Playing With Fire: A Novel by Tess Gerritsen

Author:Tess Gerritsen [Gerritsen, Tess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, United States, Women's Fiction, Contemporary Women, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense, Psychological Thrillers, Suspense, Contemporary Fiction, Psychological, Thrillers
ISBN: 9781101884348
Amazon: B00UEL0I4I
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2015-10-26T16:00:00+00:00

13

Out into the night he went, his scarf wrapped around his face to ward off any unwelcome stares. The air raid sirens continued their unceasing wails, as if the sky itself were shrieking in despair. Drawn out of their homes on this strange night, a small crowd had gathered in the Campo della Carità, hungry for news and trading rumors. Had this been a real air raid, Death would have found them out in the open, doomed by their own curiosity. But like every other night before it, no bombs fell on Venice, and those who lingered too long outside suffered only from cold hands and feet, and in the morning, from bleary-eyed regret that they had gone to bed so late.

No one saw the young man who slipped past them in the shadows.

On this night of mist and chaos, Lorenzo made his way unnoticed across the bridge and through the neighborhood of San Polo. His greatest challenge lay ahead: how to move his family out of the city before daybreak. Could Mama make it all the way to Padua on foot? Should they send Marco and Pia ahead? If the family split up, how and where would they reunite?

He heard screams and the sound of shattering glass, and he darted for the shadows. Peering around the corner, he watched as a man and woman were dragged out of a house and forced to their knees in the street. Broken shards of glass rained from an upstairs window, followed by books and papers that tumbled down like wounded birds, to land in an ever-growing pile on the street. The kneeling woman sobbed and pleaded, but the air raid sirens drowned out her cries.

A match flame flickered to life in the darkness. Tossed onto the mound of papers, the flame quickly bloomed into an inferno.

Lorenzo backed away from the brightening firelight and darted down a different street to circle north, through Santa Croce. As he crossed the bridge into Cannaregio, he spied the hellish glow of another fire ahead. My street. My house.

He sprinted around the corner to Calle del Forno and stared in horror at the bonfire roaring in the street, devouring a mound of books. Grandpapa’s books. Scattered across the cobblestones was a sea of broken glass, the shards reflecting the firelight like small pools of flame.

The door to his home was splintered wide open. He did not need to step inside to see the destruction within: the shattered crockery, the ripped curtains.

“They’re gone, Lorenzo!” a girl’s voice called out.

He spun around and saw his twelve-year-old neighbor Isabella watching him forlornly from across the street. “The police took them away. Then the Blackshirts came and set fire to everything. They were like crazy people. Why did they have to break the dishes? Papa told me to stay inside, but I saw it from my window. I saw the whole thing.”

“Where are they? Where is my family?”

“They’re at Marco Foscarini. Everyone is there.”

“Why were they taken to the school?”

“The policeman said they’re going to be sent to a work camp.

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