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Authors: Yxta Maya Murray
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know more about this than I thought.”
“It’s become a consuming interest of mine.”
“Why?”
“It seems as if I have found my calling.”
“What—history?”
He hesitated, staring down at the letter. “Politics. It’s something of an inheritance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He moved closer to me. “What matters is this right now. And I have seen your brain at work. You practically ate this letter when I first showed it to you. I thought I was going to have to give you a tranquilizer you became so excited. And in the Long Beach Airport—despite all your whingeing about calling the police, you chased me through the terminal like a little demented bloodhound. But I completely understand. I feel the same way. There’s a promise in this writing, don’t you think? Of something wonderful.” He moved toward me again, and I took a step back, so that we were walking in a circle, the way wrestlers do before a fight. Soon my back was toward the front door, and he smiled at me with his white teeth. “Pretty Lola, I know you want to find out the truth. There are secrets here—I can smell them, can’t you? There’s something downstairs—in the dining room, as I said before. I can’t put my finger on it. Something in this palace that’s been bothering me for a year—”
“What?”
He was now very near, and shining-eyed. I remembered the old biblical tales of Lucifer and his beauty, his hissing seduction of Eve. Marco was an extraordinary shape-shifter to move so quickly between threatening thug and honey-tongued tempter.
His hand rested on my hand, gently, grazing my engagement ring with his fingertips.
“Don’t touch me like that,” I said, rattled.
Outside, I could again hear the sound of that laughter—actually, more like a shrieking—that punctuated the halls of the palazzo.
Marco smoothed out my fingers so that my palm opened, then laid the opal-colored pages in my grasp.
My fingers folded over the letter.
“Come on, look at it,” he half-sang to me. “Really study it. After all, don’t you want to show how you’re better than him? Tomas, I mean? Soto-Relada told me he spent years trying to figure out this puzzle. It must pique your interest—Tomas’s failure. And the idea that you might have the chops to break a code he couldn’t.”
I didn’t answer that. “In Long Beach, you hit me, Marco. You threatened my family. Now you’ve put a gorilla outside my door.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t work that well when I think that people are going to hurt me if I displease them.”
He kept his eyes intently on mine. “Actually, I’m becoming more and more convinced that you will please me, Lola.”
“If you intended that to make me feel better—guess what? It doesn’t.”
“Well,” he said smoothly, “it’s true. I’ll confess that I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with you once I got you over here. Drag you by the hair about Italy and make you figure this puzzle out for me, I suppose. Not very efficient. And not likely to end well. But, it appears you just might be smart enough to truly work with me on this letter, and not because I bully you. Which would require, of course, that I would be stupid enough to forget who you are.” He brought his hand to his lips, briefly, and he seemed suddenly less bulletproof, less brittle, before he spread out his arms and laughed bitterly. “But it is possible that I could forget. After all, I am a man in grief, terrible, terrible grief, and am not seeing clearly.”
He stared at me for a long time then. Or I, at him. At this moment he did not seem dangerous. He was weirdly, almost intimately sad, even seductive—in a Stockholm syndrome sort of way.
“Yes, after all—why not? Why fight? You could prove yourself to me now, if you wanted,” he murmured, and I could feel his warm breath on my cheeks. He took my face in his palms, pushing back my hair. “Little beauty. Little nutter. We’re not so
“It’s become a consuming interest of mine.”
“Why?”
“It seems as if I have found my calling.”
“What—history?”
He hesitated, staring down at the letter. “Politics. It’s something of an inheritance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He moved closer to me. “What matters is this right now. And I have seen your brain at work. You practically ate this letter when I first showed it to you. I thought I was going to have to give you a tranquilizer you became so excited. And in the Long Beach Airport—despite all your whingeing about calling the police, you chased me through the terminal like a little demented bloodhound. But I completely understand. I feel the same way. There’s a promise in this writing, don’t you think? Of something wonderful.” He moved toward me again, and I took a step back, so that we were walking in a circle, the way wrestlers do before a fight. Soon my back was toward the front door, and he smiled at me with his white teeth. “Pretty Lola, I know you want to find out the truth. There are secrets here—I can smell them, can’t you? There’s something downstairs—in the dining room, as I said before. I can’t put my finger on it. Something in this palace that’s been bothering me for a year—”
“What?”
He was now very near, and shining-eyed. I remembered the old biblical tales of Lucifer and his beauty, his hissing seduction of Eve. Marco was an extraordinary shape-shifter to move so quickly between threatening thug and honey-tongued tempter.
His hand rested on my hand, gently, grazing my engagement ring with his fingertips.
“Don’t touch me like that,” I said, rattled.
Outside, I could again hear the sound of that laughter—actually, more like a shrieking—that punctuated the halls of the palazzo.
Marco smoothed out my fingers so that my palm opened, then laid the opal-colored pages in my grasp.
My fingers folded over the letter.
“Come on, look at it,” he half-sang to me. “Really study it. After all, don’t you want to show how you’re better than him? Tomas, I mean? Soto-Relada told me he spent years trying to figure out this puzzle. It must pique your interest—Tomas’s failure. And the idea that you might have the chops to break a code he couldn’t.”
I didn’t answer that. “In Long Beach, you hit me, Marco. You threatened my family. Now you’ve put a gorilla outside my door.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t work that well when I think that people are going to hurt me if I displease them.”
He kept his eyes intently on mine. “Actually, I’m becoming more and more convinced that you will please me, Lola.”
“If you intended that to make me feel better—guess what? It doesn’t.”
“Well,” he said smoothly, “it’s true. I’ll confess that I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with you once I got you over here. Drag you by the hair about Italy and make you figure this puzzle out for me, I suppose. Not very efficient. And not likely to end well. But, it appears you just might be smart enough to truly work with me on this letter, and not because I bully you. Which would require, of course, that I would be stupid enough to forget who you are.” He brought his hand to his lips, briefly, and he seemed suddenly less bulletproof, less brittle, before he spread out his arms and laughed bitterly. “But it is possible that I could forget. After all, I am a man in grief, terrible, terrible grief, and am not seeing clearly.”
He stared at me for a long time then. Or I, at him. At this moment he did not seem dangerous. He was weirdly, almost intimately sad, even seductive—in a Stockholm syndrome sort of way.
“Yes, after all—why not? Why fight? You could prove yourself to me now, if you wanted,” he murmured, and I could feel his warm breath on my cheeks. He took my face in his palms, pushing back my hair. “Little beauty. Little nutter. We’re not so
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