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He'd never imagined after their first awkward date that they'd be anything even close to friends or more than friends.His mind flashed back to the feeling of her mouth against his, and he really wished he hadn't promised he wouldn't kiss her again unless she asked him to.That was probably never going to happen.
Needing to get his mind off kissing her, he pulled out his phone and checked his email, realizing he'd missed a note from Flynn that had been sent several hours ago.He read the email with increasing interest.
"What are you reading?"Isabella asked, flashing him a quick look.
"An email from Flynn.I had asked Flynn to look into Juliette Sabatini before Sam gave us more information."He scanned the email."He came up with some of the same details.Juliette was the younger sister of Roberto and Bruno Falconeri.She was married to Rocco Sabatini when she was twenty years old, and they owned property in Rome and in Florence.Rocco was ten years older than Juliette and was an accountant.One of his clients was an importer that Flynn traced back to Henry Falconeri, the father of Roberto and Bruno.Sam had suggested that Juliette's husband was working with her brothers."
"Does he say anything else?"
"Juliette had a baby girl named Katerina.Katerina was enrolled in a Catholic school in Rome until she was eight.She left that school in 1971, the same year that Juliette and her daughter disappeared."
"That was the year after Tomas and Lucinda died."
"Yes."He kept reading."Flynn couldn't find any information on Juliette after 1971.So he decided to look into friends of the Sabatini's.He located an American woman named Marie Bennett, who was in Juliette's wedding.Flynn figured someone had to help Juliette disappear or know what happened to her.Marie lives in San Francisco now.She's in her nineties, but her memory is sharp, and she told him she helped Juliette escape from her marriage.Juliette and Katerina became Stephanie and Catherine Mayer, and they moved to Paris after leaving Italy."
"Wow, that's impressive, Nick."
"My team is good," he said, continuing to read."Marie didn't know what happened to Juliette or her daughter after they went to Paris.Juliette thought it was too dangerous for them to have any contact.That someone could trace her through Marie.And Marie told Flynn that Rocco had pressured her several times about whether she knew where Juliette was, but she protected her friend and never said a word."He paused."Once Flynn got the name Stephanie Mayer and the location of Paris, he looked through public records and discovered that Juliette, AKA Stephanie, had a second child shortly after she arrived in Paris."
"Second child?"she echoed in surprise.
"It was an unnamed boy with the father unknown."His heart pounded."If this is correct, Juliette had two children."He looked at Isabella, who met his gaze with excitement in her eyes.
"This is great, Nick.If she had two children, then there might be someone else we can talk to about all this.We just don't know who the unnamed boy is," she added."We get so close but not all the way there."
"One step at a time."
"I'm tired of steps.I want to leap," she said in frustration.
"Me, too.But we are where we are."
"Well, at least we have more information than we did.That's something.And maybe Flynn will be able to figure out who the second child is."
"He's going to keep working on that."As he finished speaking, he saw Isabella changing lanes and heading toward an exit."Where are you going?"
"GPS says to get off, accident ahead."She pointed to her phone, which was lying on the console between them."Looks like we're going to see more of this region than just the highway."
He picked up her phone, seeing the estimated delay was well over thirty minutes.There were quite a few other cars getting off with them, so that quieted the sudden doubt he'd gotten when she'd left the highway.
"This isn't too bad," she said a few moments later as he put her phone back on the console."It's actually even prettier, not that we're here to sightsee, but it's still nice to see more of the countryside."
"Have you been in this area before?"
"Not by car.My grandmother took me to Florence on the train to see Michelangelo's David and the Uffizi Gallery.It was a fun trip.I liked the train, and what I saw of Florence, which wasn't much, just the touristy areas.What about you?"
"I spent a long weekend here when I was on a college break.I went to Florence with my cousins.We mostly drank and tried to pick up cute Italian girls."
"I'm sure you were successful."
"It was a good weekend.But I was nineteen or twenty, so every weekend was good."He looked at his phone again, thinking he might do his own research, but he had very few bars on his phone and no sites were coming up."Not much reception out here."
"Cell phone towers would mar this beautiful landscape," she said as she drove further into Tuscany.She rolled down her window, letting some warm, fresh air blow through the car."Why don't you see if there's anything on the radio?"
He did as she suggested.There weren't a lot of choices, so he paused on the first music station he could find, only to realize it was classical."Not this."
Isabella shot him a quick look."Why not?It was pretty, and there doesn't seem to be much else."
"Reminds me of my parents.I can't tell you how many times I had to listen to my mother practice or watch an orchestra perform."He scanned the radio for more options and finally settled on a station playing music from the nineties.Then he rolled down his window as well, letting the music, the warm breeze, the beautiful woman now singing along with the radio ease his tension.
