“Me neither. Totally overrated activity! Say, you’re kinda cute in a—wuh-oh.” Then he bent at the waist, as if bowing to the lake, and threw up what she assumed was a bellyload of Negronis.
Goddammit. If I’d known he was going to spray me with his DNA, I wouldn’t have bothered breaking into his hotel room in the first place!
Not for the first time, she questioned the wisdom of introducing Rake to the girl who could be his daughter.
Six
“I threw my own wallet into Lake Como?”
“Stop screamin’, I hear fine.”
“I. Threw. My. Wallet. Into. Lake. Como?” he whispered, eyes big.
“Yep.”
“Wow!” From the child. “And it didn’t even bounce. No wonder you’re upset.”
“I’d like to say I can’t believe it, but it sounds pretty believable.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then winced, no doubt because he caught another whiff of himself. They were sitting (alone, natch—the one other couple cleared off when they saw/smelled/heard Rake) in one of Venice’s fifteen thousand outdoor cafés, Osteria al Portego. He was starting to dry out and, if anything, he looked worse. The spring sunshine beating down on him wasn’t helping, either. He was drinking glass after glass of carbonated water (or acqua frizzante, as he insisted on calling it each and every time and, needless to say, she was paying), and looking beyond aggravated. “Because I was out of cash and my cards weren’t working.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then how’d I get to Venice?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t. She’d had other concerns—meeting up with Teresa to secure the kiddo, checking the progress of the Big Pipe Dream, laundry, etc. “I think you must have talked one of your would-be muggers into giving you a ride, and checked in with his card. Somehow.”
She still couldn’t figure it. He’d been so drunk, he could hardly stand, but he had tried to come to her rescue, then given her the slip and gotten a stranger—a thwarted mugger!—to give him a ride. Or one of Kovac’s hired thugs? And talked him out of his shirt, apparently? Since he’d gotten barf all over his when he’d puked on the beach? Then stole that same bad guy’s wallet? Or at least just a credit card? Perhaps he seduced the lobby staff.
Or maybe the men who’d been on her tail were now on his, which was disturbing to contemplate.
“I was kinda surprised to see you climbing out of the canal.” Surprised, relieved, a little grossed out … she thought she’d picked the perfect spot to wait for him with Lillith, but her plan’s shortcomings were instantly visible when he swan-dived into a cesspool. Who could anticipate something like that?
“Did not jump. Did not— Wait. So who are you?”
“Oh. Sorry. Claire Delaney.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said automatically, extending a hand. She shook it, shrugged. It wasn’t nice to meet her, and they both knew it.
“And this might be your daughter, Lillith.”
“It means ‘of the night,’” Lillith said helpfully.
“Of course it does.” Bemused, Rake shook her small hand. “Who’s your mom?
“Donna Alvah.”
“Ah-ha! Argh!” He clutched his temples. “Too soon for yelling—yeah, that’s what I thought. I don’t know any Donna Alvah. I don’t know any Donnas at all. You’ve got the wrong guy, kid.”
“Your DNA might beg to differ.”
He snorted. “Sure it might, Claire. Which is— You don’t look—I mean, that’s an old-fashioned name. Nice, though,” he added, as if worried she’d be offended.
“I’m named for my grandmother. But everybody calls me Delaney.”
“Of course they do. Now that makes sense. Because you definitely look like a Delaney.”
“Yeah? What’s a Delaney look like?”
“Uh…”
“Too tall, with a big mouth and tiny eyes, and big feet with absurdly small hands?” But she said it matter-of-factly. There were roughly eight thousand more important things in life to worry about than her looks.
“Well … not absurdly small…” His gaze dropped to her hands anyway. “Not, uh, Dooneese on SNL small.”
“Who?”
“Kristen Wiig? Played a character with a big forehead and a snaggletooth and tiny weird doll hands on Saturday Night Live?”
“Are we seriously talking about this when you should be worrying about having a daughter but not having money or an ID?”
“Hey, you’re right!” At once, he was irritated all over again. “So you just let me do all that stupid stuff? Agh, shit, sorry. You’re not my babysitter.”
Wrong. “Right.”
“I’m normally way more charming than this.”
“I don’t doubt it.” And she didn’t. Even drunk off his ass, Rake had something that pulled people in. “Anyway, as the song says, you were once lost but now you are found. In Venice.”
He frowned. “You saw me in Lake Como as well as here? Quite a coincidence.”
“Yes,” she agreed, straight-faced. “Americans never go to Lake Como and Venice.”
“No, I mean … how’d you even know where to look?”
“Well…”
“Are you a private detective or something?”
“Um…”
Seven
“Y’know what city fuck—fuckin’ rules? Fucking Venice! Okay, it’s just like a regular city with roads, but see, the thing is—it’s old! And no roads! Just water! All of it! Goddamned place is drowning, and they even have water buses, y’know, the vaporettos? Cuz, again: water! C’est merveilleux! No, wait, wrong language—è meravigliosa! That’s it, right? So Venice, and all the water—I’m gonna—I’m gonna go there. I mean—I’m not s’pose to. There’s kind of a ban, but who keeps track of that stuff? Cuz I like Venice, though it’s weird. Maybe ’cause it’s weird an’ I wanna go back, I think. I like the water streets. And the guys who drive the boats! They always have the best stories. S’different, y’know? Venice! Fucking Venice, here I come!”
Eight
“Oh my God.”
She had to give it to him, he sounded pretty appalled.
“Well,” Lillith said, “you weren’t wrong. Venice is great!”
“I hope you picked up on the irony of loving ‘fucking Venice’ because of the water—”
“I know.”
“—and then when you got here—”
“I get the irony!”
“Plop! Into the drink with you.”
“Just stop now. God, this, this is why vermouth is the devil’s urine.”
“Don’t have to tell me. I’ve seen you barf.”
From Lillith: “Twice!”
She glanced at her watch. Putting Rake at ease in a nice restaurant on a beautiful spring day while she picked up the bill was not on the itinerary. Her employer needed him foundering, lost, broke, and laden with child. She needed him (and the forthcoming payoff) safe.