The Widow by Anne Stuart Page B

from the studio, women’s voices, and he leaned against the back of the building, well hidden, trying to make out their words. It was too good a chance to miss. He recognized Gia’s strident tones even through the thick stone walls, and the soft responses could only belong to Charlie.
    But a moment later he heard the slamming of the studio door, and then nothing but silence. A missed chance, but there would be others. It was Wednesday—by Saturday Pompasse’s ashes would be buried and Maguire would be out of there. Much longer and he’d be caught, and Charlie Thomas wouldn’t be the sort to take kindly to a viper in her midst.
    If he couldn’t find out who killed Pompasse and why in the next four days, then he wasn’t the reporter he thought he was.
    And he had no illusions. He was a ruthless bastard, a heartless user when it came to people. He cared about no one and nothing, but he was a damned good reporter, whether it was dealing with international conflicts or Euro-trash. He already knew a great many of Pompasse’s dirty little secrets, his obsession with young girls, the disturbing number of suicides and disappearances among his former models and lovers, the games he’d played and the astonishing amount of money he’d squandered.
    But he still didn’t know where the missing paintings were. And of equal importance, who killed Pompasse and why. Once he discovered the answers he could leave, with or without nailing the repressed Charlie Thomas.
    Hell, maybe she wasn’t repressed, he thought, climbing up the narrow, twisting path by the olive grove. Maybe she just hated him at first sight and didn’t mind showing it. He was used to rubbing women the wrong way when they first met. He was hardly the lady’s type—he was brash, working-class, no-bullshit and no-charm. She probably saw him as some kind of lower-class oaf.
    And he saw her as the lady of the manor. Just the sort of thing to incite his distrust of class issues. He wondered whether her old man had given her a good time in that bed upstairs. Or whether her new one did.
    He knew he could. She’d tell him about Pompasse, once he had her underneath him. She’d tell him anything he wanted to know. She was that kind of woman—she held everything in reserve, wary, protected, until she finally gave in. And then she’d give it all.
    And he would be a right bastard to take it. But take it he would, before she even realized what she’d lost.
    It wasn’t the first time he’d climbed up the hillside to the ruins of the old church. Tuscany, and indeed, all of Italy, was littered with churches, from huge cathedrals to tiny little wayside chapels. The chapel had served the farmhouse that was now La Colombala, as well as the surrounding countryside, but World War Two bombing had put an end to most of the building, including a good portion of the roof and two of the walls. There were still remnants of the place left—some underground storerooms, a couple of hallways, and half the sanctuary sheltered under the remains of the old roofing, while the rest of the building was open to the stars.
    He liked the place, particularly at night. For a lapsed Catholic he had a curiously sentimental attachment to the ruins, and it had nothing to do with the strict Jesuit education he’d had in Australia.
    No, stretched out on the remnants of a battered old pew that had somehow survived the bombing, Maguire could tilt his head back and look at the stars and remember the lost smell of incense and the lost faith that had once been a false comfort. The car crash that had killed his bickering parents had ended all that, though his kid brother still believed.
    Except for his brother, Dan, Maguire had been alone in the world since that day, and the only one who’d ever gotten past his shell was Molly, with her tough talk and her soft heart. She’d been his best friend, his mother, his sister, his