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Heedless, half-crazed with fear, she turned left as he had suggested

And then, like Lot’s wife, she turned back

A dottore stood there, in the calle where she had been, between her and the archhere she had seen Roberto

She stood still, startled, watching

The dottore lifted his mask His face re

A knife? Was he a psychotic, hidden behind abehind him like some modern-day Jack the Ripper?

He did not draw out a knife He’d reached into his pocket for cigarettes and athat she would see his face, that it would be important to do so, when he lit the arette She could not see his face, for he bowed his head as he cupped his hands around the erous than if he had pulled out a machete There was a carelessness in his e weapon to torture, destroy, commit murder

She could run, and it would not matter, because he could catch her, no ed breath, fighting for reason, for sanity, for movement She started to back away, then stopped dead

There was a new , felt a second shadow approaching froe cascade, darkness, deeper than night, see she had ever known, assailed her She was paralyzed where she stood, tre violently, unable to do soover her then

She watched it, certain that the dottore saw it, too

He did He backed away, as if fro, "Run!" She ran

And as she did so, shelike an idiot from shadows

No, fro the streets of Venice, the innocent, the unwary

She burst upon a broad calle; the vaporetto stop was right before her People milled there Families, tourists, business people Dear God, she could hardly breathe! Her lungs were killing her, her calves felt as if knives were stuck in theo into cardiac arrest

Because of a arette!

He had just been a costumed reveler, a tourist in love with Carnevale, one of the dozens of people who chose the dottore costume for dress-up

She could think rationally now as she paused, breathing hard, joining the group at the vaporetto stop

Everyone looked normal Unafraid They talked A woman excused herself as she stepped around Jordan to rejoin her group Jordan realized that she had shoved her way right into the center of the crowd

Did fear create fear? Was she doing this in her own mind? What had she actually seen?

A arette

But what about Roberto Capo, shouting at her, warning her away?

A vaporetto arrived She got on, realizing afterward that she didn’t have a ticket, and she didn’t knohere it was going

Luckily, the vaporetto was crowded No one asked her for a ticket After it first stopped sonize, she asked a man in her faulty Italian if the boat went to the area of St

Mark

"Si, si," the man told her "A Hotel Danieli"

She thanked hiot on and off, she found that she was doubting her own sanity again It was like going to a well-, you were transfixed, caught in the fear Then, when the credits rolled and the lights came on, the smell of popcorn and the sounds of conversation caused the fear to slip away She al; perhaps then she could make some sense of it

But she had seen Roberto Capo And he had told her to run!

The vaporetto at last pulled up to the dock at the Danieli She walked up to the hotel, then paused on the street There were so many people out They all seemed fine Was she the only one in the entire city concerned about the fact that a severed head had been found floating in a canal?

She asked for her key, but before she could head to her roo a newspaper There was an empty coffee cup in front of him It appeared that he had been there for so and rising As she walked over to him, he demanded,

"Where the hell have you been?"

She arched a brow at his tone "That’s really none of your business"

"Your cousin has been worried sick"

A s I went out"

"I orried"