CHAPTER ONE
“The train to Florence leaves in an hour.” Iain
was watching her from the doorway with a puzzled look on his face.
“Don’t you think it might be a good time to start packing?” His
bags were already waiting in the foyer.
“Why would I want to bring any clothes?” Haven
tried to joke. She took a slow sip of coffee and gazed down from
the balcony at the Piazza Navona below. The water in the plaza’s
three fountains glistened in the morning light, and the outdoor
cafés were starting to fill up. Once Haven had enjoyed watching the
tourists ramble through the square with their maps, cameras, and
unruly children. These days it often felt as if she were standing
guard, keeping watch for anyone who might threaten her happiness.
“I thought this was going to be a vacation.”
“With that attitude, you’ll probably be quite
popular at the hotel.” Iain gave her a wink. “Now stop dawdling or
we’re going to be late.”
“What if I don’t want to go anymore?” Haven tried
her best to sound lighthearted, but she couldn’t keep the quiver
out of her voice. Iain caught her as she stepped into the living
room from the balcony. When he pulled her into his arms, she could
hear his heart beating, slow and steady.
“We’re going to have fun,” he promised, his face
buried in her wild black hair. “You’ll remember this trip for the
rest of our lives.”
HAVEN RELUCTANTLY TURNED toward the hall closet
and opened its door for the first time in months. Jammed inside
were all the dresses she had designed that weren’t quite right.
Fabric that had faded or frayed. And the suitcases she’d brought
with her when she and Iain had moved to Rome, each one sprinkled
with a fine layer of dust. Haven kept her hands by her side,
worried that touching the cases might break the spell. The months
she’d spent in Rome had been magical—that was the only word she
could find to describe them. Formerly the pariah of Snope City,
Tennessee, Haven finally had the life she’d craved. Barely nineteen
years old, she spent her days running a successful boutique on the
Via dei Condotti and returned to a sun-swept apartment that
overlooked one of the loveliest piazzas in the city.
Every evening for almost a year, Haven had arrived
home to an empty house. No matter what the weather was like
outside, she always opened the doors to the balcony and waited for
the most wonderful sound in the world. Soon, her ears would catch a
note of the song that Iain whistled whenever he crossed the square.
An ancient tune with no name, it was his way of telling her they
would soon be together.
Minutes later, Iain would burst through the door,
his arms filled with food gathered from Rome’s many markets.
Sometimes, he let it all fall to the floor when he discovered Haven
waiting to greet him. The eggs would break, and dinner didn’t make
it to the table before nine. Late at night, when their hunger was
finally sated, they would leave the apartment and wander hand in
hand through the empty streets while Iain whispered stories of
their many lives together.
HAVEN HAD LET herself hope that it would all last
forever. But now she and Iain were leaving Rome, and it felt as if
their golden year might be reaching its end. For more than a week,
Haven had sensed something was wrong. It had started with a quick
glimpse of a figure dressed in black crossing the piazza below her
balcony. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the man. It could have
been anyone. And that was what worried her most. After that, the
city seemed to be hiding secrets from her. The days grew darker,
and the weather turned colder. Haven always suspected someone was
watching, and every time she turned a corner, she held her breath,
expecting to find the dark figure waiting for her around the
bend.
At first she’d kept her suspicions to herself. But
after the encounter with the three girls on the Appia Antica, Haven
knew she and Iain needed to act quickly. The danger was real, not
imagined. If they stayed in Rome, they risked being discovered.
Iain thought she was being too cautious, but he happily suggested a
trip north to Tuscany. There was something in Florence, he’d said,
that Haven might like to see.
HAVEN GRABBED ONE of her dusty suitcases by the
handle and lugged it out into the hall. Inside the closet, a bag of
fabric scraps teetered and tumbled to the floor. Haven groaned as
she stooped to gather the pieces one by one. Then her fingers
brushed against a canvas at the back of the closet. She’d almost
forgotten it was there. The painting had been a housewarming
present from one of the few people outside her family who knew
where to find them. Haven pushed a heavy coat to one side and
peered between her cluttered heaps of belongings. Up close, the
artwork was a swirl of color. Only when she took a step back did
forms begin to emerge from the chaos.
The painting was part of a much larger series. A
few others like it could be found hanging on the third floor of a
run-down house not far from the Brooklyn Bridge. The remaining
works—several hundred of them—were slowly rotting away in a
warehouse in Queens. Not even the most morbid art collector would
have chosen to display them. Each showed some tragic scene from the
past—and together they formed a catalog of disasters large and
small. Shipwrecks and fires, betrayals and heartbreaks, all set in
motion by the same mysterious figure who could be found lurking
somewhere in each image. But only if you knew where to look for
him.
The day the painting had been delivered to the
apartment, Haven had ripped away its wrapping, eager to see what
lay beneath. The artist, Marta Vega, was an old friend of Iain’s.
For years Marta’s work had been inspired by terrible visions of the
past. The visions had stopped once she’d escaped New York and
settled in Paris. There she’d started a series of paintings that
reflected her newfound hopes for the future. Haven had been
expecting to find such a work beneath the brown paper. Instead, she
found a sinister image with a bright yellow Post-it attached.
This was the last one I painted, the note
read. I know it was meant for you. After a single glance,
Iain had whisked the painting away and stashed it behind the coats
and dresses inside the hall closet. Later Haven had overheard him
on the phone with Marta, his voice an angry whisper. He told the
girl she should never have sent him the painting. It was the last
thing Haven needed to see, and he hoped she hadn’t had a good look.
The time would come for them to face their demons. For now, he
didn’t want Haven to worry.
But Haven had seen the image, and it had left an
indelible impression. For days afterward, she thought of little
else. The painting showed two people—a young man and
woman—surrounded by an angry mob. The faces weren’t clear. But
Haven recognized the girl’s unruly thatch of black hair as her own.
And she knew it was the only painting Marta Vega had ever created
that showed not the past but the future.
Now Haven studied the painting for the first time
since its arrival, looking for the minuscule figure in black that
Marta inserted into each of her works. This time, he was nowhere to
be found. And yet his absence wasn’t a comfort. It felt as though
he had stepped off the canvas and into Haven’s life again. He was
out there somewhere. If not in Rome, then not far away. The man in
the picture—the figure in black—had been following Haven for
centuries.
“Haven,” she heard Iain call, a trace of alarm in
his voice. “What did you find in there?”
Haven crammed the painting back into the closet.
“I’ll be ready to go in ten minutes,” she answered, ignoring the
question. “Ask the driver to get here as soon as he can.”