“Excuse me,” Daisy said, a little frightened.

  He enjoyed that look in her eye. “My guys think the woman lied to the monks. She never wanted to raise the kids, and her crew placed them abroad, split them up. Question is, why bother? Now the Fredericis were never a big crew, never a big family. I think whoever picked ’em was smart, because they don’t arouse much interest. Kept to themselves, not big producers,” his lip curled in contempt, “nothing but local shit. They would have got paid nice to bother with this, send someone abroad.”

  “The man who died in jail … whom did he kill?”

  “Very good,” Salerni said, winking at Poppy. “He was found guilty of killing a Mrs. Harrison.”

  Daisy recognized the name. “The woman who fronted the agency I was adopted from, who then disappeared.”

  “Right. She went to Blackpool and was shot. The Frederici guy got caught.”

  “So.” Rose was working it out in her head. “Someone pays the Fredericis to take us from the monastery, and then send us abroad. They hire people to make fake adoption agencies and then to make sure nobody talks, they kill those people. Except that one of their crew got caught, died in prison. He was the only link back.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then the question is, who hired the Fredericis, and why?”

  Salerni took over. “I found the whole thing intriguing, at this point. I had my people keep hammering. Why … you must have mattered to someone. A lotta trouble, just over three anonymous girls. And there aren’t a whole bunch of triplets born, least not before they made up those fertility drugs. It got easier after I knew the date.”

  All three girls looked interested.

  “About seventy-two,” Salerni informed them. “They may have put false ages on you at the three agencies. Anyway, you could have been peasant kids, but not likely … why would anybody go to such trouble over peasants? I thought maybe you were daughters of some family, maybe smuggled out to stop a vendetta. But you were all girls. Nobody bothers when it’s girls.” He grinned at Poppy’s outraged face. “That’s the truth, toots. Nobody thinks a girl will come after them.”

  “Don’t they,” Rose said softly.

  Salerni looked approving at her tone, and nodded. “So I assumed you were born in a hospital. We checked records. There were only four sets of all-girl triplets recorded that year. One set was premature, died early. Two other sets are still living, but they are accounted for. The last set also died.”

  Daisy was disappointed. “So no hospital records…”

  “I didn’t say that. The premature babies I wrote off, because they died in the hospital. But the last set died in a fire. Their bodies were never found.” He shook his head. “I didn’t buy that; did some checking. These were rich girls, very rich. Their father was Count Luigi Parigi, and right before the fire, he died in a shooting accident. His skull was found in the woods, years later; they identified it by dental records. If you believe that.”

  “Parigi,” Daisy said. “I think I saw that name before, in Hello!. But it wasn’t a count, it was a prince.”

  Salerni nodded. “The Prince was first cousin to the Count. Still is. Your cousin.”

  Rose felt her heart start to race. Her palms were sweating. “How can you be so sure? How can you know that?”

  “It’s simple,” Salerni said, mildly, but with complete assurance. “Who stands to benefit from the hit? That’s the one that does it. This Roberto was working for his cousin. He’s the elder branch, but they got all the money. Anyhow … when the Count has children, he leaves his company to them. But if the Count, and then his wife and daughters, all die in a tragic ‘accident’…” He shrugged again. “The Prince inherited everything.”

  “But how much can it have been? He was a prince, wasn’t he wealthy? Why go to the trouble?”

  “It was worth it,” Salerni assured them. “The firm was worth billions. Your billions.” He lifted his glass to them. “Salud … Contesse.”

  “This is crazy,” Poppy muttered, but Daisy was bright-eyed. “Can you prove it?” she said eagerly.

  “Absolutely not,” Salerni said. “You can try, but it’ll never happen; trail’s too cold.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Rose said, softly.

  Sixty-Five

  Rome was everything Rose had ever imagined. She sat with Daisy and Poppy in the back of their hired limousine, resting her head against the tinted windows, exhausted after the long Al Italia flight. The girls had sat together in first class, sipping champagne and discussing everything except the reason they were here. None of them wanted to talk about it, in case they were overheard; who knew where a man like Roberto Parigi had his spies?

  Rose had quietly read some back issues of Business Week, Forbes, and The Economist which covered the Parigi billions. She felt the anger simmer and seethe in her belly with each passing page. She now felt almost as exhausted by her emotions as she was by the flight.

  But this was Rome; and Poppy and Daisy were oohing and aahing with each sight which slipped by their windows; there was the Circus Maximus, and the great ruined palace on the Palatine hill; and the pyramid of Caius Cestius, white and gleaming, incongruous in the Roman city; and lastly, the great curve of the Colosseum and the pillars and arches of the great Roman Forum. Rose couldn’t help but look; she felt a strong pull, a real sense of being home.

  Because she was an Italian. And so had her father been.

  Before they got on the flight, Daisy had insisted they find out everything about their birth parents. A Nexus search had revealed old photographs from the late Sixties: a handsome father, on a yacht at Cannes, with his wife, a gypsy. “A gypsy!” Poppy had exclaimed, her eyes wide with shock. “And look … Look!” She pointed at the eyes, distorted by the pixels of the comport screen, but still unmistakable. Wolf-white, with flecks of silver, shocking in the aristocratic, haughty olive-skinned face. Daisy clutched at her, and all three women felt first the moment of communion, then sadness, and then, lastly, rage.

  “We’re our mother’s daughters,” Daisy muttered, “that’s for sure.”

  Rose said nothing. She turned instead to pictures of Roberto Parigi, and there were plenty, because he was still alive. Unlike her parents. And he was waiting for them.

  “Loves the high life,” Poppy said, furiously. Parigi was pictured everywhere, consorting with Eurotrash, minor princelings from Monaco and Liechtenstein, attending film premieres, opera house openings. He had never married, but was photographed with an interchangeable selection of young blond bimbos. He also did not work, but simply hired the best people to do the work for him.

  “He’s prospered,” Daisy said, grimly.

  “Up to now,” Rose answered. “But maybe he knows we’re coming. When Janus started digging, that sent up a red flag, enough to warn them off. He knows you, at least, are looking.”

  “Then we should move fast,” Poppy said.

  Rose grinned and extracted three first-class tickets from the inside pocket of her jacket. “We leave first thing tomorrow. Let’s go get this jerk before he decides to come and get us.”

  They had all made phone calls, cleared a couple of weeks. Nobody wanted to do anything else. They couldn’t think of weddings right now, or record companies or books.

  They had seen the fire in their mother’s eyes. And the face of the man who had put it out.

  The sleek black car wound its way through the narrow streets of Rome, over cobbled roads and through passageways of buildings of ocher-colored stone, covered in clematis and ivy, past little sidewalk trattorias where tourists sat outside, sipping their drinks; and finally pulled to a halt at the top of the Spanish Steps, disturbing a cloud of pigeons.

  “This the hotel?” Poppy said, stepping out, her eyes hidden behind huge Sophia Loren-style sunglasses.

  Rose nodded, tipping the chauffeur some lire as he removed their Louis Vuitton bags and handed them to a bellhop. “The Hassler. You’ll like it. It’s the best hotel in Rome, so Don Salerni says, and he should know.”

  They checked in and were shown to their suite. An opulent living room, with fantastic views toward the great dome of St. Peter’s, led out to a marble-and-gold bathroom the size of Rose’s old apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, and there were two gorgeous bedrooms, one with a king-size canopy bed, the other with two twin beds each draped in chiffon. There were cut-crystal vases everywhere, crammed with roses, and a bowl of fruit, as well as a silver ice-bucket on a stand containing a magnum of Cristal.

  “Very nice.” Poppy yawned. “I’ll take the single room.”

  “As long as I can have the bathroom first,” Daisy said, deftly slipping past Rose and locking herself in.

  “Bitch,” Poppy cursed. “I need a shower.”

  “You’re going last,” Rose grinned, “since you dived on the single room. I bet Daisy snores, too.”

  Poppy yawned and reached for a peach. She took a bite; it was delicious, golden-fleshed and rich and juicy.

  “I could get used to this fast,” she said.

  “Don’t get too used to it,” Rose said. “Tomorrow, we go to work.”

  * * *

  The next day dawned bright and clear. The girls showered, and took a room-service breakfast on the terrace overlooking the Spanish Steps; they sipped freshly squeezed juices and nibbled at croissants, and downed thick, bitter black Roman coffee. Except for Poppy.

  “I don’t care how the Romans do it,” she said. “I want bagels and cream cheese. I don’t work on an empty stomach.”

  When the waiter had disappeared, Rose spread out the map of Italy she’d brought with her. “We can hire a car and drive out there. There’s a palazzo, we should see that, and also Don Salerni said the accident happened at a hunting lodge in the hills. I want to go there.”

  “Who knows if it’s still there? They probably built over it.”

  “If it’s where our parents died, I want to see it,” said Rose, and Daisy nodded.

  * * *

  They found the hunting lodge first, or, rather, the site of it. Rose parked their little rented Fiat outside a café in the village of Spolina, a thriving hamlet with a post office, a shop, and two restaurants, both bustling. It had been a long drive out of the city, and the sisters were happy to sit in the shade and drink cool water, then follow it with a wonderful, light young Chianti served from an earthenware flagon.

  “Can we see a menu?” Rose asked.

  The old woman serving them shook her head. “No menu, signorina. Today, Tuesday. Stew. Lepre.”

  “Rabbit,” Rose told the others. “That’s fine,” she said, and the woman bustled back inside and brought them three bowls of something hot and black. Poppy took a sip gingerly, then her face blossomed into a wreath of smiles. “That is incredible,” she said. “That might be the best thing I ever tasted.”

  Daisy tore into it and so did Rose. They were both starving, not having had the benefit of the bagels and cream cheese, and the stew was a revelation: tender, strong-flavored rabbit, bits of unidentified herbs floating around, slow-cooked beans and lentils.

  “I never tasted anything so good, not in any of the fancy restaurants Magnus takes me to,” Daisy said.

  Rose didn’t reply; they were too busy guzzling the food. The black-clad old woman smiled toothlessly and murmured encouraging things in Italian. She seemed delighted when they all asked for another bowl, and when that was finished, she brought out three glasses full of shaved ice, flavored with real lemon.

  “Forget the Hassler,” Poppy said, “I’m never leaving, I’m moving in here.”

  While Daisy licked every last drop from her spoon, Rose asked the old woman in halting Italian about the hunting lodge. She crossed herself, and bent down to Rose, and whispered in her ear. Rose threw a generous amount of money on the table and stood up.

  “She said that road leads up there, into the hills. Nothing was ever built there, because the locals regarded the place as cursed; the gypsy woman died there. She said it was a terrible fire, and the three little girls were killed. People still remember it here.”

  “Let’s go,” Poppy suggested.

  * * *

  They walked for half an hour, sweating in the boiling noonday heat, up the white road covered with pebbles, little more than a dirt track. It was uncomfortable, but none of them complained. They sipped at bottles of water, all three feeling the sense of darkness and foreboding that loomed over them despite the bright sunshine and clear sky.

  Finally, the summit was reached.

  “My God,” Rose breathed. “My God.”

  There was no mistaking it. Someone had done a pretty good job all those years ago; nothing grew on the ground where the lodge had been. It was black and lifeless, a stark shadow in the midst of the green woods which sprung up all around it.

  “I don’t know if it’s my imagination,” Daisy muttered, “but I feel—I just feel sick.”

  All three stared at the dark earth.

  “Nothing natural started this fire,” Poppy said flatly. “I didn’t know what to think, but now I do. I truly believe it. He murdered our parents.”

  She walked forward, slowly, tracing the outline of the lodge, foot by foot, encircling it. Poppy’s heart was racing, but she felt calm, resolute. Her mind flickered back to her parents’ comfortable house in L.A., to MTV and bat mitzvah parties, and learning to drive, and her whole wealthy suburban life; and meanwhile, the other parents who had given her life in the first place, half a world away, had died here, been killed here.

  Poppy felt something. She felt as though she were two people, that the old world, here, now, was calling her, her parents were calling out to her. She felt that they had loved her. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. She had, after all, survived, and been saved. Her parents must have done that. And now she was back here, to give them something. Justice.

  * * *

  Daisy saw Poppy crying; so did Rose. Neither of them said anything. Daisy felt her heart expand in gratitude, gratitude at last to be standing here, to know the truth. She felt distressed, and still nauseous, thinking of a deliberate fire, of her mother burned beyond recognition. But underneath it there was a sense of gratitude. Because at last she knew that she had not been rejected. She had been rescued. Her parents had saved her life; her parents had loved her. She pictured her wild, glamorous mother, the woman in those faded magazine photographs, picking Daisy up and swinging her around, taking her to the beach, her baby hand in her mother’s slim fingers. Normal mother-type things, that she would have done, if anybody had given her a chance.

  Daisy said a quiet prayer for her birth-parents. They had not had that chance, but they had made sure she got one. She looked at Rose and Poppy. She now had her sisters, despite the evil man who had tried to take them from her. Her parents’ memory would not be blotted out. After all, they were a family, and that was what she would take away from this.

  Two sisters. Family. Which he would never be able to destroy.

  * * *

  Rose stared at the scorched earth while Poppy walked around it, weeping, and she felt something connect in her heart, like a circle snapping together. She had always thought of herself as Italian, because her father was, and for her, this felt natural; a homecoming. She wondered what her mother would have wanted. Blood revenge? What would her father have wanted? She had it within herself, at this moment, to be eaten alive with a desire for vengeance. But she knew, even examining this desolate spot where Roberto Parigi had tried to steal her father’s life, his family, his inheritance, that her parents would not have wanted that. Rose thought that maybe there was a spark of Roberto in her. She was from the same gene pool, after all. But he had been consumed by anger and desire for revenge. His desire, true, was groundless, it had been sheer envy; and Rose’s was not. But she was not about to go down the path Roberto had trodden.

  She would have her revenge. Revenge that would please her parents, though; no more blood, because she was better than him.

  She was Luigi and Mozel’s daughter.

  Abruptly, she turned away. She didn’t want to look at the site anymore. “Let’s go to the Palazzo di Parigi, and see if the Principe is at home. We have some business with him.”

  Rose and Poppy started to walk back down the hill. Daisy, with tears glittering in her eyes, kissed her fingertips and placed them against the ground.

  Saying good-bye.

  Sixty-Six

  “What do we have today?”

  Principe Roberto di Parigi turned to his private secretary. It was his usual morning question, delivered in the flawless upper-class accent he took such care to preserve. Roberto never allowed one word of dialect, or the merest hint of a regional tone, to creep into his perfectly modulated Italian.

  Signor Grucci, his assistant, was a small, thin man, with an obsequious manner. He was used to taking abuse from his master. He hated Parigi, but didn’t really care as he was so well paid. The Prince liked to be surrounded by toadies and hangers-on, and he paid enough to ensure he always got the respect he thought he deserved.

  “Tea in the morning at the Eden with Mademoiselle Fleuri,” he intoned, “then after that, Principe, you have a meeting with Signor Oliverio from the company, and you have lunch at the Palazzo Barberini with the art commission to discuss the winter ball…”

  Roberto waved a languid hand. It was hot, and he was a lazy man. He enjoyed sitting on the boards of the important social bodies in Rome; this orchestra, that art gallery; he was a big fish in a small pond, respected and courted, and, most importantly, his name and the name of his house was lionized. But today, Roberto only wanted to see the French model, Elaine Fleuri, with whom he might have some anonymous and selfish sex. Girls like her were little better than high-priced hookers, Roberto thought contemptuously; but he made them submit to his private doctor before taking up with them for a month or so, then dismissing them with some pearls or a pair of diamond earrings. He always had a thug call them afterward to let them know that their mouths should stay as tightly closed as their legs had been wide open. The carrot and the stick.