Read Online Good Blood by Aaron Elkins - Free Book Online Page A

place a block inland (the four-and five-star hotels were all on the lakefront). Phil, who had slept most of the time on the fifteen-hour flight from Seattle, had, amazingly, gone to sleep in his room as soon as they’d arrived, but Julie and Gideon, who hadn’t slept at all, and whose eyes by now felt glued open, were eager to get out in the fresh air.
    They had strolled lazily around the town for half an hour and now they sat, loopy and jet-lagged, among families of Swiss and Italian tourists, at a sun-drenched outdoor cafe on the promenade, where Phil had promised to join them at nine-thirty for the visit to the de Grazias. From the boat terminal a block away, ferries carried tourists to, from, and around Stresa’s big attractions, the fabulous Borromean Islands a few hundred yards offshore, with their splendid seventeenth-century gardens and palaces. Gideon was reading aloud from a guidebook description of Isola Bella, the closest and most fantastic of the three islands.
    “‘But it is to the most ambitious and far-sighted of the Borromeos, Vitalio the Sixth, to whom we owe thanks for the Isola Bella we see today. It was Vitalio who began the prodigious earth-moving project that transformed the morphology of the land into ten superimposed garden terraces in the form of a gigantic truncated pyramid on the example of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The many pools and fountains were fed by pipes from an enormous cistern installed beneath… ’”
    He glanced up at Julie, who had been suspiciously silent for a long time. She sat with her eyes closed and her face tipped up to the sun. “Hello?” he said. “Are you still with us?”
    “Mm-hm,” she said, keeping her eyes closed. “‘It was Vitalio who something-somethinged the project that transformed the something into ten superimposed something-somethings on the example of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.’ Do go on.”
    With a smile, he closed the book. “I think maybe I’ve had enough too. Why don’t we just sit here and soak up the sunshine and this nice, warm air? Doesn’t it feel great after the spring we’ve had, or rather, haven’t had?”
    “Mmm,” she said, more a purr than a murmur. Except to recross her ankles, she didn’t stir.
    Given the chance, he watched her face for a while: the slightly turned-up nose; the pert chin-softening now, but all the more attractive for it-the lively mouth always on the verge of a smile; the glossy, curly black hair, cut short now, that framed the whole pretty picture. He shook his head. What did I do to get so lucky? he wondered contentedly, as he had so many times before.
    “I love you,” he said.
    He saw her smile, though her eyes were still closed. “Likewise,” she murmured.
    “Good, I’m glad we’ve gotten that out of the way.” He looked at the menu again. “I’m having a problem figuring out what to order.”
    “Hm?”
    “It’s because of the difference in time zones.”
    “Mm.”
    He put down the menu and looked at her again. “I’m not boring you? Not keeping you awake?”
    “No, not at all. I’m glued to every word. ‘It’s because of the difference in time zones.’”
    “What is?”
    She thought for a moment. “What you were talking about.”
    He laughed. “The thing is, I think I’m hungry, but I don’t know what to get. It’s eight-thirty in the morning here, but our internal clocks still think it’s eleven-thirty at night. I don’t know whether to get breakfast or a midnight snack.”
    “What would you get if you ordered breakfast?”
    “Bacon and eggs, probably. It’s on the menu, probably for the English tourists. And coffee.”
    “And what would you get for a midnight snack?”
    He thought it over. “Coffee. And bacon and eggs.”
    “That’s a pretty tough problem you have there, mister. I don’t see how I can help you with that one.”
    They had finished their bacon and eggs and were on their third cups of coffee when Phil showed up, looking greatly refreshed