Venom (31 page)

Cass scanned both sides of the canal looking for Falco. Tall palazzos loomed like fortresses; sculptures of angels and lions hovered protectively over their entrances. Part of her just wanted to leave him. He was used to running about in the middle of the night. He’d be able to find his way home without her. Cass wasn’t even sure where he lived. She had assumed he stayed somewhere out on San Domenico, but maybe he just went there to meet his friends at Il Mar e la Spada. There were so many tavernas on the Rialto. She wondered why the group of artists preferred such an isolated little place.

In front of her, Cass thought she saw a flash of light. She headed
toward it, crossing over a narrow bridge. Another flicker, almost imperceptible. It came from a partially obscured path running between two palazzos. Cass began to walk faster.

“Falco?” she called softly, her voice echoing off the stone. She’d spend a few minutes looking for him, she decided. For one, rowing the old batèla by herself would be difficult. And maybe she could persuade him to tell her why he was so adamant about avoiding the town guard. Falco had seen much more of the soldiers, of Venice, than she had. Maybe he had a reasonable explanation.

The path twisted past a block of shops and storefronts and bled into a small campo. Weeds pushed their way through the cracked tiles beneath her feet. A life-sized statue lay on its side in the middle of the square. Even with one missing arm, Cass recognized San Giuda from his staff and the tongue of fire sculpted behind his head. A lantern sat next to the fallen statue. No doubt this was the flickering light Cass had seen reflecting off the palazzos.

Across the clearing, a crumbling stone chapel was nestled between a decrepit apothecary and a long brick building that looked to be a monastery. Wind or water damage had whittled the cross on the chapel’s roof almost down to a T.

Cass heard voices coming from the side of the chapel. She gripped her lantern tightly again, prepared to use it as a weapon if needed. Pressing her back against the front wall of the building, Cass peeked around the side. The first thing she saw was a wrought-iron fence cordoning off what looked to be a small graveyard at the back of the church.

The second thing she saw was Falco.

The third thing she saw made her blood congeal in her veins. It was Angelo de Gradi, Dubois’s doctor, the man from the workshop
of horrors. He and Falco appeared to be arguing. Falco was gesturing wildly; Cass caught only snatches of their words.

“What is that place…we had a deal…” That was Falco. Cass’s heart dropped. So she hadn’t just imagined that Falco and Angelo knew each other.

“Go home…won’t want to be here when they…tomorrow night…” The physician sounded angry.

“Fine…then I’m finished.”

Falco.
Finished with what?

Angelo’s response was swallowed up by a gust of wind.

Footsteps thudded on stone, and Cass raced to the far side of the church. She hid her body and her lantern among the dense shrubbery growing between the chapel and adjoining monastery and watched as both Falco and Angelo disappeared into the dark passageway.

Cass tried to piece things together in her head. Angelo had told Falco not to be there when something happened. When they what? Found the body? Had Angelo killed the girl in the water? Had Falco? If so, why hadn’t either of them had the good sense to hide her like they had hidden Mariabella? And what was going to happen tomorrow night? Was that when the body would be officially discovered? None of it made sense. The only thing for certain was that Cass could no longer deny Falco’s connection to Angelo and his macabre collection of human remains.

The dying lantern still flickered at San Giuda’s feet. Cass made her way back across the campo and down the path. She peered out from between the two palazzos. Angelo was nowhere to be seen. Falco stood by the blue batèla, looking lost. Cass started back across the small bridge. Falco glanced up and saw her before she got
halfway. As he approached her, she was reminded of how they had stood in the middle of the Rialto Bridge just a few days ago, and how close she had felt to him then. That was when Falco had given her the speech about letting go. A fine bit of advice that had turned out to be.

The wind whipped Falco’s dark hair back from his face. His eyes were wild. “How could you just run off like that? I was frantic. I looked for you everywhere.”

“Did you?” The words came out harsher than intended. “Because when I saw you, you didn’t appear to be searching for me at all. You were arguing. With Angelo de Gradi.”

Falco recoiled as if he’d been slapped. The blood drained from his face.

“Angelo,” Cass continued. “The man you swore on several occasions that you didn’t know.” Her voice started to break. She was dangerously near to tears.
Please let him have an excuse,
she thought.
Please let him make everything all right.

“I can explain,” Falco said, his jaw hardening. “I’m sorry. I did lie. I do know Dottor de Gradi.” Falco took a deep breath. “Angelo. In fact…I work for him.”

“Doing what?” she asked, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.

“I can’t tell you.”

Cass felt a surge of anger. She wanted to grab Falco and shake him. She was giving him a chance to set things right. “That’s your idea of an explanation?”

“I promise you, he has nothing to do with Mariabella, or with that…” His eyes flicked momentarily to the canal water.

“And I’m supposed to take your word for it?” Cass said icily. “So
what was the good doctor doing at a chapel so late? Seeking counsel? A late-night confessional perhaps?”

“Apparently, he lost two patients today,” Falco said. “A pair of siblings to the plague. He was tending to the family, who happen to live in this area. I imagine the poor mother needed something to help her sleep.”

“How benevolent,” Cass said, her voice rife with skepticism. “But it doesn’t explain how you ended up arguing with him.”

Falco raked a hand through his hair. “Why can’t you just trust me? There’s more…There are things I can’t explain to you. Things that have nothing to do with either of us. Things that it might actually be dangerous for you to know. Maybe I’m trying to protect you.”

Cass squeezed her hands into fists. Of course. Falco just wanted to give her a slick smile and a few soft words so that she’d nod obediently and stop questioning him. Like a pet. “Things you can’t explain? Like the dead bodies popping up around Venice? And always when you’re nearby?”

Falco paled again. “You know I would never hurt anyone.”

“I don’t know that,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I don’t know anything about you. And what I
do
know, who can say if it’s real or a lie?” The volatile emotions, the secrets, the way he had pressed her up against the wall of Tommaso’s studio. Cass was no longer sure what he was capable of.

She couldn’t stand to look at him for another second. She turned away and hurried back across the little bridge, toward the mysterious stone chapel, away from the spot where their borrowed batèla was moored.

“Where are you going?” Falco yelled after her.

“I can’t tell you,” she said, enjoying the feel of throwing his own
words back at him. The truth was, she couldn’t tell him because she honestly had no idea. “Don’t follow me. I don’t want you near me.”

She ran back through the dark passageway, ducking between a small bakery and a blacksmith shop. She heard Falco calling her name. She pressed herself tight against the stone wall. She couldn’t face him. He had been lying to her from the beginning. He was working for Angelo. Angelo, the man who dissected dogs for fun and collected human body parts in neatly arranged tin basins. Cass put a hand to her lips; this time when she thought of Falco’s kiss, it made her sick. Had Falco also kissed Mariabella and the girl in the water?

Had he planned to kill her too?

Falco ran past the small space where she was hiding. Fortunately, he didn’t see her. “Cassandra,” he called. She heard him repeating her name as he moved farther down the dark passageway. As his footsteps faded, emotions flooded through Cass, almost overwhelming her. She leaned back against the rough stucco wall, letting her body slide down it until she rested on the ground. Grief and guilt and fear coursed through her, bringing with them a wave of sadness.

The smiles, the kisses, the soft words. Lies, all of it. But what about how she had felt for him—how she
still
felt? She had meant the things she said and did. She
still
meant them. Cass had never felt so lost. For the first time since she had bumped into him outside Liviana’s funeral, Cass admitted to herself that she might have fallen in love with a murderer.

T
he rain came early the next morning as Cass and Siena met Madalena and Eva outside the east entrance of the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, one of the city’s largest places of worship. The campo outside the Frari was teeming with nobles and high-ranking citizens dressed in their finest silks, but Mada was easy to find. Her farthingale, encased in yards of emerald silk, was so wide, it could have sheltered several children from the droplets of rain that were just beginning to fall. She was pressed up against the church’s red brick exterior, trying to shelter herself from the weather under a tiny stone overhang. Eva opened a leather umbrella and held it in front of Mada.

In the absence of the sun, the church’s stained-glass windows looked like three dark circles above her head. Cass leaned against the bricks for support as she exchanged a greeting with her friend. She didn’t know how she’d be able to stay awake, let alone focus.

After she had run from Falco and lost herself in the twisted streets, it had taken almost an hour until she had found a sleeping fisherman along the Grand Canal whom she could bribe to take her
back to San Domenico. By the time she had sneaked back into her room, it was only a couple of hours until sunrise and Cass hadn’t been able to sleep. She had pulled out her journal, intending to list all the evidence she could think of that Falco wasn’t involved in the killings, but her pages had remained blank.

Today her lush church gown weighed her down, and she felt as if she could barely stay on her feet. Her feet, her knees, all of her joints pulsed with pain. Was this what her aunt went through every day? Later she would ask Cook if he could fix her a tonic, something to soothe her.

A bell rang twice and the wooden doors of the Frari swung open.

“Come on.” Madalena removed the hood of her cloak and adjusted her green veil so that it covered all of her hair. She folded herself into the line of people heading toward the yawning black hole that led into the church.
Like a mouth,
Cass thought,
swallowing the people whole.

“I’m so glad your aunt let you attend Mass with me today,” Mada whispered. She wrapped her gloved hand around Cass’s arm and pulled her along. Madalena led her to a pew several rows from the back. They settled in behind a pair of noblewomen whose elaborate coiffed hairdos were fashioned so high off their heads that Cass could see only part of the altar. Behind them, the lady’s maids found a spot with the rest of the servants.