The Body in the Piazza - By Katherine Hall Page Page 0,87

and as she’d expected the number had been blocked. Without going to the police with their sophisticated tracking equipment, there was no way of knowing where Tom was being held or by whom.

Except for the clues in his own words, and the words of the Good Book. Faith quickly texted her sister: “Could you send me St. Luke, chapter 15, verse 16?”

The reply came back immediately: “He would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

“Thought the food was great? Or r u just getting religious?”

Faith wrote: “Yes and yes. Will explain later.”

Bless Tom’s career choice. When she saw him, and she would—any other thought was beyond considering—she’d apologize for all her complaints about parish life. She’d even take on the Sunday school Christmas pageant this year. Just keep him safe, Lord, until she could get him out. Because she now knew where he was and who had snatched him.

Luke, Jean-Luc, the good neighbor with the outrageous bagno. And it all was tied to Freddy’s pen—and Freddy’s murder.

She studied the verse. Tom wasn’t telling her he was hungry, although, she thought with a pang, he might be. He was telling her he was being kept in a pigsty, or some other kind of place that housed, or had housed, animals. And it was Tom himself who had told her that Gianni had wanted Jean-Luc to get going with his plans to pull down some old farm buildings far from the main house so the Rossis could rent the cleared space to plant more grapes. Except Jean-Luc was sure there were Etruscan treasures lurking underneath them and wanted a trained team to excavate the site. Etruscan treasures! With his intense interest, Jean-Luc must know about the tomb below the cantina in Montepulciano. Easy enough to slip away and lock Faith in. But why let her out? If, in fact, he had been her liberator?

She was due in the kitchen to start tonight’s meal soon but thought she’d stretch her legs first. There was something she wanted to check out. Tom never got on the bus to Siena, but Len Russo saw him running up the path behind the house. Unless Len was part of the gang—and at the moment Faith was adopting “Trust No One” as a motto—the path was where Tom had last been seen in the immediate area. She crossed her fingers.

Conspicuously wielding her camera, Faith snapped shots of the pool, the terraces, the gardens, and worked her way up to the hill, stopping to shoot a few of the back of the house and views in every direction. It was hot today and the sun had baked the soil, which would have been wet in the early morning hours after last night’s rain. Just as she’d dared hope, Tom’s Nikes had left distinctive footprints. He’d been here when the ground was still wet. Yet why had he left the house? Len said he’d been running. Running toward someone—Jean-Luc?—or away from someone—again Jean-Luc? Tempted as she was to follow the tracks, she took a few shots of some instead before strolling with very much assumed nonchalance back down to the house.

She had a plan, but there was nothing she could do now.

Except wait.

Faith was the last of the group to arrive in Cucina della Rossi’s kitchen and quickly put her apron on, ready to start.

“Sorry. That was Tom. He walked to the village for the bus, but said to thank Gianni and that we’d have to wait for our panforte. He met a visiting scholar from Saint Louis University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies who offered to give him a private look at some manuscripts and stay the night at a guesthouse the Piccolomini Library has. What an opportunity! Kind of a Medici-slept-here thing, like the Lincoln bedroom at the White House!”

Neither ignoring, nor seeking out, Jean-Luc, Faith gave the performance of her life, rehearsed on the hill. Pausing, she could swear she heard someone take a sharp breath in, as if he or she thought Faith was going to say something more, something dangerous? For whom?

She was deliberately vague about time. When she expected him back. Tom’s captors had been equally vague—saying nothing in fact—but she was quite sure the Fairchilds wouldn’t be having breakfast together tomorrow. Whatever was going to happen at the Teatro Verdi would be later in the day.

“He must be so happy,” Francesca said. “I’m glad for him. If he calls again,