Jess nodded. She’d done more than meet him. “But why would he just leave without telling us?” She opened her laptop on the reception counter.
“Maybe he had no choice.” The attendant took a step toward them and lowered his voice. “Dr. Rollins was, how do you say…escorted from the building by two large men. They left in black limousines, molti, all together.”
“Why would you say he had no choice?” Celeste asked in a hushed voice.
The attendant looked left and right. “Non lo so. I just work.”
“Thank you,” Celeste whispered to the attendant. “Thank you, very much.”
“Prego.” The attendant smiled and stepped back to open the door for other guests.
“What, was he kidnapped?” Jess asked her mother.
Celeste looked as mystified as Jess felt. “I don’t know.”
The web took forever to load on Jess’s laptop. Finally, her browser popped to life. Cosmic Hoax? read the top story on her MSN homepage. She scanned the list of articles headlining everything from apocalyptic disaster to conspiracy theories. One image popped out, of riot police lined up behind the flaming burnt out shell of a car: Riots sparked in Los Angeles blamed on cover-up…
“My God.” Celeste held one hand to her mouth.
Jess glanced out the front doors of the hotel, at the crowds in the street outside. Her cell phone pinged. A message from Angela: Sure, come over, but I leave in half an hour. Hurry.
Jess checked her webmail. No messages. Her phone buzzed again. A text from Giovanni again: Are you okay? Where are you staying?
Smiling, Jess texted him back that they were fine, and included Angela’s address—just in case her father managed to get in touch with Giovanni. He knew they’d stayed at the castle.
“Come on, let’s go.” She flipped her laptop closed, stuffed it into her backpack and put it on. “Angela’s home, it’s a ten minute walk. Let’s get somewhere safe.”
“Great.” Celeste grabbed the handle of her rolling carry-on and followed Jess to the entrance. The attendant opened the doors ahead of them, smiling and bowing. “Thank you again,” said Celeste.
An assault of sirens and shouting greeted them outside, cars honking and people yelling. A crush of people walked the street, swamping cars that crept along between them. A policeman on a horse clip-clopped past. A dozen more police wearing white helmets and day-glow yellow vests amassed on the next corner. The Grand Hotel was on a side street next to the Tiber River in the heart of Rome, just a block from the Via dell Conciliazione, the wide boulevard that cut from the Castel Sant’Angelo all the way to St. Peter’s Square at the basilica in the middle of the Vatican.
Celeste stopped and stared at the crowd, then up at dark clouds threatening rain overhead.
“Come on.” Jess grabbed her hand. “We need to hurry. We’ll cross the bridge over the Tiber. Angela’s place is next to Piazza Navona. We need to hurry.”
Jess followed the flow of the crowd, past the knot of nervous-looking police on the corner, onto the Via dell Conciliazione. Looking right, the dome of St. Peter’s loomed over the masses. “Hold on a sec,” she said to Celeste.
Next to the UniCredit Banca on the corner was a concrete pylon lamppost, and Jess pushed through the crowd, grabbed onto the ledge of the pylon and hoisted herself up. She looked down the boulevard. A sea of people flooded all the way along it, fed by tributaries of smaller alleyways, all ending in a jammed crowd of tens of thousands inside St. Peter’s Square. Maybe even hundreds of thousands. She jumped down.
“The Pope announced a speech tomorrow,” said an ancient woman sitting on a bench next to the lamppost. She wore a brown suit jacket with matching skirt and a wide-brimmed hat. A strand of fat pearls sat around her neck. “The Day of the Lord arrives, Judgment Day, that’s what they’re saying.”
“Is that right?”
The old lady worked her arthritic fingers together, purple veins showing through her papery skin. “Oh, no, this is all a game,” she laughed. “War of the Worlds all over again, when Orson fooled us. He’s at it again, the clever deceiver.”
Someone crashed into Jess, almost knocking her over.
“Are you okay?” Celeste grabbed Jess’s arm from behind her.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Jess regained her balance and looked back, but the old lady was gone. Disappeared. What was that about? She shook it off.
“Come on, this way.” Jess grabbed Celeste’s hand and pulled her against the flow of the crowd, back toward the center of Rome across the bridge, under Italian pine trees forming an archway of umbrellas against the dark skies.