The Florentine Cypher: Kate Benedict Paranormal Mystery #3 (The Kate Benedict Series) by Carrie Bedford Page B

waves to her shoulders.
    The only flaw was the aura that circled lazily around her head.
    The shock made my legs wobble. How could both Claire and Ethan be in danger?
    I held out the flowers. “They’re from my dad’s garden.”
    Her expression held a hint of disdain, but she took them before leading me into a spacious living room decorated with comfortable-looking furniture and an antique Persian rug on the wooden floor. A single picture hung above a dresser, an oil in a gilt frame of a beautiful Madonna clasping a chubby baby.
    For a few seconds, we stood awkwardly, facing each other. “Is Ethan here?” I asked.
    “No, not yet. Is there a problem?”
    “You haven’t heard from him?”
    Her eyes widened at the urgency in my voice. “What’s going on?”
    I dreaded telling her, but it had to be done. “It’s complicated.”
    “Come with me then and I’ll make us an espresso while you tell me everything.”
    She led me into a compact kitchen and gestured to a chair at a tiny breakfast table where I sat while she measured coffee into an espresso machine. The flowers lay on the counter and I felt a faint surge of irritation that she hadn’t said thank you or acknowledged my father’s thoughtfulness.
    “So what’s happening?” she asked.
    I recounted the events of Friday night, starting with Ethan leaving in the taxi, the directions to the safe and my discovery of the book. My cheeks flushed warm when I described the attack on my cab on the road from the airport. I left out the part about Ethan’s aura. And hers of course. The story was wild enough already.
    “Ethan’s missing? Oh my God.”
    “You’re sure you don’t know where he might be?” I asked. “The text said he’d be here.”
    She shook her head, the color draining from her face.
    “Let’s not worry yet,” I said. “He didn’t say
when
he’d be here. He’s certain to be in touch soon.”
    In fact, I was panicking. To hear nothing from Ethan for so long scared me.
    “Had you seen the book before?” I asked, trying to focus on other parts of the puzzle. “It was a leather-bound version of Alberti’s
Della Pittura
.”
    “I never saw it, but I’d heard about it from Dad. And then Ethan told me he’d retrieved it from the bank. My father had a will— he was very organized— but even so it took a while to put his affairs in order after he died. A week ago, Ethan got authorization to access Dad’s bank account and his safety deposit box. He told me the box had the
Della Pittura
in it, as well as some jewelry for me from my grandmother.”
    She set down the cups she’d been arranging on a tray and sank into the seat opposite me.
    “It’s too bad you lost the book. Now we’ll never know why it was so important to my father.”
    I shifted on my chair, embarrassed. “It was stolen,” I replied. “Anyway, I managed to hold on to this.”
    The pouch felt soft against my fingers when I took it from my bag and gave it to her. She undid the thread and opened it, tipping the key out into the palm of her hand.
    “It’s beautiful,” she said, tracing the engraving of the flames and the letter C with her finger. At once, her aura started moving faster. I leaned forward, staring at the aura to be sure I wasn’t imagining it. I wasn’t. That was interesting. It implied that the key was the source of the threat to her.
    “What do you know about it?” I asked. “Why did your father store it in a safety deposit box?”
    “I only know what little he told me. Apparently, an Italian man sent the
Della Pittura
to my grandfather a few years after the Second World War. When Grandpa died of a heart attack just after Dad was born, my grandmother stored the book in the attic where it stayed for the next sixty years. My dad found it when she moved to a nursing home a year or so ago. He told me about this key, which was hidden in a cut-out inside the book, right?”
    I nodded.
    “He intended to write an article about it,” she continued.