a gondola to get there. The two of them had walked all over Venice, and Denny had a keen, instinctive sense of direction. She followed the dark, narrow, winding streets, keeping her hand in her bag. Her fingers were wrapped around the butt of the Smith & Wesson. She didn’t expect to run into trouble, but if she did, she would be prepared.
The canals were still busy at this hour, the streets and bridges less so. Denny was wary when passing groups of rough-looking men, but other than calling out to her in Italian, they didn’t bother her. She didn’t know all the words they said, but it wasn’t difficult to get the general idea of their comments. They probably thought she was a prostitute.
She didn’t let them bother her. She had been hearing the same sort of thing from men for a number of years now, especially whenever she and Louis visited France. The Italian men weren’t quite as aggressive verbally—although they were more likely to pinch a girl’s rear end if she got within reach of them.
When she reached the street that ran in front of the palazzo where Giovanni’s apartment was, she paused to look up at the building. Most of the windows were already dark, but light still glowed in some of them.
Including, Denny realized as a frown creased her forehead, Giovanni’s bedroom window.
Maybe he had left a lamp burning, although that wasn’t very likely. She hadn’t expected him to be back from the meeting with his grandfather’s friend yet, but she supposed that was possible. The meeting might not have gone as well as Giovanni had hoped it would.
Denny hoped that wasn’t the case. She wanted Giovanni to be on good terms with his family again, and not just because of the financial advantages that would give him. Family was important. No one needed to be cut off from the ones who were supposed to love them the most.
The best way for her to find out what had happened was to go on up there, she told herself. Giovanni would be surprised to see her, but she hoped he would be pleased, too.
She went in and walked up the stairs to the second floor. Cooking odors from that night’s supper lingered in the air in the stairwell, a heady mixture of garlic and other spices. When she reached the second-floor hallway, she walked along it to the door of Giovanni’s apartment. Her hand lifted, poised to rap on the panel.
The shrill, strident laughter of a woman came from inside the apartment before Denny’s knuckles could fall.
She caught her breath and stepped back sharply as if she had just been slapped across the face. A deeper laugh with the rumble of a man’s voice in it came to her ears. She knew that sound, knew it all too well. She had heard it often during the past few weeks. And the laugh held a tone of intimacy that Denny recognized, too.
Her heart slugged painfully hard in her chest. Giovanni was in there with a woman . . . laughing . . . and Denny’s mind whirled desperately, searching for something that would explain what she had just heard.
Maybe . . . maybe the emissary sent by Giovanni’s grandfather had brought along some members of Giovanni’s family. That might be his sister laughing in there, or his mother or aunt. That was possible, wasn’t it?
No, Denny told herself as the woman giggled. No, it wasn’t. That wasn’t the sort of sound a woman made when she was visiting with a long-absent relative. There was passion in it, and excitement, and . . . and . . .
With her pulse hammering in her head, Denny leaned closer to the door and carefully pressed her ear against the panel.
“. . . villa on the Mediterranean.” That was Giovanni’s voice. “The most beautiful place you have ever seen, and it will be just the two of us, cara mia.”
Denny caught her breath again, the air hissing between tightly clenched teeth. This time she felt like she’d been punched in the gut, and it was all she could do not to let out a groan.
She held it in, because she didn’t want the two people in the apartment to hear it and realize someone was out here.
The woman spoke then, low enough that Denny couldn’t make out the words at first, but she caught the final part of the question the woman asked.
“. . . afford that?”
She had an English accent. Giovanni seemed to like women who had spent time in England, Denny thought wildly.
He chuckled and said, “Don’t worry about that. With the money the American girl is having wired to my bank, we can live in luxury for months. And she will have no idea where to look for us, so you need not concern yourself with that, cara mia.”
Denny wished he would stop calling her that. She squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears that wanted to well out.
She could still hear, though, even if she couldn’t see at the moment. The Englishwoman said, more clearly now, “It took you long enough to get that money out of her. And I’ll wager you enjoyed every second of it, you scoundrel!”
“She was quite a pleasing companion,” Giovanni agreed. “But not half so beautiful and exciting as you.”
“What about that Tomasi fellow? From what you told me, he sounds rather dangerous.”
“He has given me until tomorrow evening to meet him and settle accounts, and we will be long departed from Venice by then. Tomasi will not be able to find us, either,” Giovanni said.
So at least he had been telling the truth about the money he owed to Salvatore Tomasi. That hadn’t been yet another lie, part of the big act he had put on to convince Denny to part with ten thousand dollars—and more.
“I tell you, Vanessa, I have thought of everything. Soon we will be living the life that we deserve.”
No, Denny thought, what he deserved was for her to kick this door open and go in there shooting with the Smith & Wesson in her bag. She realized that she was still gripping it, so tightly that her hand was starting to go numb.
But that would be cold-blooded murder, she told herself, and Jensens didn’t do such things. Giving Giovanni a thorough beating, up one way and down the other, would be all right, but she lacked the physical ability to do that and so did Louis.
Anyway, she would never tell her brother about this. It was too humiliating. Louis didn’t need to know how badly she had been fooled by that . . . that snake!
There was something else she could do, she realized. As the idea took shape in her mind, her face settled into cold, hard lines. That mask threatened to crack when she heard new noises coming from inside the apartment, noises that left no doubt what Giovanni and his Englishwoman were doing, without even having the decency to go into the bedroom.
Denny’s resolve hardened even more. She straightened, taking her ear away from the door. She didn’t need to hear what was going on in there. She had heard plenty already.
She left the palazzo and walked back to the hotel. If any of the Italian men she passed made crude comments, she didn’t notice them this time. She was focused completely on what she had to do next.
When she reached the Hotel Metropole, she went up to the suite for a few minutes and then returned to the lobby. She crossed the ornately furnished room to the desk and told the clerk, “I need to send some telegrams.”
“The telegraph office will be closed at this hour, signorina,” the man said with a
