Midnight Angels by Lorenzo Carcaterra Read Free Book Online

slow walk back. “You have no idea,” he said.

CHAPTER
6
    K ATE AND MARCO WALKED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF VIA GHIBELLINA heading for number 70, the address of Casa Buonarroti. The residence had originally been three houses which were bought by the sculptor in 1508 and used primarily as rental properties. Upon his death, Michelangelo willed the homes to his nephew, Leonardo, who in turn opened a gallery in the home in 1612 to serve as a memorial to his great-uncle.
    “This is the last street we should be on,” Marco said, speaking in hushed tones even though the street was nearly deserted. “And that is the last house we should be walking toward.”
    “We’ve been followed and chased for the last five days,” Kate said. “I think we both know what they want. What neither of us knows is who they are. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
    “Not at all,” Marco said. “And if we give them what they want, then maybe we’ll never need to know who they are.”
    “Is that why you told your friends what it was that we found?” she asked. It came out sounding like an accusation, which wasn’t what Kate had intended, but which also didn’t seem wrong to her.
    “No,” Marco said, stung by the tone of her words. “I would never betray you. It wasn’t anything at all like what you’re thinking.”
    “But you did betray me,” she said. “I asked you not to tell anyone. I made you promise not to tell anyone. And then, not even two days later, we’re being chased through the streets like fugitives. I need to know who they are, and I can’t find that out if I spend my time hiding. It would be a big help if I knew who it was you told and why.”
    They were standing now across the street from the wooden front doors leading into Casa Buonarroti.
    “We still have an hour until they open,” he said. “Maybe that will be enough time for me to explain.”
    “The truth shouldn’t take that long,” Kate said.
    Marco took a deep breath and gazed up and down both sides of the quiet street. “This is one of the few times I wished I smoked.”
    “But you don’t,” she said, refusing to budge from her hard stance.
    “I barely made it into the fellowship program,” he said, “and I’m sure one big reason I was picked has to do with the fact I’m from Florence and the director wanted at least one student from the city included.”
    “You’re as good, if not better, than anyone in that class,” Kate said. “And I’m not saying that to make you feel better. It happens to be fact.”
    “I love the work,” Marco said. “I always have. It’s just that it comes easier to you and to some of the others. It has never been that way for me. And many of my friends are working at good jobs, and some have started families already. They look at me, at my age still going to school, studying the work of an artist dead for centuries whose name they’re sick of hearing, and they think I’m just wasting my time.”
    “And what they think is important to you?”
    “Yes,” Marco said. “I don’t have anyone back home who’s proud of me. My father died when I was a boy. My mother remarried a few years later, and the last person her new husband wanted to see every night when he walked through the door was me. I moved out as soon as I had the chance and don’t see her much, and when I do there’s not a lot for us to talk about. I’m probably the only single man my age in Italy not living with his mother.”
    Kate leaned against a stone wall and stared across at Michelangelo’s home, letting a calming silence pass between them. “How many of your friends did you tell?” she finally asked.
    “There were five of us in a bar,” Marco said, “two nights after you and I made our discovery. We went for a long walk and then stopped at an outdoor café for a few drinks.”
    “How did it come up in conversation?”
    “It started the way it always does,” Marco said, “and I fall for it every time. Everyone else at the table