Chapter 32

I could see a figure stood next to me by the bed, but I couldn't move, and could only watch as he held his hand out to me.

"Now you know where you should be"

I was suddenly moving, walking with the man, my hand gripped firmly in his toward the door. When the door opened it didn't lead out into the hallway but opened into a darkened room with the outline of a bed showing against the wall. That was when I smelt it, the putrid scent of death, and heard the low rasping as air moved in out. I tried to pull away but to no avail.

"You need to stay here with him and watch him die"

I tried to scream but my breaths were coming in and out of my lungs so fast it didn't happen and suddenly I was knelt over the body, but it wasn't Jackson, it was Ranger. Tears were streaming down my face, and I was shaking so violently when a pain exploded across my chest.

That was when I sat bolt upright in the bed with my hands fisted against my chest, the nightmare so vivid and real as I tried to adjust to where I was. I could feel Ranger beside me, surprisingly still asleep, so maybe he'd taken those pills as Bobby had asked. My body was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and as I held my face in my hands, I could feel the wetness on my cheeks from crying. As I tried to slow down my breathing the shaking reduced but I just couldn't face going back to sleep and experiencing that nightmare again. Slipping from the bed I grabbed a robe that was lying on the nearby chair and headed toward the door.

Even as my hand held the handle the fear came back to me. What if that American was stood outside the door? Stupid, stupid Stephanie, of course he wasn't. Hadn't Hector said that we had alarms and sensors throughout the property. He couldn't be here, could he? Though he was a burglar so maybe he was good at getting past any security, that was what he did wasn't it?

"Babe, what's wrong?"

I closed my eyes as I realized that I'd woken Ranger up and turning watched as he got up from the bed and walked toward me. His arms came around me, his heat encompassing me.

"You're cold and shaking. What's wrong?"

I was almost too afraid to tell him about the nightmare in case he thought that I was being stupid and to be honest even thinking about it had the feeling of fear run through me.

"A nightmare"

I said hoping that would be enough of an explanation.

"It was bad wasn't it. Tell me about it"

I closed my eyes and felt his hold around me tighten so knew that he was waiting for me to tell him.

"The American was here in the bedroom and he led me through this door, but I was back in that strange house. When he pushed me through a door"

I stopped when another shudder ran through me.

"It wasn't Jackson laid on the bed dying"

"Who was it Babe?"

I had a feeling that he knew who it had been, but I suppose he needed to hear it from me.

"You"

I whispered back.

"We're leaving here then"

Was all that he said as he turned me into him.

After a few minutes I did fell calmer, maybe knowing that he was holding me helped. When he stepped away from me, I watched as he removed his phone from the bedside table and seemed to message someone before he moved over to the closet and brought out two bags and then some clothes for me. Taking that as a need for me to get dressed I obliged pulling on the jeans and T-shirt over my underwear. Once downstairs I was surprised to see three other bags by the front door and watched as Hector and Les carried boxes out of the door. No one said anything as the activity continued so I assumed that Ranger had messaged everyone that we were leaving.

"I'll leave the sensors and cameras and set up an alert on my phone"

If Hector was surprised that we were suddenly leaving he never said anything. When I went outside it was still dark and I was feeling a little guilty that all of this activity was because of me having a nightmare but if I was honest with myself I was glad to be leaving the house. I'd expected to see the Merc or the other black SUV outside but the vehicle that we got into was a large Audi Q7 with enough seats and space for all of our luggage. Ranger drove with Les sat next to him and me sat between Bobby and Hector and less than an hour after Ranger had said that we were leaving he was driving away from the house. I had no idea where we were going but was pretty sure that Ranger had somewhere planned just for this happening. The chances of someone finding out where we were staying was slim but not impossible so him having another location to stay at didn't surprise me.

I wasn't too surprised that where we ended up wasn't too far away, after all Ranger would want quick access to Milan. The sun was just beginning to appear on what looked to be a clear blue sky so I was more than interested in where we going. As the car stopped, I was looking at a small single story house that looked to be made from wood. It was painted white with a door between two windows and large pots that held flowering plants, not unlike the ones that I'd seen on the houses in Milan. Bobby helped me out and I helped to carry two of the bags to the front door, waiting for someone to tell me that I could go inside. It was Ranger and Les who opened the door for me from the inside, so I knew that they'd just cleared the place.

"This place isn't as big as the last one. I booked it at the same time in case we needed it"

Yep, I was right, Ranger always had a backup plan and as I stepped into the main room, I could see what he meant by it being smaller. On the left was an open plan living area with a couch and kitchen area and on the right were three doors.

"Use the bedroom at the back of the house Babe"

It was small with a double bed and an old wooden dresser. That was all there was room for so dropping our bags by the bed went in search of a bathroom. The middle door revealed the bathroom, comprising of a toilet, shower and sink so I assumed that we'd all be using this facility. Maybe not ideal but it felt safe to me and that was the most important thing to me. Back in the main room Hector was setting up electronics including the laptops that we'd used. I felt that I needed to stay out of the way as boxes were brought in from the car so finding the laptop that I'd been using sat on the lumpy couch. With my legs pulled up next to me I soon became lost in reading through the searches that had run the night before.

The parameters had been set for five years ago until Scintillante became financially viable, eighteen months, but I'd included all of the names that I'd come across. From Gaia and her husband, their two children, Tomas and Enzo so I started with Gaia to begin with. Her husband had died five years ago from an accidental fall which had left Gaia to manage on her own. It was a year after that that her wedding venue business had actually started. I had to admit that I had assumed that the business was older than that, so I decided to start a search on her finances. The ones that Sylvio had done had only covered the last three years and I knew there were no inconsistencies then.

A loud beeping noise had me looking up to see Hector scrambling to get to the other laptop and watching the screen intently. When Ranger and Les were suddenly stood behind him I wanted to know what he'd found. Had the program for that gizmo that was in my arm finished? I was soon up from where I was sat and squirmed my way between Bobby and Les to get a better look. I have to say that I was confused with what I was seeing. The screen had been divided up into nine segments but to me they just looked dark.

"There"

I looked to where Les had pointed to and maybe I could see something move, but to be honest it only looked like shadows of grey against the background. As we watched one of the segments changed showing someone had opened the doors at the back of the house where we had been staying.

"He's good, he managed to circumvent most of the sensors on the perimeter"

I could see the outline of a figure but felt so frustrated when it was too dark to see a face clearly. When he pointed something at the camera and the image turned snowy, I just knew that he'd scrambled the camera. Would we be able to see who it was or why he was there? It seemed that every time a camera caught sight of him, he managed to hide his face which was really beginning to annoy me.

"Have patience Estefania. I have a few tricks that he won't recognize"

It seemed like an age before suddenly there was movement on a camera facing the back door. An outdoor light had come on automatically giving us a better view of the man as he made his escape. It wasn't the best shot in the world and his features were grainy, but I knew as soon as I saw it who it was and from the time that he'd spent inside the house I was pretty sure that he'd searched every room.

"The American"

I said quietly as I tried to calm my nerves. I knew he was miles away, but just seeing his face and knowing that he'd broken into where we were had that feeling of fear sweep through me.

"Why would I recognize him?"

Came from Hector who was studying the image from the camera that showed the man's face. I had no idea because until that day at Scintillante I'd never seen him before. Ranger was behind me now as he also studied the man's face, his silence almost unnerving me.

"He looks similar to the man who broke into the jewelers, Kennleys diamond merchant, where we caught them before they managed to steal anything. He was one of those men"

"The one who disappeared after the other three were murdered"

Okay, now I was looking behind me at Ranger wondering what he and Hector were talking about and from the way that Bobby was frowning he obviously hadn't a clue either. I watched as Hector brought up a search that must have been done before and started to read the results.

"Christian Roberts. His search came up empty. Didn't Morelli come and see you about him?"

"Yes. He wanted our help to find him. I sent an email to say that there was nothing coming up and that Roberts must have been a false id"

Okay, from what I'd managed to hear I assumed that the American, Roberts, had been involved in a break in at a jewelers and Rangeman had managed to stop them before anything was stolen. Did I hear right, that three people were murdered?

"He'll be FTA by now"

I'm sure that I rolled my eyes when Les said that, of course he would be FTA because he was here in Milan. How did this man know Allegro and Tomas? I needed to get back to my search because I was determined to find out what tied those three people together.

"How did he find us?"

That had me stopping and looking back at the three men still looking at the laptop. Could Enzo have traced the phone that Ranger had used to contact him? Nah, Ranger was too careful for that to have happened and as far as we knew Enzo was trying his best to investigate the case, so would never have told someone else. So how had Roberts found us and did that mean that he could find us here? Not something that I wanted to think about, so I went back to my laptop on the couch.

The financials had finished for both Gaia and her business, Ritiro di Nozze, but I went with looking at Gaia's finances first. I was surprised that after her husband had died Gaia had very little money. Her husband had accumulated debts from contractors which seemed to be part of the renovations on the house. Yeah, I remember her saying something about that. The problem had come from the investments that he'd made, stocks, shares and bonds that lost value, so by the time that the debts had been paid off Gaia had very little left.

I could understand why she needed to get some income and was sure that I'd read that the wedding business was doing well, so looked at the history for that. I knew that Gaia had started the business after her husband's death, what I didn't know was that the barns that now housed the accommodation and eating area had needed to be renovated and the pool had been added. So where the hell did Gaia get the money to have all that work done?

I went to the program that searched through news articles with Gaia Frusco and a date parameter from five to four years ago. It didn't take long for information to start to appear and of course it gave details of Gaia's husband's death. The next section did surprise me though because it was an article reporting on a break in at the house and the theft of the family jewels. It gave an estimated value of 2.5 million euros. I sat back as I thought through what that could mean. Had Gaia claimed for the loss through her insurance, hell, I would have done. It certainly accounted for where she got the money from, but would 2.5 million euros have been enough as a start-up for Allegro's business as well?

It was coming back to jewelry and theft. Could that man Roberts have been the thief? No that didn't make any sense because that would imply that Allegro knew who had stolen the jewelry from her mother, or did her mother know? I had no idea what the jewelry consisted of, but a sudden idea came to me.

An hour later I knew that I had some answers, not all of them, but enough to maybe give us some leads to follow up on. Looking around for Ranger I was surprised when there was no one else in the room. I knew that they wouldn't leave me here on my own so walked over to the front door and looked outside. Seeing Ranger and Les looking underneath the hood at the engine was certainly not what I was expecting.

"Is something wrong with the car?"

Because that seemed like the only explanation to me. Les closed down the hood while Ranger leant against the car with his arms crossed over his chest as though he was deep in thought.

"Beautiful, let me introduce you to a brand new car that won't break down anytime soon"

If that was a dig at the cars that I usually drove, then I wasn't going to be goaded into saying anything. Instead, I looked at Ranger, hoping that he would fill me in on what they were doing.

"Turning off the sat nav and any tracking features. Hector and Bobby have gone back to the house to check on the two other cars"

Ah, they were still working out how Roberts managed to find us.

"I think that I found some answers"

That had two sets of eyes looking at me and I could have sworn that Ranger's lips tipped up ever so slightly in a smile. I about turned and headed back into the house not surprised when I heard them behind me.

"This all started five years after Gaia's husband died. She was broke, and needed the money so I think a break in was staged to steal the family jewels. Gaia claimed the loss from her insurance"

"Beautiful, you've lost me. Are you saying that Allegro stole from her own mother?"

I knew that I'd thought that as well, but I needed Les to let me finish. Did I give him a glare, you bet I did, which had him holding his hands up in defeat.

"The thing is, it had me thinking of family, so I pulled up copies of some paintings that Gaia had with my grandfather and great grandparents in. My great grandmother was wearing a set of jewelry that had a green stone set in them, called Jadeite. That fall Scintillante featured Bria as Jade and her jewelry had a green stone in them"

I waited for Les to catch up with what I was saying and knowing him he would probably be asking me the one question that I didn't know the answer to. Was Gaia aware of what had happened or was she still under the illusion that the jewelry had been stolen and lost forever?

"I found out who Roberts is"