Читать книгу The Good Thief - Judith Leon - Страница 17

His name was Iacapo Donato, but Lindsey called him Jake. Known publicly as a highly respectable antiquities dealer, his various and nefarious ties extended far beyond the world of thousand-year-old kraters, coins, or marble busts—things that were occasionally reasons for Lindsey to contact him about underground rumblings. Jake had also helped her father find the son of a billionaire Moroccan, kidnapped despite her father’s security team. Jake had learned of a shipment of illegals from Morocco into France. The smugglers of cheap labor also had the boy. NSI had successfully returned the boy to his family.

It was quite possible that Jake may have heard of something involving a kidnapping, maybe even specifically about the high-profile kidnapping of two American girls from Phoenix, Arizona. Checking AA.org, Lindsey saw that Shannon Connor, a former Athena Force student with no love for her alma mater, had also been on international broadcasts of BBC and CNN, continuing her negative spotlight on the Athena Academy.

When Lindsey had called Jake from the jet to make sure he’d be at his private club in Florence tonight, he’d invited her instead to his villa for the evening. “I’ll be showing off my latest acquisitions—and more,” he said in his affected British accent. “Wear that marvelous jade gown.”

So. Formal attire instead of cocktail. The dress was actually sage-green, but definitely the sexiest thing she’d ever owned. Stretch satin and nearly backless, its modest neckline set off a faux emerald necklace while the daring cut of the sides displayed more of her breasts than an unescorted woman in Italy should reveal. The floor-length sheath was slit only to midthigh level, but the back plunge and clinging fabric made underwear impossible.

Dress and heels. Nothing else, except necklace and earrings and her fluffy hunter-green mohair shawl.

Jake’s villa lay sixteen kilometers from Florence. She pushed her Alfa Spider above the speed limit through the village of Malmantile, which had grown around an old Tuscan fortification on the road to Pisa. The villa, perched on the side of a shallow canyon, had been added onto a centuries-old square tower. Five stories tall, its crenellated top had been roofed and glassed in. The four-story front section and the three-story wings featured romantic balconies and rows of narrow arches. The place was architecturally stunning and filled with pricey antiques—all watched over by Jake’s staff and all for sale.

Inside, she checked her shawl, ascended a broad staircase to the second floor, and worked her way through elegantly attired guests toward a buffet table without spotting Jake. He was probably in the gaming room in the back where high-stakes, illegal baccarat and roulette were played. Jake’s payoff from her for his efforts was always two things: five percent of her finder’s fee and that, every time she came to him soliciting information, she spend at least two hours in the back room schmoozing with his gamblers and looking her most alluring.

Before she could select any of the gorgeous morsels on the buffet, a man’s hand clapped her bare back and swept her from the table. Beppo, a glorified fence for stolen goods, whisked her onto a balcony into the shock of cold air and thrust her backward in a motion so smooth and sudden, she had no immediate defense. Smelling of stale tobacco, he leaned on top of her like a tango dancer bending over his partner, and the rail pressed painfully into her spine and kidneys.