A/N: Post merry-go-round. Started typing this out on my iPod touch while at a baseball game a while back—thank GOD for that thing :) I've been sitting on this for a while; hope it's the tiniest bit original. This one's short, just a bit of an introduction. Feedback is the only thing that keeps it going.
Disclaimer: anything you recognize from The Thief Lord isn't mine :)
Symphony (1)
"You are a detective, yes?"
Scipio jumped up from his chair and spun around at the sudden voice, which had startled from his daydreaming as he looked out the window and out at the sunlit canal. A woman had appeared very suddenly in the office he and Victor shared, without so much as knocking. But she had a charming smile.
"I'm sorry," she said silkily, gesturing back at the door. "I didn't realize I should have knocked. I hope you don't mind that I let myself in."
Scipio was speechless.
"Oh. Silly of me. Do you speak English? Parlate inglese?" Her Italian wasn't great, but at least she'd used the right words.
"I speak English," Scipio said slowly. "Can I help you?"
The woman smiled and nodded. "Are you one of the detectives who works here?" she asked again.
Scipio nodded and held his hand out to her. "I'm Scipio Fortunato."
She shook his hand, lingering much too long than social protocol called for. "Eva de Luca." She smiled coyly. "Aren't you a little young to be a detective?" she asked flirtatiously.
Scipio tried not to blush. He wasn't sure how to respond.
Eva de Luca sat in the chair across the desk from Scipio, still smiling that straight white smile. "I'll get straight to the point," she said as he slowly sat down. She leaned forward slightly, as if she were going to tell a secret. "My daughter is missing. And please don't question me about whether I reported her to the police and all that; I did. I can tell you anything you need to know about her, where she disappeared from, how long she's been gone…" Eva de Luca took a breath, then plucked a photograph from her clutch. She slid it across the table to Scipio, who picked it up and examined it.
He'd thought Eva de Luca had been talking about a little girl; he was wrong. She was a teenager, seventeen or so. The girl had honey-blond curls that twisted in wisps around her face, and she had big brown eyes the color of chocolate. She was smiling in the picture, but it didn't reach her eyes. She was pretty.
Eva de Luca cleared her throat. "We were vacationing in France, and while we were on the Riviera, Camille just…disappeared. Everything she brought on the trip was gone, too, and she'd left a note." Eva de Luca dug a piece of paper from her purse and handed it to Scipio as well.
Written on a piece of hotel paper in a girlish scrawl was: "Eva—I'm sorry I had to do it like this. But I can't live in your house anymore. I can't go another day. I know how selfish doing a thing like this is, but I'm afraid if I came back to America with you and spend another minute in that mess I call a life, I'll lose my mind and something terrible will come from that. Don't worry about me, and please don't come looking for me. I won't take any of your money from your bank account, and the moment I leave this hotel, I will be severing all of my ties to you and your family. I am no longer Camille de Luca. I'm not even sure if I'll be Camille anymore. All I know is where I'm going. I'm sorry. –Millie."
"How old is she?" Scipio looked at the photograph again.
"Seventeen. Her birthday is in a couple of months, and then she'll be a legal adult." Eva de Luca's lips twitched in what seemed to be annoyance. "I want to find her before then, before February 14."
"Valentine's Day," Scipio said in surprise.
"Yes," Eva de Luca said, nodding. "Because then, she truly won't be Camille de Luca anymore. She'll be an adult, and I can't do anything about that." She noticed Scipio's expression. "I'm not trying to control her, Mr. Fortunato. She's my daughter, my little girl, and I want to hold onto her for as long as I can."
He sensed the lie in her words, but didn't say anything about it.
"How do you know she's here in Venice?"
"Before we went to the resort, I always caught her researching this city on Google, gathering as much information as she could before she had the chance to run away, I suppose. I came here as soon as she was gone, and I've been in touch with the authorities and orphanages, looking for any sign of her. Camille's a smart girl, though. If she doesn't want to be found, she won't be. She won't be out in the open—at least, not looking the way she does in that picture. I expect she's dyed her hair, cut it, straightened it…" Eva de Luca cleared her throat. "She may be difficult to find."
Scipio's mind was going a mile a minute. His entire career—ever since Victor had hired him after the merry-go-round—had been filled with solving petty, small-time cases. They'd never gotten him much money, or much of a reputation. Victor always told him how Prosper and Bo's case had made his career, and Scipio had been praying for a missing-person case every single day since then.
And now he had it.
But he wasn't sure he wanted it.
"I understand if you're a little intimidated by the challenge," Eva de Luca began, hoping to prod him into it.
She got her wish.
Scipio stopped her right there. "Signora de Luca. I never turn down a challenge."