Page 11 of The Honeymoon Heist

“It’s on the way. Let me know when you see them.”

Their rudimentary plan was simple—depending on which direction the family chose, one would end up following, and the other would break into their room for a look around. If the group had gone high, Buck would have entered the room, but they were coming to him, so it would be Miles. As long as Buck had his eyes on the family, Miles would be safe to root around like an unwanted cleaning crew—which is what they were, after stealing a couple of key cards from a maid’s cart.

Buck waved for the waiter and paid his bill, all the while keeping an eye on the upper staircase. A steady stream of people kept popping out from the staircase walls, some walking with a purpose to the lower staircase, others wandering around lost, glancing left and right for the entrance. None of them looked like what Miles had described.

Then a young girl appeared, with dark skin, dark hair, and eyes that were striking. Behind her came a woman who looked like a surfer, with her blond hair in a ponytail, her lithe body clad in a sundress, smiling at the child. She turned around and grabbed the hand of someone else, jerking forward, and a man popped out. Buck saw exactly what Miles had described. Over six feet tall, wearing a simple T-shirt and shorts, he had not an ounce of fat on him, his body framed in muscle. With close-cropped brown hair and a scar that tracked a path through his eyebrow into his cheek, helookedlike a pipe-hitter. Maybe that wasn’t the case, but he definitely didn’t fit in with the people he was with.

In fact, none of them fit together. The child looked Italian, and the woman looked like she’d make money modeling swimsuits. She most definitely wasn’t the mother of the child, and most definitely didn’t fit in with the man she was dragging along. He looked like he’d be just as happy cracking skulls in a dark alley as walking the streets of Positano, and there was no way a woman with her appearance would be with him—unless he was paying her for the pleasure. But that made no sense. Why pay for an escort and include a child? What was the point of that?

Maybe Guido One was on to something. Maybe this “family” was more than it appeared.

They crossed the street, and he waited a few seconds for them to begin the arduous trek to the bottom, then sprinted to catch up.

He spotted them fairly quickly and stayed one group behind. He expected to see them just smartly walk down the stairs, as he’d already decided in his mind that they were all thrown together for a specific reason, but their actions belied that.

For starters, he saw the woman kiss the man on the lips like she wanted to, wrapping her arms around his neck. And the man treated the child as if he truly cared about her, joking and teasing her on the way down the stairs. The capstone was them stopping at the various local craft shops along the route, with the woman shopping and the man patiently waiting. None of that would happen if he was paying her, or if this was a setup.

It was confusing.

They reached the bottom of the stairwell, a long stretch that ended in the heart of the town about a hundred meters from the ocean, which would allow them to go multiple different directions. He sped up, skipping down the stairs, and reached the landing in time to see them disappear into one of the small alleys of Positano.

He saw the tall man’s head through the crowd and followed, keeping his distance with a crowd between him and them. They went down one alley after another, and then started climbing higher, stopping at an old church for a moment, looking at a map of some ruins, then moving on. Eventually, they reached an art gallery set in a courtyard full of trees. They talked a little bit and then entered. He followed, seeing a sign describing a retrospective of Caravaggio, which caused his first spike. He was no art critic, but evenheknew the painting that Miles had forged was a Caravaggio. Was this the art show Salvatore talked about?

He followed them in, seeing paintings threaded throughout the space, all from the master painter Caravaggio. Several Italian police were interspersed through the crowd, staring at everyone who entered. He smiled as he wandered about, wondering if he needed a ticket. He did not. He continued on, seeing the “family” stop at a painting, then heard something he really wished he hadn’t.

The girl said, “That’s the painting from the cave! That’s the one we saw!”

The curator of the gallery approached them, engaging them in conversation in a good-hearted way, asking her what she meant about a cave. The scar-faced man pulled the child away, saying she was mistaken. Buck watched the face of the surfer woman, and she looked ashen, like she’d heard something she didn’t want to as well.

Nothing else happened in the art gallery, but the next meeting really set him on edge.

The family exited the building, went into various shops as they wound themselves through the cloistered alleys, and then stopped outside the church that was being excavated. The church apparently had some Roman ruins underneath it that held no interest to Buck, but the people the family met did.

The woman, who’d been nothing more than arm candy all day long, stepped forward and started talking to a uniformed police officer. Talking to him like she had a reason to do so, with an earnestness that belied her surfer appearance. And then the man stepped in, saying something that took the officer aback, causing him to wave his arms.

They settled down, with the officer talking into his radio, and Buck had seen enough.

He pulled out his phone and called Miles.

“What did you find?”

“Nothing. You were right the first time. They’re just a bunch of tourists.”

Buck said, “No, they aren’t. There’s something more. They aren’t here for the scenery. They’re here for the painting.”

Confused, Miles said, “What? What do you mean?”

“Just get out and meet me. I have to call Guido One.”

Miles said something else, but Buck wasn’t listening. He hung up the phone and dialed his contact. When the phone was answered, he said, “We need to talk.”

Chapter 8

I waited for what seemed like hours to get a glass of water, and glared at Jennifer, incensed that her idea of experiencing the “best” of Positano was a restaurant that appeared to treat us like a group of homeless people for the crime of telling them we had a reservation.

Jennifer saw the glower and said, “Pike, everything is slower here.”

I said, “Slower? Yeah, I get that, but come on. We’ve been here ten minutes and don’t even have a menu.”

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