“I see we need to have a chat about our choice of words in public spaces…” I glance around for any of the Cortini staff.
JJ answers the door of their room. “Now what?” he asks, exasperated. “If jet lag doesn’t do me in, your insane ideas will.”
Oh, you have no clue how much I don’t want to be here.
While the Eights trample around the globe in pursuit of an agenda handed down by a handful of cloaked, powerful people, they’ve built a community where accountability goes to die.
Bizzy hightails it through the room, looking disheveled.
“Were you trying to find your underwear in the big pile?” I ask.
“First of all, don’t talk to my girlfriend like that, you sanctimonious prick. Second, I’m not in the mood to go around in circles with you anymore today.” He drawls in his Southern accent, which grows thicker as the day turns to night.
“Tullis spent a month in Italy three months ago. We need to find out what he was doing. Who he had contact with,” I tell JJ, trying not to say more in front of Ahrens.
“Fine. Tomorrow. No one is in any shape to go gallivanting all over the countryside right now.”
We arrive in a small town with a convent at its center. Masaki tracked down a car service whose driver recalled bringing Henry Tullis here. He also mentioned that Tullis seemed nervous. The driver assumed he was running from the law.
Soren and I step into a café with two tables outside beneath striped umbrellas. An employee who looks about our age smiles brightly at us.
“Do you speak English?” Soren asks her.
“Yes,” she says in a thick French accent.
I glance around, noticing French and Italian flags on the wall toward the back of the shop. “Can I show you a picture of someone? We were hoping you would recognize him.”
She blushes and says, “Mon Dieu, que tu es beau.” The matronly woman beside her nods. I could tell her I speak French and know she just saidMy God, you are so handsome,but I don’t feel the need to embarrass anyone today. Well, other than Bizzy, JJ, or Rett.
The picture of Tullis makes the matronly woman point and start gesturing an explanation.
“What’s that?”
“She say he’s a treasure man. He’s a gold man. Yes, a gold man.”
“Ask her what that means,” Soren says excitedly.
But she suddenly starts speaking frantically to the younger woman in a mix of French and Italian. I catch fragments:He was secret. Said people would come looking for answers. Tell them nothing. Nothing. He was the treasure man. Only the girl. Tell only the girl.
I pull Soren away while he peppers them with questions that leave both women staring at him wide-eyed.
We meet the others at the cars we hired. JJ and Rett are protectively shielding Bizzy from me. Cute.
“I think we need to go up into the mountains to the ski village,” Deo says, leaning heavily against the car, hung over from his celebration at being back on Italian soil. Dimwit.
My whole family enjoys cross-country skiing, so I spent my whole childhood sweating and freezing at the same time in some random Czech forest on two tiny pieces of wood. But I don’t want to traipse around in the snow with these people.
“Why?”
“They’ll tell us if they saw Tullis. He traveled through there. Give them some money if you have to. They're honest, hard-working people.”
“Don’t give me that working-class hero crap.”
JJ groans. Rett turns to whisper to Bizzy.
Perfect. I’m getting to them.
“Bit of a sticky wicket,” Deo says after consulting the driver. “Roads are closed higher up in the mountains. Heavy snow.”
