The Baron leaned over and said softly, “Vieni, Hector, let’s greet our other guests.” He straightened up and smiled at Celeste. “I am trying to teach him English,” he explained, then turned and walked to the front of the room, holding his hand out to the other tourists. Hector trailed Giovanni, his eyes still glued to Jess.
“I think he likes your hair,” whispered Celeste to her daughter.
“Who?” Jess was still flustered. “The Baron?”
Celeste laughed. “No, Hector.” She reached to hold her daughter’s hand. “I think Baron Giovanni was interested in more than your hair.”
“Mom!” Jess’s cheeks burned.
“He kissed your hand, not mine, and the way he stared at you?” Celeste smiled at her daughter. “A barone.” She pronounced the word in Italian, baro-nay. “Now how much money do you need for this lawyer business you’ve—”
The door behind them swung open again. A grizzled face lined with deep creases poked its way in; above the furrowed brow, fly-away white hair sprouted in clumps from a deeply tanned scalp. The old man pulled a pipe out from between his teeth with stumpy fingers on a hand like a meat hook. “Barone,” the old man growled, “Polizia all'ingresso.”
The Baron turned from chatting with the tour guests. “Polizia?” he asked the old man. “Qualcosa con… controversia?”
The old man shook his head. “Non la controversia.” He turned his eyes from the Baron to glance at Jess. “Qualcos'altro,” he grunted, frowning at Jess before closing the door.
Even with Jess’s limited Italian, she understood: Police. At the entrance. The other part she didn’t understand—something about a controversy? That part didn’t seem to have anything to do with her, but from the old man’s body language, it was clear these police were here for her. How did they find her so fast?
Swearing under her breath, Jess remembered leaving an itinerary for this trip pinned to Ricardo’s fridge. “Mom, can we go?”
The third floor of the museum was one large hall, sixty feet long, separated into three twenty-foot square rooms connected by a wide hallway down one side with large windows facing the courtyard. Jess and Celeste stood by the door to the main entrance, next to the windows, with the tour guide and the other couple standing on the other side of the room. Down the hallway from Jess and Celeste, at the opposite end, was another exit that led onto a balcony.
Jess glanced over her left shoulder, through one of the large lead-glass windows. Two police officers, in short-sleeve blue shirts with red-striped pants and peaked hats emblazoned with a gold feather, stood at the closed iron gates of the castle. “I need to get out of here,” she whispered, flicking her chin at the back entrance down the hallway.
Celeste saw the panic in her daughter’s eyes and gripped her hand tighter.
“Excuse me.” The Baron stood in front of them again.
Jess thought he was going to grab hold of her, drag her outside for the police—that somehow the old man had communicated something to him—but he eased himself between Jess and Celeste and opened the door behind them. He stopped and turned. “Could you watch Hector for a moment?” he asked Jess and Celeste. “Please? Nico is here, in all cases.”
Panic rising, Jess looked down. The boy stared up at her. Why was the Baron asking them to look after his son? Why was a Baron even talking to them at all?
“Of course,” Celeste replied. She took Hector’s hand. The Baron disappeared out the door.
Celeste and Jess both craned their necks to look out the window across the gravel courtyard. The Baron had already made his way down the two flights of exterior stairs. The old man stood by the gate, staring at the police. They gesticulated, seemingly to convince the old man to open the gates, but he stared at them coolly and puffed his pipe.
Jess looked from the window at her mother, now holding little Hector’s hand. Hector tried to reach up to Jess as well, but she shrugged him off. “I’m going out the back,” Jess said over the top of Hector to her mother, “I’ll call you later.”
Celeste grimaced. “Jessica, we can talk to them, you don’t always need to run away.”
But Jess had already turned to stride off, glancing left through the windows as she passed them, leaving her mother's admonishing words behind. The Baron was talking to the police now. He glanced up at the museum. Jess looked back at her mother, still holding Hector’s hand, watching in disbelief as Jess fled.
Jess reached the back door, and without hesitation she grabbed and tried to turn the handle. It was jammed. With both hands she gripped the door handle, and after two tugs it turned. She stepped outside onto a small deck leading down a rocky slope into a grove of fir trees lining that side of the castle.