But Tiff didn’t move when Jordan shook her. Her arm was stone cold.
Jordan stared at her face. Her eyes were closed. Her color was ashen.
More than ashen. She looked as if her flesh had been bleached to white.
“Tiff... ?”
She shook the woman again. Tiff wasn’t just cold; she was icy. Jordan swallowed, losing her breath.
“Tiff?” she whispered again, this time her voice a plea.
But she knew the truth.
Tiff was dead.
She lifted her newfound friend by the shoulders. Then she gasped in horror, dropping the body and stepping back.
Tiff’s head had remained on the altar. It had been severed from her body. Only the white shroud had hidden the decapitation.
She found her breath and let out a bloodcurdling scream. For an instant, she was transfixed in horror; a second later, the human drive for self-preservation shot into her like lightning.
She turned to flee, even starting to run for the open doorway before she saw that it was blocked.
A man stood there.
In black pants and a black leather jacket.
Head shining golden in the candlelight.
Ragnor Wulfsson.
“Oh, you bastard!” she shrieked, stopping, looking madly about for a weapon, something to throw. A dusty hymnal lay on the ground; she plucked it up, throwing it
“Jordan, no!” he called to her, but she was in a frenzy, beyond listening, far beyond hearing him or comprehending.
She raced back for a candle, reaching for it with such abandon that she scattered half the candles, and disrupted the body.
She was dimly aware of the awful sound as the head hit the floor.
She threw a candle, then another.
“Jordan!” he shouted again, striding down the aisle. “Jordan, damn you, watch out, come to me, run to me!”
But she was backing away.
She had to get around him.
“Jordan!” he shouted her name again.
And then, that was all she remembered. She felt the incredible sting of a sharp thud against the back of her head.
The shadows definitely moved.
They shot across her eyes.
They formed a solid wall of blackness.
And she careened into the dust-laden marble of the deconsecrated church.
CHAPTER 16
“Jordan, Jordan ...”
At first, she was only dimly aware of her name being spoken. Then she felt the pounding in her head.
The sound of her name penetrated through the layers of darkness and she opened her eyes.
Night.
She heard a trickle of water. She shifted her head slightly; skyrockets exploded. They cleared; she looked around and focused on the face peering down into her own.
Raphael.
“There you are. I don’t own a cell phone. Stay still; I’ll get help.” She stretched out a hand, grasping his arm. She was quickly gaining consciousness and memory. “No, don’t leave me. Look in the church.”
He stared at her, thinking that she was still under the spell of the conk on her head.
“Jordan, this was not a good place to meet. I don’t know what you wanted, but?”
“The church, look in the church,” she said desperately. She realized exactly where she was?just feet away from the steps to the church. She lay, half off, half on the silly little fountain. She touched her face; her cheeks were damp. Raphael must have used the water from the fountain to revive her.
He stood. “You need to go to the hospital?”
“No!” she said firmly. Was she crazy? She probably did need to go to the hospital. Her skull could be fractured, for all she knew. What had happened? She’d gotten there, gone into the church, seen the body...
And then Ragnor.
And then ...
“Wait!” she cried suddenly. She didn’t know how she had gotten outside the church, but Raphael shouldn’t go in. There was something very wrong inside.
“What?”
“Tiff, Tiff. . . is dead. On the altar. Someone cut her head off.” He stared at her, then turned toward the church. “No, don’t go in! You could be in danger, Raphael?” But he ignored her. He was already heading toward the church. The door still stood open.
The boot scraper was back, next to the fountain, right where it had been. In fact, the way she lay, it might appear that she had tripped over it, fallen, and cracked her head.
Raphael was already going up the steps. She struggled to her feet, dizzy only for a moment. Her head was clearing. She tested her skull. It seemed fine. Her fingers were still upon her scalp as she hurried forward after Raphael.
He stood just within the church. He hadn’t gone in far?there was so little light.
No candles burned now.
Down the stretch of the aisle, they could just make out the altar. It appeared to be empty.
Every instinct in Jordan screamed that she shouldn’t enter the church again, but she couldn’t believe her eyes; astonishment made her travel down the aisle quickly, determined to see the altar, and around it.
“Hey, Jordan, allora!” Raphael cried. “Stop! This building has been closed down until repairs can be made. It might be dangerous in here!”
She ignored him, proceeding to the altar.
There was no sign of Tiff. Not a speck of blood.
“She was here!” Jordan said.
“Who?” Raphael demanded.
“Tiff! I’m telling you, she was here, and her head had been cut off.” Raphael walked down the aisle. He pulled out his keys, flashing the mini-light attached to them around the area.
“Jordan,” he said very softly. “There is nothing here.”
“There was!” she insisted.
“Jordan, Anna Maria was right. I should not have put things into your head?”
“Dammit!” Jordan raged. “I’m telling you, I came here, and I saw her body on the altar. I thought Tiff was playing a joke on me?she had left me a message to meet her here. And there she was, on the altar.
So I walked up to it, yelling at her, telling her to quit fooling around. Then I?I touched her, I tried to shake her by the shoulders. Her body came up; her head?her head stayed down. It wasn’t attached.
Then I saw Ragnor at the door, and then ... someone hit me!” Raphael was looking at her, trying not to appear skeptical.
“Do you think that you were so afraid for Tiff that you rushed here, tripped, hit your head ... and imagined the rest?”
“No! I didn’t take any trips to Oz!”
Raphael stared at her blankly.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t imagine anything.”
Raphael flashed his mini-light around the corners of the church. There was nothing to be seen anywhere.
Not even a rat scurried across the floor.
“You saw Ragnor.”
“Yes.”
“In front of you?”
“At the door.”
“And he walked up to you and hit you on the head?”
“I?no!” she murmured, confused herself for a moment She had seen Ragnor, yes. He had been shouting at her, hadn’t he? Telling her to come to him. And she had thrown something at him ... a hymnal.
“I don’t know.”
The church was very dark, and more deeply shadowed than ever with Raphael’s little mini-light flashing around. He shivered.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait, one second!” she whispered. She walked back to the altar, running her fingers over it. “Raphael, she was here! There’s not a speck of dust on this altar. Look at this place?if something hadn’t been there, there would be dust!”
“We’ll get the police,” Raphael said.
Maybe Roberto Capo would be back in the station at last Whether they mocked her or not, she had to tell them what she had seen.
“All right. But we’re not leaving this area. Things? change around here, far too quickly.” He nodded, “We’ll call from the public phone down the calle. But Jordan, please, let’s get out of here.” They started down the aisle?two rational human beings, walking at a steady gait She sped up a little to catch up with him. He hurried more; she sped up again. They were running by the time they reached the door and burst out upon the steps.
Jordan nearly tripped. She would have done so, and sprawled right down on to the fountain if Raphael hadn’t been there to catch her.
He kept her arm as they came down the steps and studied her gravely.
“I didn’t come running out and trip and wind up knocked out by the fountain,” she told him firmly.
“Let me see your head,” he told her, touching her temple.
“Not there! On the back of my head. How could I have stumbled forward and hit myself on the back of my head?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “We’ll call the police.”
“Make sure you get the right station, and ask for Roberto Capo.” They walked to the edge of the campo where there was an enclosed public phone. Raphael called the operator, then frowned.
“Which is the station you want?”
“Near the Danieli! I’m a tourist, I don’t know the address. You should know!”
“I’m a law-abiding citizen. I never call the police.”
“Roberto is your friend! You should know.”
He swore softly in Italian. “Si, si, I have the number.” He rattled off something to the operator; she put him through. He spoke for a minute, then covered the mouthpiece. “Capo won’t be in today; he has a fever.”
She could hear someone speaking into the phone. Raphael winced. “Alfredo Manetti is on the line.” Jordan threw up her hands. Convincing him of anything was impossible. She’d have to deliver her own head on a silver platter for him to believe that something was really wrong.
Raphael started speaking. He talked a long time.
He gave Jordan a number of sideways glances, and talked some more.
He hung up. “They are coming,” he told her. “Come on, we’ll get you a drink?”
“I don’t want a drink; no alcohol.”
“You may have a concussion, yet? Big bump, bruise on the bone. No alcohol; you’re right. But a cafe or te?we’ll probably have a few minutes to wait. I told him that no, it wasn’t exactly an emergency. No one is in danger at the moment.”