for her other employer, by the time he discovered how Tina had screwed him, he’d be reading her obituary.

A flashing icon on the netbook’s toolbar caught her eye, and Tina clicked on it. The message box that popped up displayed a tiny graphic of a red hand with the thumb tucked under the forefinger. Dread tangled with rage inside her chest as she faced the one problem she hadn’t anticipated. “Goddamn it.”

With one long nail she punched in a fourteen-digit code she’d never been able to forget before pressing one final button.

The call waiting for her connected instantly.

“Hello, Teresina.” The young, sweet-sounding voice spoke in fluid Italian. “How are you? Have you landed yet?”

“No,” Tina snapped in English. She didn’t bother to ask how she had been found, and who had tapped into the encrypted computer. A glance at Kirchner told her he was still out, but she lowered her voice anyway. “What are you doing, calling me like this? Have you lost your mind?”

“I arrived in the States yesterday.”

“And the first thing you do is call me? You are crazy.” If she hadn’t been so furious, she would have laughed. “Did you think we’d reminisce about the good old days? Or were you hoping that I would—”

“They know, Teresina.” The cheerful voice became gentle. “They know where you are, what you’ve been doing, and who you work for. They know everything. They’ve always known. They know why you’re going to Denver.”

They couldn’t know. No one knew.

“I’m on a business trip.” Tina felt sweat beading on her upper lip and wiped it away with the heel of her hand. “I don’t care. I’m nothing to them. I’m dead to them. Leave me alone.”

“No, you’re not.” A sigh whispered over the line. “I will be in Denver in a few hours, sister, and we should—”

“You’re not my sister, you stupid little bitch.” Five years ago Tina had stopped looking over her shoulder, confident that she had been forgotten. She should have known they would never let her go unpunished. “Why did they send you here? One last job to make sure you’re worthy of them?”

“Something like that,” she agreed.

Tina realized she was so angry she was almost shouting into the phone. She turned and strode down the aisle until she took a seat in the very back of the plane, well out of earshot of the cockpit. “Did you think if we spoke that I’d help you? Or were you just hoping to make me crawl?”

“Neither, Teresina. I’m simply doing my job.” She hesitated before she added, “Pacta sunt servanda.”

She froze. “What agreements have been made?”

“I am to tell you that you have been absolved, Teresina. Venia necessitati datur.”

Once, Tina thought, she would have sacrificed a limb to hear those words. Once. “Oh, no. No. You’re ten years too late, Valori. I don’t care what they do. I will never forgive them, or forget what they did to me.”

“I know it is hard for you,” she said. “But everything has changed now. No matter how you feel, you must return to Napoli to perform the conclamatio.”

Which meant her brother, Tomaseo, was dead. Tina closed her eyes for a moment, reaching for calm even as she began to tremble uncontrollably. She had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering. “How did he die?”

“It was his heart.” She told Tina about the scars the doctors had found on her brother’s body, wounds from an old battle that had eventually caused the aortic aneurysm to form. “He never told anyone how badly he’d been hurt, but he was proud that way. He didn’t suffer. He went peacefully in his sleep. Sister—”