Rogue Angel 49: The Devil's Chord (16 page)

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Annja’s jaw dropped. It was a fantastical explanation. To have arrived at such a conclusion must have cost Evan a heap of brain cells.

On the other hand, he’d provided a great cover for the truth. Far be it from her to rain on the man’s crazy parade.

“Aren’t you the clever boy?”

Evan dropped the excited pose. “Do not condescend to me, Creed. You think I’m deranged.”

“I think you’re a man who will believe what you need to believe. It’s gotten you this far.”

“Indeed, it has.”

“But tell me one thing.”

“I’ve already told you more than a sane man should.”

“Yes, well, your sanity is under consideration,” she noted. “Where do you intend to
travel
once you get that device? And do you think you’ll come back? I mean, if Roux traveled from the fifteenth century to here, why didn’t he go back?”

“Creed, would you go back to the fifteenth century if you landed in the technologically advanced twenty-first century? I mean, the modern sanitation system alone should answer that question.”

He had a point. While studying the Middle Ages was fascinating, being a modern woman living in the Renaissance would present many challenges. Computers she could manage without. But no camera to record all that she saw? And to imagine never again eating at her favorite restaurants again? And if she went there, she had to consider the friendships she would miss. Doug and Bart, and yes, even Roux, and occasionally Braden. Some things were too valuable to live without.

“I’m good with where I’m at,” she replied. “I’m going to guess that you are, too. Who are you selling the device to?”

Evan’s shock gave him away. Annja knew if he had a buyer, he wouldn’t spill. And likely he did not have a buyer arranged just yet. He needed to have the music box before he could attract a buyer willing to lay down the millions, she estimated, he would ask for the prize. Though if he were so hard up on his financial luck, it did surprise her he wasn’t using every angle he could manage to bring in bids for the time-shifting device.

“Don’t think about it too much, Creed,” he said. “It’ll give you a headache.”

Indeed.

“All parties involved know the cross is in play, Evan.”

“As I’ve said, it’s safely in my hands.”

“Yes, and that it is required to activate the device. Yes?”

Again, he pointed to the notebook.

Annja sat on the bed, taking advantage of Evan’s willingness to cooperate for the moment. She half expected he’d try to knock her out and make an escape. That was why she sat facing him as she pulled the notebook onto her lap.

“See how I’m still wearing protective gloves?” She waved at Evan. She couldn’t stop herself from making the point.

Paging toward the back of the notebook, as he’d indicated, Annja found the part that detailed the music box. It wasn’t labeled as a time-shifting device. There wasn’t a label at all. But she guessed this was it. It had a particular steampunk-ish look to it. A rectangular box with a compass and a crossbar fitted to the top, and gears at either end, which rotated—with a turn of the cross key? Another crossbar fronted the long, narrow side of the box with dials placed along it, like a combination lock. The box had been fashioned from wood and some kind of metal and had ornate decoration all over it.

She did not see a revolving cylinder whose pins would pluck out a tune rumored to have once called to the devil, but suspected that was inside the box. There were no interior drawings, it seemed. She closed the notebook, looking again at the cover. Less fine forgeries had fooled many a scholar over the years.

“It’s the real thing,” Evan offered. “I sure didn’t make up all that stuff inside.”

“Someone else could have.”

“Really? To have been aware of a device you’ve confirmed to me that only a few people should know about? Exactly one person, by my count. And that would be the man who came from that time period and who possesses such knowledge because he knew Leonardo da Vinci.”

Annja tilted her head, silently conceding to his wild, yet remarkably accurate, guess. Not as far as Roux time shifting, but for having known Leonardo. Well.

But that he hadn’t included Garin as a time traveler meant he knew little about his recently discarded employer. In fact, it was likely Evan hadn’t even met him in person, but rather had been manipulated through calls from Garin and visits from his thugs.

“So where do you expect to find the device?” Annja asked. “The graveyard was a bust. Does the notebook indicate where it was kept?”

Evan shrugged.

She referred back to the page with the sketch, but the words around the sketch were in a strange sort of writing. She stood and held the notebook up to the mirror, but her interpretation of the Italian was slowgoing because the script was tiny and fading.

A name did stand out, though.

“Jeanne d’Arc?”

“Really?” Evan joined her and stared into the mirror, squinting. “Where does it say that?”

“At the right side of the box, see? Near that impression on the side. It’s very small. I wonder if that’s where the key fits. There’s only the one view of the box, as if looking on it from above. No side schematics?”

“That’s the only page with the sketch.”

She leafed through the notebook. The pages were delicate, yet at the same time, she didn’t expect them to crumble or fall apart. There were sketches of people milling in a market square. A closeup of a cross section of a pear, showing the seeds and growing seasons. Another drawing showed the pear cut through the center belly, giving a top-down perspective of the fruit.

“Leonardo da Vinci was so meticulous,” she marveled aloud.

The Lorraine cross had been drawn at the front of the notebook. Very small, about as long as her baby finger, though again, the detail was intricate. The three-dimensional drawing was drawn from the back of the cross, which wasn’t flat and plain as Annja would expect from a wall hanging or a personal item one kept on the end of a rosary or tucked in their pocket. It was notched, almost like a key, but an elaborate key at that. And a few pieces looked movable, and she guessed from the directional arrows drawn beside the cross that they did indeed move. It might snap out from the main part of the cross, like an electronic key some cars boasted, or perhaps the notches were inset for a reason. The cross fitted onto a specific position on the music box.

“Interesting. This notebook needs to be studied by historians and placed in a museum for the whole world to share.”

“Yeah, that’s not my choice. Highest bidder gets to do as he desires with it.”

“I could keep it. Not give it back to you.”

The almost imperceptible
snick
of a gun safety being slid off alerted Annja. She looked up from the notebook. Evan held the semiautomatic pistol casually and then aimed it directly at her.

“Go ahead and finish browsing through the book,” he said. “Since you’re without a cameraman to record details, I won’t deny you the thrill. It’ll be your first and last chance, though, so look carefully. But understand, I have to protect my investment.”

“Of course.”

And instead of arguing or even lunging across the hotel room to fight for the gun, Annja switched her attention to the notebook. The historian in her was too greedy to give up this opportunity. As well, that part of her that preferred to stand up for what was right needed a few minutes to think through a plan.

The only idea that spoke to her was to stay close to the notebook. Sooner or later it would lead to the music box.

She returned to the page that had the sketch of Roux. Was he aware that Leonardo had drawn his face and labeled it
thief?
The painter may have shown him the sketch over a goblet of wine, yet to judge the ink used to write the word
thief,
as opposed to the red pencil used for the sketch and Roux’s name, she suspected Leonardo had added the accusatory label at a later point.

What had Roux stolen from Leonardo da Vinci? And had it anything to do with the music box or the Lorraine cross? Again, she turned back to the first page that detailed the cross.

“You have the key all figured out?” she asked Evan.

“As best I can figure, it fits onto the music box. There are no diagrams of the key mechanism, as you’ve seen. But the text that reads
Jeanne d’Arc
is now my best guess.”

“But her name doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another detail...” That could mean something if Annja put some thought into it.

She scanned another page that looked like a list of trees and another filled with sketches of various body parts, such as knees, elbows and wrists. The music-box page kept drawing her back to it. Annja tried to fix it and the page with the study of the cross to memory in case she did not see the notebook again.

Back to the diagram of the music box. Could Joan’s name be the real key to unlocking that riddle?

Wishing she had the actual object here so she could turn it over and study it from all angles, Annja traced the lines of the sketch carefully, yet her latex-gloved fingertip didn’t quite touch the paper.

Evan leaned across the table and tapped the notebook with the barrel of the pistol. Annja had forgotten he was holding that. “You’re done. Close it up and slide it across the table like a good girl who doesn’t want a hole in her head.”

“You won’t shoot me, Evan. A bullet through my skull would splatter the wall behind me and drip over the chair and probably into the carpet. Too much cleanup.”

“Yeah, but you must know I didn’t use my real name to sign in.”

“Right. But the noise of the gunshot would surely attract attention.”

He smirked, shaking his head. “Why couldn’t it have been you in the gondola with me, Creed?”

“You mean you wish I had been your partner in crime? I don’t steal.”

She closed the notebook but didn’t slide it toward him. From the duffel bag, Evan produced a couple of white zip ties. He tossed them to her.

“Put two together and use them for your wrists. I’ll tighten it. I can’t risk you running back to Roux, can I? You know too much.”

Annja wasn’t at all worried that she was putting herself in a dangerous situation. Evan she could deal with. But if he was headed out of the hotel, she wanted to make sure that happened. He would lead her to what she wanted to know and possibly even Garin. So she threaded a plastic strip through the small slot of the other, then formed a loop and put it around her wrists.

“I can break out of these at any time,” she warned as Evan tugged the ties tightly without setting down the gun.

“I know. But you’ll play nice so you can learn the location of the music box, right?”

He was not a stupid thief.

With no reply necessary, Annja settled back in the chair and watched as Evan got out a laptop and spent the next half hour clacking away at the keys. Emailing contacts? Prospective bidders? Both notions were likely, given the fast responses he seemed to be getting only moments after he appeared to hit the send button.

Was one of those responses from Garin, wanting to retrieve what he probably felt should have been his to start with?.

Or could it be that Garin was unaware Evan had turned against him? The thugs had not been concerned with Evan at the bistro, which led her to believe Garin might be unaware of the dupe.

That man would not be happy when he finally met the frustratingly indomitable Evan Merrick.

Chapter 23

Venice, 1502

“Thief!”

Roux stopped abruptly and cast his gaze about. There were but a few people lingering in the doorway to a linen shop, and down the way a cart wobbled, overstacked with hay. Boats floated by quietly on the canal.

From behind the cart, Leonardo da Vinci rushed forward to accuse him again. “You have stolen something from me!”

Roux scoffed at the man. He was embarrassed to have been caught out like this. “I’ve nothing that belongs to you.”

“The sword piece. You were the only one I told.”

“You’ve lost it? Pity.”

“You dare to regard me as the fool?” Leonardo stepped up before him, preventing his exit. “But you didn’t take the real prize. That makes you the fool!”

Da Vinci stormed off, cursing the heavens. Roux rubbed his bearded chin. He recalled but a few notebooks and the Lorraine cross in the safe kept in the graveyard. Also, there was that curious little box.

Was it the box or the cross the painter considered his most prized possession? Well, he could have them both. A simple cross could not change Roux’s life.

But the section of Joan of Arc’s sword? That was his future.

* * *

E
VAN
PARKED
HIS
rental car in the city center. Annja got out of the car herself. Her hands were tied in front of her. And really? She was tired of faking it. Besides, she’d gotten where Evan was going, so she was happy with the situation.

Fisting her hands, she then brought her elbows forcefully down and toward her hips. The zip ties broke apart, freeing her hands with ease. The plastic strips dropped to the ground and she fell into step behind Evan, who had bolt cutters in hand.

Given where they were parked, Annja couldn’t see much over the tall buildings surrounding the warehouse they seemed to be heading for. Though they had seen the Sforza palace upon approach. It was about half a mile to the north, she estimated. Walking distance for her. Had Evan pegged a possible location that Leonardo da Vinci had once lived?

The majority of the buildings in this neighborhood were utilitarian, no historic monuments around here. Shops offered goods and services that were less touristy and more about the essentials, such as a market, a pharmacy and a type of hardware store, and she could smell the fertilizer wafting from a nearby greenhouse.

It wasn’t as if they had the neighborhood to themselves. People were out and seemed occupied with their daily routine. Annja glanced around curiously. Could this be the spot where da Vinci’s studio once stood?

Evan flashed her a look from over his shoulder, then frowned. “Really?”

She held up her unbound hands. “You didn’t think I’d wear them like a bracelet you’d gifted to a lover?”

“Kind of thought you would.” He flicked her that killer wink. No wonder his partner in crime had ditched him. “We have potential, Creed. Think about it.”

“Don’t waste my time. What led you to think this is the site of Leonardo da Vinci’s former studio?”

“The symbol drawn at the back of the notebook. It surrounded a diagram of the Sforza castle in the background.”

He pointed over his shoulder. The towers of what had once been one of the biggest citadels in Europe were visible. The back of the castle arched out like a horseshoe, and they stood out from the arch. On the opposite side of the castle was the massive Parco Sempione. And somewhere, Annja knew, stood the Arch of Peace, built during Napoleonic rule. The emperor apparently had a thing for stone arches, she thought with a smirk.

“It is a guess,” Evan offered. “But I think it’s a good one.”

She eyed the bolt cutters. “Let me guess. You were not the safe cracker in your former duo?”

“The woman had magic fingers.”

“Don’t need the details.”

“As I said before, I was the plotter and the logistics man. She did the delicate finessing and entry.”

“Too much information. So, we’re breaking into this building? I have a problem with that. What is this place?”

“An old glasswork factory. And we’re only cutting a loop in some chain link. Not officially breaking in. We’ll replace the chain on our way out. And if you think I’m wrong about this place, then take a look behind you.”

Annja swung around. She recognized the dark hair and rugged face of Garin Braden in the driver’s seat of a black SUV. And stepping out of the passenger side and around the hood of the car?

“Roux?”