Read Online Suspicious (On the Run) by Sara Rosett - Free Book Online

have to show our passports to drop it off and pick it up.”
    Jack frowned. “Not fond of that idea.”
    “I know. If Alessi figures out that we stored something there, he’ll want it.”
    “And would probably be able to get whatever warrant or permission he needed.”
    “I suppose we could mail it to someone,” Zoe said reluctantly. “But I hate to do that. No matter how good the tracking is, packages still get lost.”
    “And who would we mail it to?” Jack asked. “Whoever it is, we’d pull them into this mess as well.”
    “I don’t like the idea either.” Zoe’s forehead wrinkled into a frown. “There’s Nico, I suppose.” Nico was an old friend from Jack’s consulate days in Naples. Jack had recruited Nico as an asset because of Nico’s family connections with the Comorra, the powerful Naples mafia. Nico’s fun-loving, Lothario exterior hid a shrewd mind, and he had helped Jack and Zoe out of a few serious scrapes. They’d had dinner with Nico the day after they arrived in Rome. He had become quite the globetrotting entrepreneur, and Rome had been on his itinerary frequently because his fiancée lived there.
    Jack actually laughed. “Now, that would be a dangerous place to leave it.”
    “You’re right. The temptation would probably be too great, but I can’t think of anything else.”
    Jack said, “There is one other option, if it’s still open, but we need to lose our escorts.”
    “I’m up for both of those things.” Zoe felt as if the lotion bottle were pulsing and glowing, sending out signals to come and find it. “The police are coming down the steps, too. Time for us to leave, I think.”
    Mustache Guy was inching his way through the crowd toward them. With the steps blocked, Zoe and Jack pushed through the tourists at the edge of the fountain, trying to reach the far end of the left side of the fountain, but the tourists weren’t about to give up their prime viewing spots.
    Zoe turned and scanned the crowd in front of Mustache Guy. She spotted a tall man with thick salt-and-pepper hair and sunglasses. She pointed as she shouted, “Hey, isn’t that George Clooney?”
    A beat of silence followed as people around her turned, following her pointing finger, then the crowd of tourists surged toward the man in the sunglasses. Mustache Guy was caught in the flow. As the tourists jostled for a better look at the “movie star,” Jack and Zoe cut through the crowd, scrambled over the low wall, and raced across the piazza to one of the tight streets that branched off from it.
    Zoe focused on not tripping over the curb or the uneven cobblestones as they sprinted. They were moving so quickly that she couldn’t look back. They dodged between pedestrians for several blocks. Jack slowed, and Zoe realized they were on the Via del Corso, one of the best shopping streets in Rome with lots of high-end stores that ran in a straight line into the heart of Rome. Ahead, at the end of the street, she could see the Victor Emmanuel monument, the massive, blindingly white monument the locals called the Typewriter.
    Jack looked back. “Mustache Guy is still with us.”
    As they left the confines of the street and burst into the open area with a traffic circle in front of the monument, Zoe glanced back. “I see Bun Lady, too.”
    “Come on.” Jack caught her hand, and they ran toward the monument. With flights of stairs, rows of columns, flags, fountains, and statues of horses, chariots, and goddesses, all layered and stacked together, the whole thing felt overdone. They’d walked by it earlier in the week after their visit to the Forum, and Zoe didn’t even glance at it as they made for an idling bus.
    They shoved on with the group of waiting commuters and tourists, losing Mustache Guy, but Bun Lady hopped on at the last second. Jack nodded toward the front of the bus, and they worked their way forward until they were near the front exit. At the next stop, they were the first ones off and were