A Forever Family Collection

“But after I heard it was some American wanting information about the Donatello family, I figured it was a foreign reporter snooping around. At that point I decided not to bother you any more about it.”

Leon frowned in puzzlement. Someone wanting to do legitimate business would have made an appointment with him or his father and left their full name.

Was it one of the paparazzi posing as an American tourist in order to dig up news about the family? Leon’s relatives had to be on constant alert against the media wanting to rake up old scandal to sell papers.

Leon had seen it all and viewed life with a cynical eye. It was what came from being a Malatesta, hated in earlier centuries and still often an object of envy.

“When I couldn’t get you or your father, I tried your brother, but he’s out of town. I told Marcello this person would have to leave a name and phone number. With your daughter sick, I didn’t consider this an emergency, but I still wanted you to be informed.”

“I appreciate that. You handled it perfectly. Do you have the information she left?”

Berto handed the notepaper to him. “That’s the phone number and address of the Pensione Rosa off the Via Vincenza Monti. The woman’s name is Belle. Marcello said she’s in her early twenties, and with her long dark hair and blue eyes, more than lives up to her name. When she approached him, he thought she was a film star.”

Naturally. Didn’t the devil usually appear in the guise of a beautiful woman? Of course she didn’t leave a last name….

“Good work, Berto. Tell no one else about this. See you tomorrow.”

More curious than ever, Leon left the bank. A few minutes later he discovered the small lodging down an alley, half hidden by the other buildings. He parked and entered. No one was around, so he pressed the buzzer at the front desk. In a moment a woman older than Simona came out of an alcove.

“I’m Rosa. If you need a room, we’re full, signore.”

Leon handed her the paper. “You have a woman named Belle registered here?”

“Sì.” With that staccato answer he realized he wouldn’t be learning her guest’s last name the easy way.

“Could you ring her room, per favore?”

“No phone in the rooms.”

He might have known, considering the low price for accommodations listed on the back wall. “Do you know if she’s in?”

“She went out several hours ago and hasn’t returned.”

He spied a chair against the wall, next to an end table with a lamp on it. “I’ll wait.”

The woman scrutinized him. “Leave me your name and number and she can call you from the desk here after she returns.”

“I’ll take my chances and see if she comes in.”

With a shrug of her ample shoulders, the woman disappeared through the alcove.

Rather than sit here for what might be hours, he phoned one of his security people to do surveillance. When Ruggio arrived, Leon gave him the American woman’s description and said he wanted to be notified as soon as she showed up.

With that taken care of, he walked out to the alley and got in his car. He was halfway to the villa when his cell phone rang. It was Ruggio. Leon clicked on. “What’s happening?”

“The woman fitting the description you gave me just entered. She’s driving a rental car from the airport.”

“Which agency?”

When Ruggio gave him the particulars, Leon told him to stay put until he got there. On the way back to the pension, he called the rental agency and asked to speak to the manager on a matter of vital importance. Once the man heard it was Signor di Malatesta investigating a possible police matter to do with the bank, he told him her last name was Peterson, and that she was from Newburgh, New York. Leon didn’t often use his name to apply pressure, but this case was an exception.

He learned she’d made the reservation nearly two weeks ago and had rented the car for seven days. It seemed she’d already been in Rimini three days.

Leon thanked the manager for his cooperation. Pleased to be armed with this much information before confronting her, he made a search on his phone. Newburgh was a town sixty miles north of New York City. What it all meant he didn’t know yet, but he was about to find out.

He saw the rental car when he drove down the alley and parked. Ruggio met him at the front desk of the pension, where Rosa was helping a scruffy-looking male wearing a backpack and short shorts.

“She’s been in her room since she came in. She’s molta molta bellissima,” Ruggio whispered. “I think I’ve seen her on television.”

Marcello had said the same thing. “Grazie. I’ll take it from here,” Leon told him. If she was working alone or with another reporter, he planned to find out.

Once Ruggio left, he sat down. By now it was quarter after six. Without a TV, she’d probably leave again, if only to get a meal. If he had to wait too long, he’d insist Rosa go knock on Signorina Peterson’s door. To pass the time, Leon phoned Simona, and was relieved to hear his little girl seemed to be over the worst of her bug.

As he was telling his housekeeper he wasn’t sure what time he’d get home, a woman emerged from the alcove. Without warning, his adrenaline kicked in. Not just because she was beautiful—in fact, incredibly so. It was because there was something about her that reminded him of someone else.

She swept past him, so fast she was out the door before he was galvanized into action. After telling Simona he’d get back to her, he sprang from the chair and followed the shapely woman in the two-piece linen suit and leather sandals down the alley to her car.

He estimated she had to be five feet six. Even the way she carried herself, with a kind of unconscious grace, was appealing. Physically, Leon could find nothing wrong with her, and that bothered him, since he hadn’t been able to look at another woman since Benedetta.

“Belle Peterson?”

She wheeled around, causing her gleaming hair, the color of dark mink, to swish about her shoulders. Cobalt-blue eyes fringed with black lashes flew to Leon in surprise. If she already knew who he was, she was putting on a good act of pretending otherwise.

She possessed light olive skin that needed no makeup. Her wide mouth, with its soft pink lipstick, had a voluptuous flare. He found her the embodiment of feminine pulchritude, but to his surprise she stared at him without a hint of recognition or flirtatiousness. “How do you know my name? We’ve never met.”

With that accent, she was American through and through. He found her directness as intriguing as her no-nonsense demeanor. Some men might find it intimidating. Leon’s gaze dropped to her left hand, curled over her shoulder bag and resting against the lush curve of her hip. Her nails were well manicured with a neutral coating. She wore no rings.

If in disguise for a part she was playing—perhaps in the hope of infiltrating their family business in some way to unlock secrets—he would say she looked…perfect.

He pulled the note Berto had given him out of his suit jacket pocket and handed it to her.

She glanced at it before eyeing him again. “Evidently you’re from the bank. How did you get my last name?”

“A simple matter of checking with the car rental agency.”

Her blue eyes turned frosty. “I don’t know about your country, but in mine that information can only be obtained by a judge’s warrant during the investigation of a crime.”

“My country has similar laws.”

“Was it a crime to ask questions?”

“Of course not. But I’m afraid our doors are closed to all so-called journalists. I decided to investigate.”

“I’m not a journalist or anything close,” she stated promptly. Reaching in her shoulder bag, she pulled a business card out of her wallet.

He took it from her fingers and glanced at it. Belle Peterson, Manager, Trans Continental Cell Phones Incorporated, Newburgh, New York…

He lifted his head. “Why didn’t you leave this card at the bank with the security man you talked to?”