The Florentine Exchange by Dayle A. Dermatis

Author:Dayle A. Dermatis [Dermatis, Dayle A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Soul's Road Press

Libby tapped the gold-and-pearl pin at her shoulder, activating the sound cancelling that would pick the ambient music—a string quartet in the next room—rather than their conversation.

“I think my partner has been compromised,” she said to her contact. “She sent me here in her place. Check the information on the drive carefully. She tried to replace it, but I found what I believe is the original, which I’m giving to you.”

“Why don’t you give me both?” he asked.

Fair question. “I need proof about what she’s done.”

He nodded slowly, and reached into his pocket, presumably to retrieve the drive he’d exchange for hers.

She’d turned from the frescoed wall once he’d arrived, keeping a casual eye on the room. She saw Antonia, dressed as waitstaff in an ill-fitting red vest, a black wig not disguise enough. She froze.

“She’s here,” she murmured. “I have to go. We’ll reschedule the drop. I'm sorry.”

He was already scanning the crowd, but Libby was gone, ducking left and then right through the partygoers, losing herself in the small crowd. It wasn’t easy at her height, but most people had imbibed at least one drink, and she’d learned how to hunch, to make herself less obvious.

Her heart pounded in her throat. Antonia must have discovered the missing thumb drive faster than Libby had expected.

If Antonia wanted that drive, she’d stop at nothing to get it. Libby was sure of that. Antonia might be a casual slob, might take her duties lightly, but she had an undercurrent of steeliness that she’d tried to hide from Libby.

Unbeknownst to Antonia, she’d failed at that.

Libby threw her ticket at the coat check attendant and forced herself not to grab her own bag, but let the attendant hand it to her. She had to not be too obvious, too memorable. That meant people would pay attention. Remember her.

She ducked into the ladies room, locked the door, and yanked things out of her shopping bag.

A few moments later, she exited the back door—the waitstaff were too busy to notice her, even as unassuming as she was.

Her shapeless black dress was padded so she looked heavier, and she hunched her shoulders. She’d changed her shoes to black, soft-soled laceups, one of which had a pebble in it to throw her gait off, make her limp slightly. Half of her hair was shoved under a big straw hat that obscured her face; the other half straggled down, giving the impression that her hair was thinner than it was.

The rest of her belongings, including the high-end shopping bag, were stuff in a generic woven-string market bag.

All of it told the casual eye: I’m old. I’m nobody. I’m an average, unassuming Italian matriarch headed home to make dinner.

It was only a ten-minute walk to the Arno River, but she took a good forty minutes, wandering down alleys and side streets, alert to any sign of a tail.

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