is like…like not letting a cop shoot a gun.”
“That’s the lamest analogy I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m sleep deprived.”
“Fine. Daphne at the Villa Borghese tomorrow. And then you’re out of here. Where are you staying?”
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
He took out one of his business cards, wrote the name of a hotel on it and below that a number, then handed it to her. “This place will be perfect. Modernized and secure. And the number is my emergency contact number while I’m here. And I mean emergency. When I get off this plane, we are simply two passengers who chatted on the flight over. You do not know me, and I don’t know you.”
“Fine. But I guess you’ll never know if I get on that return flight.”
He glanced over at her. “Good point. I’m booking, paying for, and personally delivering you to that plane. Come to think of it, I’ll deliver you to your hotel room.”
“What hotel are you staying in?”
“I’m not.”
The row in front of them started forward, and the two of them followed the other passengers to passport control.
The terminal at Leonardo da Vinci was crowded with travelers speaking a babel of foreign languages. Following Griffin’s lead, she dug her passport out, then stepped into the line for non–European Common Market passengers, careful to listen as he was questioned, though she was certain he wasn’t giving accurate answers.
“Business or pleasure?” the short and rather sour-faced passport control officer asked in English, eyeing his passport, then him.
“Business.”
“Nature?”
“Newspaper. A series on vacationing in Italy.”
“Destination?”
“Rome.”
“Length of stay?”
“A week.”
“Fast writer?”
“Very.”
“Thank you.” He stamped Griffin’s passport, then waved him through.
Sydney went through the same drill, but when he asked her the nature of her visit, she nodded toward Griffin and said, “I’m illustrating his articles.” Her return ticket was for a week as well, since Levins had booked it to match Griffin’s.
As they walked off, Griffin said, “Quite the cover story.”
“No worse than yours.”
If she had any hopes that Griffin might forget about babysitting her until her plane, they were crushed as he took her by her arm and led her to the Alitalia departure desk. “When is the next flight back to…” He glanced at Sydney, then the attendant as he said, “San Francisco.”
The woman tapped at her keyboard, eyeing her screen. “The soonest we can get you on a connecting flight via New York is tonight—”
“She’ll take it.”
“She won’t,” Sydney said. “She has some illustrating to do.” Then to the clerk, asked, “What do you have day after tomorrow?”
“We have a mid-afternoon flight that leaves at two-forty.”
“Perfect,” Griffin said. He took out a credit card, slapped it on the counter. “Give her your ID and your ticket, Fitzpatrick.”
Sydney tried to keep her expression neutral as she handed over her passport and plane ticket. The clerk eyed the ticket, punched in some numbers, and said, “It’ll be an additional one hundred dollars for the change, not including the charge to get to San Francisco.”
To which Sydney told Griffin, “You should just save your money and time. I can do this myself.”
“You could, but I get the feeling you won’t.”
The clerk dutifully ignored their conversation as she finished up the reservation, printed out the ticket, then gave everything to Sydney. Griffin reached over, took possession of the new plane ticket as if he didn’t trust her at all.
“Gee, thanks,” Sydney said to Griffin as they walked away.
He didn’t respond, and judging from the expression on his face, she wasn’t sure she’d have wanted him to. Deciding it best not to push him further, thereby ruining any chance she had of changing his mind, or at the very least, making a break, she slung her bag over her shoulder and walked quietly beside him as he stepped out to get in the long line of passengers waiting for a taxi.
After five minutes they arrived at the head of the line. As soon as Griffin gave the driver the name of the Albergo Pini di Roma on the Aventine, they were off. The taxi careened through the flat marshlands that bordered the airport and veered in and out of the insane traffic that congested the roads leading to Rome, past the rather nondescript modern apartments. Cabdrivers in the States had nothing on this guy. She gripped the seat to keep from sliding around, while the driver gave a monologue of the sights in heavily accented English: the Baths of Caracalla to the left, the Palatine Hill with its sprawling Palace of the Caesars to the right, a