Widow - Anne Stuart [1]
He’d made her image world-famous, immortalized her in his art. He’d never hit her, abused her. He wouldn’t have minded if she’d taken lovers—he certainly had. All he’d wanted was for her to stay.
She would come back now, he knew it. She’d become stronger—strong enough to leave him—but she wouldn’t be able to resist. His charm was legendary, and he would use all of it. And she would return to him.
The bells of the city rang out over the noise of the traffic. His ancient, beloved city of Florence. Pompasse was French, but he had the soul of an Italian Renaissance master. Tuscany was in his blood, and as he looked out over the rooftops of the city he could see the Arno gilded in the sunlight. Two o’clock. It should be done, then.
He needed a glass of wine to celebrate his new life. He went out into the hallway, heading for the curving marble stairs that led to the first floor of his duplex, and there was a bounce in his step, a lightness in his heart. The deed was done, a new life was beginning, and he felt like a young man. He would paint again, and he would live forever.
He was whistling under his breath, but the sound stopped as he halted at the top of the stairs.
She was standing there, the last person he ever expected to see. And he knew he was going to die.
1
Finding a dead body wasn’t Connor Maguire’s favorite way to start the day.
He’d been breaking into an apartment in Florence, planning on a little discreet research, when he discovered the corpse of its owner. And not just any corpse. The apartment belonged to the great Aristide Pompasse, the world’s most famous living artist. Or at least he was, until maybe an hour ago, Maguire guessed. It didn’t take any great powers of observation—he’d spent years as a war correspondent, in the Middle East, in Africa, in Kosovo. He knew a dead body when he saw one, and Pompasse was most definitely dead, though he hadn’t been for long. Maguire closed the door with a silent click and leaned against it.
“Well, hell,” he said mildly enough. Somehow the situation called for stronger language than that, but all he could think was what a stinking mess he’d gotten himself into.
He was planning to write the tell-all book of the millennium. He’d spent the last five years grinding out stories for Starlight, Marc Gregory’s internationally sleazy tabloid, but in Pompasse he’d found not only his meal ticket but his raison d’être. Pompasse was a man with enough skeletons in his closet to support Maguire quite nicely. He’d been working on the story for weeks, and it was going to be his ticket back to Australia.
The body was lying on the marble floor in the foyer, at the bottom of the curving staircase that led from the bedrooms above. His dark, intense eyes were blank, his skin as cold and lifeless as the marble floor. There was no blood.
Maguire made himself cross the floor and squat down beside the old man. He didn’t want to touch him. It wasn’t squeamishness. He’d lost any sensitivity years ago—a life spent in the news business tended to wipe out any tender sensibilities. The more he’d learned about Pompasse the more contempt he’d felt for him—Maguire assumed it was the last ounce of idealism in his own, otherwise tarnished, soul. The old man had deserved what was coming to him, and Maguire didn’t give a damn who had dished it out. Except, of course, that it would sell more copies of the paper and, eventually, his book.
He put his hand against the old man’s neck. Cold, flaccid, dead skin. Maybe he’d been dead for more than an hour. He glanced back up at the winding stairs. It would have been easy enough for an old man like Pompasse to make a misstep, particularly if he’d had too much wine. One little slip and down he would go.
Maguire sat back on his heels, reaching in his pocket for his cigarettes. That was one thing he liked about Italy—he could smoke anywhere he damn well pleased, probably even in the Duomo itself if he had the insane