Chapter 3

The port at Venice is too big, and too crowded, so Annie docked at a private marina on the edge of Islo La Certosa, an island just east of the city. She took a bus into the the Cannaregio district, borrowing a young woman's cellphone and calling the marina in Flisvos to report an anonymous tip, revealing the The Flying Lavin's location. She had made sure to leave Eyal a note before she left, hidden away in one of the many compartments of the main cabin.

He would find it one day by accident, years from now, and it would make him smile.

It was only a twenty minute ride from the island to the Venezia Santa Lucia railway station. The trip was quiet, peaceful, and Annie would gaze out the window of the bus and look down at the canals that Venice was famous for. Watching the gondolas float down the waterways, bitter sweet recollection reminding her of the last time she had been in this place; her ribs winced at the memory. She was getting to see more of the city now than she had then, further evidence of how different things were, how much things had changed. She closed her eyes, the sun filtering through the window warming her face, fighting the empty chill of her heart.

What she would give to turn back time.

At the railway station, the attendant, a nice young girl in her early twenties, chattered incessantly about the holidays. Her bubbly, effervescent personality contributed to her lack of thoroughness, for which Annie gave a small prayer of thanks. The girl only glanced at the makeshift identification once before preparing the tickets for the first train to Geneva. She waxed incessantly in Italian about how she was convinced her boyfriend would be proposing to her at Christmas, and how excited her father would be to finally have her out of the house.

"What about you, bellisima?" She asked cheerfully. "Any big plans for your holiday?"

Annie was caught off guard by the question. She shifted her messenger bag on her shoulder, unsure if she should answer or not, and she found herself wondering for the first time since she left Athens what her plan really was. The realization was almost laughable. Up until now, excluding her decision to return to Geneva, she had simply traveled in a state of ambivalent existence. No direction, no reason, driven purely by impulse; not of her head, but her heart.

Just liked she used to.

"I am looking for someone." She replied. "She's been missing for a while."

The attendant hesitated, her head tilting to the side in silent contemplation. But despite her curiosity at the dark haired woman's cryptic response, she did not ask anymore questions. Instead she smiled - a genuine gesture of sincerity. It was something the ghost had not seen in quite some time.

She handed the tickets to Annie.

"Well, I hope you find her."

Annie smiled back, but her eyes were weary, sorrowful.

"So do I."

"They found my boat!"

Eyal's triumph was childlike in it's excitement when he burst into the safe house. Danielle looked up from the couch where she and Auggie had sat for the better part of the last two days. He with a computer, her with the latest Nicholas Sparks. The blind CIA agent had spent most of the time being mesmerized by whatever it was that was being fed to him via his headphones, monitoring frequencies and hacking into surveillance systems with the help of something called Hummingbird, in hopes of somehow spotting Annie. At least that was what he claimed to be doing, whether or not he was telling Danielle the truth was another issue entirely.

For the sake of her sanity, she resigned herself to the fact that there would be things she would never understand, and that the truth would always be more complicated than it seemed.

"That's good!" Her optimism could have been contagious by means of sheer intensity. She replaced her bookmark - Annie's postcard - and closed the book. "I mean, that is good, isn't it? That means Annie was there, right?"

"Exactly." Auggie grinned, removing his headphones and turning towards Eyal. "Where in Venice?" he asked.

"A marina on Certosa island." The Mossad agent walked around behind both of them, leaning over the back of the couch to inspect Auggie's computer screen, and glancing sideways at Danielle. "Does that mean anything to either of you?"

"Dad was never stationed in Italy." Danielle offered. "So that's not very helpful."

She and Eyal both looked to Auggie now, who sat in quiet deliberation, attempting to weigh their options. Though this clue gave them an idea of where Annie was now, where she was headed next remained a mystery. If she was on the move, their window of opportunity to catch up with her was incredibly short. Danielle could feel aggravation rolling off of Auggie in waves as he ran a hand through his hair, his frustrated sigh clearly audible.

"Where do people in Venice go?" Danielle asked aloud, shifting on the couch and looking directly at Eyal. "I mean, what are the major roadways? Or means of transportation?"

"Well, they go anywhere they want to, Achoti." Eyal thought himself clever, but Danielle was not impressed. "Why?"

Danielle was not impressed. "Har." She countered, rolling her eyes. Auggie smirked, but kept quiet. Danielle required no assistance when it came to repartee. "If Annie is trying to leave whatever happened behind, she'll probably go back to bury the memories first."

"I'm not following." Eyal eyed her quizzically. "Explain."

"When we were kids and we had to move bases, Annie would take a shoebox and burry things from our old home in the yard before we left. Pictures, post cards, trinkets…" Danielle could picture her sister, so young, yet even then so fierce. "She tried to make me do it too, but I hated it. She said it was the only way she could let things go. That it was the only way she could move on."

Eyal stared at Danielle, either touched by the story, or surprised that she could recall something from such a long time ago. She raised her eyebrows expectantly, arms crossed over her chest. Auggie wore a look that clearly said, "I told you so." If Eyal had ever doubted a sister's intuition, he would never do it again.

"What?" She demanded. "Cat got your tongue?"

"The railway station in Venice." Effectively chastised, Eyal turned to back to Auggie, acting as if nothing had happened. "There are dozens of places it runs to: Milan, Vienna, Paris, Munich, Geneva-"

"Geneva?" Auggie brightened immediately.

"What's in Geneva?" Danielle scooted a little closer to Auggie as he began to type furiously, images and script flashing across the screen at a rate she found impossible to keep up with. Eyal also seemed newly enlivened with a dawning realization, standing up from where he had been perched on the back of the coach, folding his arms in thoughtful reflection.

"It's not what," Eyal responded, "but who."

"Who?" Danielle was lost, which was nothing new, so it hardly surprised her.

"Sana Wilcox." The Israeli's declaration was solemn, somber.

"Sana Wilcox." Auggie repeated in a similarly subdued fashion. He stopped typing abruptly, shutting the laptop with a quick flick of his hand. "Annie's not burying shoeboxes. She's burying demons."

AN: Wow! Thanks so much for all the awesome reviews you guys, sorry this has been so long in the making! Life and school and work like to get in the way of creativity. Hopefully now that I'm getting into a more normal routine I can start posting again regularly. Let me know what you think about our fabulous trio, will they be able to find Annie before it's too late?! ;)