Chapter 16
Corner of Via de S. Domenico and Via de S. Alessio
Rome, Italy
December 2003
In a year of hard choices the hardest for Shan was to leave for work Monday morning.
The priory was only two blocks away. Mia's screams followed her for most of them. She'd left her in the arms of a stranger, she could only assume a woman of the Brown, who'd come to the house yesterday and taken over as maid and cook and nanny without ever speaking a word of English other than Bernard's name. She had no way of knowing if Mia would even be there when she returned.
But if she didn't do as she was told she knew that Mia would be gone. Those men from the desert would come and take her and...
She couldn't think about that now.
A priory was a priory. She gave everyone a polite smile, not meeting anyone's eyes so as not to distract the other knights from their duties. She made her way down to the vault, pulled on her gloves and looked over the rows and rows of containers. The cache was easily five times the size of the one in LA, if not more. It was a daunting amount of work. And now she loathed every moment of it.
I never should have become a Knight, she thought. I never should have become a Knight.
She settled down with the first book, but at first she didn't read. It was her first quiet moment in almost a year, her first chance to think and plan and try to come up with a way out of this. Could anyone be trusted? How could she hide from all of them? How could she and her daughter get away?
By the time noon rolled around she had a plan. A careful, conservative plan. It would take years, but by the time she was finished she'd be able to start a new life for herself. She'd have leverage to keep the Order off her back. And she'd get her daughter to the one person who could give her everything her mother no longer could.
On her way out she stopped at the banking office. Every Knight of the Blue was entitled to a stipend every week. Most didn't take it but she pulled out hers and would from now on, every Monday. It was going into her stash, seed money for a new life. And when she had the entire cache here memorized, ready to go to the highest bidder or up on the web for everyone to see they wouldn't dare follow her. Now she just needed to get Mia where she needed to be. She needed to make sure that place was always where she could find it.
On the walk home she reached into her pocket, pulled out the prepaid phone she'd had the driver bring with the pizza and dialed zero. "Centralinista." A polite voice said.
"English?" Shan crossed her fingers.
"Un momento." There was a pause and then, "Operator."
Thank heaven. "Federal Bureau of Investigation, Quantico Virginia, United States, please."
"One moment." There was the hollow clicking of the line going through, and then. "FBI."
"Dr. Spencer Reid, please."
"One moment." There was a pause and then an automated voice answered the voicemail. But he'd left an emergency number.
He was too far away. If she told him he would never get to them in time. She didn't even know where she was. She just needed to hear him. If she could hear him it might be enough.
At 12 noon, which is 6 am in DC, she called that number.
"Dr. Reid." He sounded groggy, like she had awakened him. Her mind flashed to tea parties and narrow dorm beds and the soft murmurs of gentle things talked over after love a lifetime ago. "Hello? Who is this? Hello?" For a long moment she wanted to curl in his arms and have him tell her she was safe. Their baby was safe.
He was too far away to help her now. Nothing was safe.
She hung up the phone and slid it back into her pocket.
A half a block later she was taking her daughter into her arms once again.
Westbound
Over the English Channel
June 2012
"I called him every day, just to hear his voice. Sometimes when I was home in time for us to walk I let her listen." Shan admitted. "I wanted her to be able to recognize his voice; to know him, at least a little." She shook her head. "Why do I feel like I screwed up big time?"
"You didn't." Dave said. "He's seen a lot of abused women; he knows you do what you have to do to survive. He won't be angry with you."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yeah, I am." He thought about it a moment. "Okay, I'll bite, what did you do with the money?"
She nudged the backpack under the seat in front of her. "It's about, um, 44,000 Euros, more or less. Ought to be enough to get us started."
"Ought to be." He pulled out his phone to check the exchange rate, just out of curiosity. "Now get some rest. I'd like to make your arrival home better than your arrival in Rome."
She smiled. "I'd like that too. Thanks for listening; I haven't been able to tell anyone..."
"Anytime, bella. Anytime."