A dangerous smile curled the corners of his mocking mouth. “That’s one way of describing me.”
CHAPTER TWO
A STRANGE chill rippled across Ally’s skin. “How did you know where to find me?”
“The guards took down the license plate of your taxi. A simple phone call to the driver told me what I needed to know.”
As easy as that.
“I told the palace guards who I was. They didn’t even try to help me.”
His lips twisted unpleasantly. “Any woman could claim to be Mrs. James Parker.”
“But that’s who I am! I have my passport to prove it.”
“Passports are a dime a dozen. I believe that’s the American expression.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “Why are you being so hateful to me? I came to Italy expressly to meet with Mr. Montefalco for very personal reasons. You act like I’ve committed some crime.”
“Trespassing is a crime,” he muttered just loud enough to heighten her anxiety.
“This is impossible! I demand you call the American Embassy and let me talk to someone in charge.”
His mouth formed a contemptuous line.
“No one there will be available before morning.”
“In America you’re innocent until proven guilty!” she flung at him, starting to feel desperate.
“Then you should have stayed there, or wherever you really came from, signora,” he retorted in a voice of ice.
Trapped and painfully tired, Ally made the decision not to fight him. He was too formidable an adversary. This was all a terrible mistake, the kind you were supposed to be able to laugh about after you’d returned home from being abroad.
Once this man went through her belongings and found out the truth of her identity, she didn’t expect an apology. However she could hope for a quick release and the chance to talk to Mr. Montefalco before too much more time passed.
Wrapping her dignity around her like a cloak, she got out of the car and waited for him to open the door.
He pressed a button on the wall of the building. In a minute the door swung open electronically.
She’d never been inside a jail of any kind. In the small reception area there were two armed police officers, one of them seated at a desk.
They nodded to her captor.
After an exchange in Italian she couldn’t possibly understand, he left her in their charge and disappeared out the door.
“Wait—” she called out to no avail.
At that point she was photographed, fingerprinted and escorted down a passageway to a tiny room with a cot and a chair.
The door closed behind her, leaving her to her own devices.
The whole situation was so surreal, she wondered if she was hallucinating on the painkiller she’d taken before going to bed. It had been a preventive measure to ward off another sick headache.
Suddenly she heard the click of the electronic lock and the door opened. She swung around in time to see the driver who’d abducted her step inside. The door shut behind him, enclosing her in this tiny closet of a holding cell with a man who could overpower her before she took her next breath. He’d brought her purse with him.
“During your interrogation you have your choice of the chair or the bed, signora.”
She was feeling pretty hysterical about now.
“I’d rather stand.”
“So be it.”
He opened her purse. After examining the contents including her wallet and bottle of medication, he pulled out her passport.
She watched him study the picture that had been taken three years earlier. At that point in time she’d been a radiant fiancée with long blond hair and sparkling green eyes, anticipating a skiing honeymoon in the French Alps with Jim.
Ally could no longer relate to that person.
The stranger’s enigmatic gaze flicked to her face and hair. He scrutinized her as if trying and failing to find the woman in the photo.
He put the passport in his pocket, then tossed her purse with its contents on the cot next to the pathetic looking lump that was supposed to be a pillow.
Only now did she realize her suitcase was still in his car.
“I’d like my luggage. There are things I need,” she explained. “I have to have it, you know? Like clean clothes?”
“First things first, signora. Until I get the answers I’m looking for, we’ll be at this all night. Since you already appear unsteady on your feet—no doubt from fear that you’ve been caught in the act—I suggest you sit down before you pass out.”
“In the act of what?” Ally questioned, totally shocked by his assumption she’d done something wrong.
“We both know you’re one of the unscrupulous paparazzi, willing to do anything for an exclusive. But I’m warning you now. After trying to impersonate someone else, you’re facing a prison sentence unless you start talking.”
“I am Mrs. James Parker.”
“Just tell me the name of the tabloid that sent you on this story.”
Heat swept through her body into her face. “You’re crazy!” she blurted in exasperation. “My name is Allyson Cummings Parker. I’m an American citizen from Portland, Oregon. I only arrived in Rome from Switzerland this afternoon, or—or yesterday afternoon. I’m all mixed up now about the time. But I’m the widow of James Parker. He was a ski clothes salesman who worked for an American manufacturing company called Slippery Slopes of Portland. He died in a car accident outside St. Moritz, Switzerland, with Mr. Montefalco’s wife four months ago!”
“Of course you are,” he said in a sarcastic aside that made her hackles rise.
Her breathing grew shallow.
“Since you tracked me down through the taxi driver, he’ll tell you he picked me up at the train station, and had to do all the translating while I tried to find a room because I don’t speak Italian.”
Her captor nodded. “He admitted you put on a convincing performance. That is…until you gave yourself away by asking him to drive you to the palazzo. That was your fatal mistake.”
Her hands curled into fists. “How else was I supposed to talk to Mr. Montefalco? He doesn’t list his phone number. When I reached Rome, I was on the phone with an Italian operator for half an hour trying to get a number for him.”
“He doesn’t talk to strangers. If you were an innocent tourist who didn’t have a place to spend the night, you would have been much more concerned about that than brazenly attempting to ramrod your way into the ducal palace that has always been off limits to the public.”
“But I didn’t know that!”
“You’re a good liar, I’ll grant you that, but it was a dangerous act of idiocy on your part no matter how greedy you are for money. It’s the one credential you sleazy members of the media carry every time you trespass on sacred ground for a story. You have no decency or thought for the precariousness of the situation. None of your kind has a conscience.”
He folded his arms, eyeing her with chilling menace.
“As you’re going to find out, I don’t have one, either. So you can start talking now, or look forward to being incarcerated here indefinitely.”
Her