Sergeant Danger thudded up the stairs at a dead run. “Virginia! Are you all right?”
“I think so,” Vi said as the redheaded woman stood. Then Vi noticed the blood on his ripped trousers, and her eyes widened. “Are you?”
“I’m fine.” He knelt and ran his gaze rapidly over her. “I don’t see any major injuries. Think you can run?”
“Where is Ric?” the woman asked sharply, though in the same musical accent Vi had recognized earlier.
“Hiding the body.” The sergeant held his hand out to Vi. “He said he’ll meet you outside.”
The woman grabbed his arm, her face pale in the light. “You will deliver our message.”
“Yes.” The sergeant pulled Vi to her feet as easily as if she were a child. “We’ll be in contact.”
“Grazie.”
Not wasting another second, the sergeant started down the stairs, and Vi was hot on his heels. In any other situation, a man might have asked her to go first, but with unknown assailants popping up like dandelions, she was more than happy to have him clear the way for her. Outside the building, she could hear the faint two-tone wail of a police siren. Pushing aside her panic, she focused on the sergeant’s broad back as they cleared the final landing and raced into the passage between the buildings.
Instinctively, Vi turned toward the front door. The sergeant seized her arm and pulled her toward the courtyard. She stumbled after him, nearly tripping over a fallen bicycle.
His grip tightened, catching her. Determined not to make an even bigger mess of things, she took a deep breath and concentrated on her footing. It was hard, though. Too much adrenaline jittered in her veins, and her brain couldn’t let go of the two men who had died tonight within mere feet of her. Or the redheaded woman from the restaurant being a partisan. Or the possibility she might yet die tonight, and it would be all Luciana’s fault. Luciana’s and that dratted note’s.
Questions burned on her tongue as they cut through another building corridor and then darted across the street. Finally, the tension left the sergeant’s shoulders, and Vi allowed the words to slip free.
“That woman,” she said quietly after they had ducked into an alley. “I’ve seen her before. She’s the one who gave me the note I think was meant for Luciana.”
“I know.”
She flinched at his steely tone, but Marcie’s safety was too important to let the subject drop.
“Well, there’s more. Marcie and I went to the clock shop by the Tiber, the one mentioned in the note. A little boy there, Enzo, asked if we were the people who were going to help them get to America, and his mother panicked.”
He cursed under his breath.
Vi pulled him to a stop when they reached the street again. For this next part, she needed to see his expression, though the light was little better than it had been in the alley. “I overheard you and Mr. Miller and Luciana arguing in Nettuno. I know there’s something going on, something dangerous that involved at least you and Luciana, and the partisans. So I need you to be straight with me. Is Enzo in any kind of danger? Or Marcie, for that matter. Because if they are, even the tiniest bit, I want to know.”
“You’re worried about a little boy you’ve barely met and Miss May?” His tone was somewhere between exasperation and disbelief. “Not Luciana? Not you?”
“I asked you a question, Sergeant. And as I’m an officer in the USO, I command you to answer me.”
He huffed a tired laugh, the hard edges of his cheekbones and jaw stark, almost frightening in the half light. “That rank is an honorary one, Virginia. It’s not real, so I don’t have to tell you a damn thing.”
“Are they in danger?” she asked, refusing to be intimidated.
“There’s a war going on, Miss Heart.” His tone was sarcastic. “What do you think?”
“That you are being deliberately obtuse.”
He drew in a long breath. “Fine. No, Miss May is not in any danger above the usual and customary for a USO performer in a war zone. And Enzo should be just fine. That said, stay away from that clock store, and”—he poked her in the chest for emphasis—“never follow me anywhere again. Got it?”
Vi rolled her eyes, exasperated. “You’re the one who ran away before I could talk to you. And by the way, you could thank me. If I hadn’t followed you, I wouldn’t have been on the