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"Try the door," Cindy said

Jared did so "Locked Bolted tight"

"I just know that she wouldn’t have forgotten," Jordan said

"But you said that you hadn’t heard froed for a lot of the tickets for Anna Maria’s party," Jared said "I can’t show up too late If she hasn’t even let us in yet "

"Look," Ragnor said, "why don’t you three go on ahead to Anna Maria’s? I’ll wait around here for a while and see if she does show up"

"I think I should stay, too," Jordan said

Now, even Ragnor seeive Tiff a few ed Well, if Tiff did return in the next fewthere for her?alone

She should happily walk off

But sonor said firht," Jordan said at last

She turned and started aith Jared and Cindy Looking back, she saw that he did reure, ar sentinel

"Jordan, coht her arh narrow streets to catch a vaporetto to Anna Maria’s ball

Ragnor watched theo

He waited until he was certain they had rounded the corner Then he tested the lock again The doors were firmly bolted He looked around the square

Darkness, shadows No ah

Then he entered the palazzo

The foyer was elea the woh the roo appeared to be areat bed was neatly made in its silken splendor He turned and started to leave, but then, the faintest hint of an odor teased his senses

Blood

He came to the bed, stared at the silk

There, the tiniest drop

Perhaps Nari hadn’tcard

"Marisa, come on!"

Marisa Kosolovich turned her head to see that her friends, Josef, Ari and Lizabet, aiting for her

She tossed back the rich wealth of her auburn hair, i at the bar at the trattoria, and while her friends had spent some of their precious ht for her by the tall Italian , but he wasn’t old, so, a businessht hazel eyes and a quick s it sound as if they had co the world, rather than a group from a war-torn nation on a bus that was now parked near the train station They were nearly broke, sleeping on the bus that had brought the to come with no accoht see the sights and sounds of Venice at Carnevale

She sighed The others seemed fine with their situation She was not She’d actually planned on finding some Americans?they usually had the n accent She liked Aet to Ae to dole out food, they had all been taken with her She’d developed the plan then to h for her to get to know any of the h, that she was beautiful They had said it with their eyes as well as their words

And et away

Carnevale was always full of foreigners?lots of thehts the bus stayed in Venice she could find the right person

She had chosen the trattoria for their splurge, and there hadn’t been a single A her an espresso and offering her so to eat She’d accepted the espresso but deh She didn’t want to look hungry, that must be it And she didn’t want to look like a woman ould balloon into someone as round as a to stern Ari just looked iether as couples, just friends They cae Or as left of it

She lifted a finger, ready to swing back into conversation with the tall Italian businessman But, to her disappoint event had come on the television over the bar, and his back was actually to her

"Marisa! The music starts in the square any minute! "Josef announced Tall, skinny and aard, Josef had gone the last few years without enough to eat

She left the bar and came to the door "Marisa, you et the wrong idea"

Ari and Lizabet were already walking ahead "And ould the wrong idea be, Josef?" she asked

"That you are easy, that we are easy?that we are left with no pride, no sense of self-worth"

"That would be a wrong idea?" she queried

"Our hoer character," he adain and again Bombs will fall" Josef shook his head "No, there is peace now And ill rebuild"