Tess Gerritsen - The Mephisto Club

“Carol. Is that your real name?”

She paused, her hand on the knob. “It’s as good a name as any.”

“You say you need a job. What can you do?”

She looked at him. “I’ll do anything. I can clean homes, wait on tables. But I have to be paid in cash.”

“Your Italian is very good.” He looked her over, thinking. “I have a cousin, here in the city,” he finally said. “She organizes tours.”

“What kind of tours?”

“To the Forum, the basilica.” He shrugged. “You know, all the usual places tourists go in Rome. Sometimes she needs guides who speak English. But they must have an education.”

“I do! I have a college degree in classical studies.” Fresh hope made her heart suddenly thud faster. “I know a great deal about history, actually. About the ancient world.”

“But do you know about Rome?”

Lily gave a sudden laugh and set down her backpack. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I do.”

Maura stood on the ice-glazed sidewalk, gazing up at the Beacon Hill residence where the windows were invitingly aglow. Firelight flickered in the front parlor, just as it had on the night she’d first stepped through the door, lured by the dancing flames, by the promise of a cup of coffee. Tonight what drew her up the steps was curiosity, about a man who both intrigued her and, she had to admit, frightened her a little. She rang the bell and heard it chime inside, echoing through rooms she had yet to see. She expected the manservant to answer the bell and was startled when Anthony Sansone himself opened the door.

“I wasn’t sure you’d actually come,” he said as she stepped inside.

“Neither was I,” she admitted.

“The others will be arriving later. I thought it’d be nice for the two of us to talk first, alone.” He helped her off with her coat and pushed open the secret panel to reveal the closet. In this man’s house, the walls themselves hid surprises. “So why did you decide to come after all?”

“You said we had common interests. I want to know what you mean by that.”

He hung up her coat and turned, a looming figure dressed in black, his face burnished in gold from the firelight. “Evil,” he said. “That’s what we have in common. We’ve both seen it up close. We’ve looked into its face, smelled its breath. And felt it staring back at us.”

“A lot of people have seen it.”

“But you’ve known it on a deeply personal level.”

“You’re talking about my mother again.”

“Joyce tells me that no one’s yet been able to tally all of Amalthea’s victims.”

“I haven’t followed that investigation. I’ve stayed out of it. The last time I saw Amalthea was in July, and I have no plans to ever visit her again.”

“Ignoring evil doesn’t make it go away. It’s still there, still part of your life-”

“Not part of mine.”

“-right down to your DNA.”

“An accident of birth. We’re not our parents.”

“But on some level, Maura, your mother’s crimes must weigh down on you. They must make you wonder.”

“Whether I’m a monster, too?”

“ Do you wonder that?”

She paused, acutely aware of how intently he was watching her. “I’m nothing like my mother. If anything, I’m her polar opposite. Look at the career I’ve chosen, the work I do.”

“A form of atonement?”

“I have nothing to atone for.”

“Yet you’ve chosen to work on behalf of victims. And justice. Not everyone makes that choice, or does it as well and as fiercely as you do. That’s why I invited you tonight.” He opened the door to the next room. “That’s why I want to show you something.”

She followed him into a wood-paneled dining room, where the massive table was already set for dinner. Five place settings, she noted, surveying the crystal stemware and gleaming china edged in cobalt and gold. Here was another fireplace, with flames dancing in the hearth, but the cavernous room with its twelve-foot ceiling was on the chilly side, and she was glad she’d kept on her cashmere sweater.

“First, a glass of wine?” he asked, holding up a bottle of Cabernet.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He poured and handed her the glass, but she scarcely glanced at it; she was focused instead on the portraits hanging on the walls. A gallery of faces, both men and women, gazed through the patina of centuries.

“These are only a few,” he said. “The portraits my family managed to procure over the years. Some are modern copies, some are mere representations of what we think they looked like. But a few of these portraits are original. As these people must have appeared in life.” He crossed the room to stand before one portrait in particular. It was of a young woman with luminous dark eyes, her black hair gently gathered at the nape of her neck. Her face was a pale oval, and in that dim and firelit room, her skin seemed translucent and so alive that Maura could almost imagine the throb of a pulse in that white neck. The young woman was partly turned toward the artist, her burgundy gown glinting with gold threads, her gaze direct and unafraid.

“Her name was Isabella,” said Sansone. “This was painted a month before her marriage. The portrait required quite a bit of restoration. There were scorch marks on the canvas. It was lucky to survive the fire that destroyed her home.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Yes, she was. To her great misfortune.”

Maura frowned at him. “Why?”

“She was married to Nicolo Contini, a Venetian nobleman. By all accounts it was a very happy marriage, until”-he paused-“until Antonino Sansone destroyed their lives.”

She looked at him in surprise. “That’s the man in the portrait? In the other room?”

He nodded. “My distinguished ancestor. Oh, he was able to justify all his actions in the name of rooting out the Devil. The church sanctioned it all-the torture, the bloodletting, the burnings at the stake. The Venetians in particular were quite expert at torture and creative at devising ever more brutal instruments to extract confessions. No matter how outlandish the accusations, a few hours in the dungeon with Monsignore Sansone would make almost anyone plead guilty to his charges. Whether the accusation was practicing witchcraft, or casting spells against your neighbors, or consorting with the Devil, confessing to any and all of it was the only way to make the pain stop, to be granted the mercy of death. Which, in itself, was not so merciful, since most of them were burned alive.” He gazed around the room, at the portraits. The faces of the dead. “All these people you see here suffered at his hand. Men, women, children-he made no distinction. It’s said he awakened each day, eager for the task, that he cheerfully fortified himself with a hearty morning meal of bread and meat. Then he’d don his blood-splattered robes and go to work, rooting out heretics. On the street outside, even through thick stone walls, passersby could hear the screams.”

Maura’s gaze circled the room, taking in the faces of the doomed, and she imagined these same faces bruised and contorted in pain. How long had they resisted? How long had they clung to the hope of escape, a chance to live?

“Antonino defeated them all,” he said. “Except for one.” His gaze was back on the woman with the luminous eyes.

“Isabella survived?”

“Oh, no. No one survived his attentions. Like all the others, she died. But she was never conquered.”

“She refused to confess?”

“Or submit. She had only to implicate her husband. Renounce him, accuse him of sorcery, and she might have lived. Because what Antonino really wanted wasn’t her confession. He wanted Isabella herself.”