Chase Baker and the Da Vinci Divinity (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book 6) Read Online Free

knickers.”
    “He’ll get his he will, Jackie,”
Poseidon Bear spits, staring into my eyes while rudely referring to me in the
third person.
    The two goons leave, slamming the
door closed behind them. That’s when I get my first good look at the place. I’m
inside a room that measures about ten feet by ten feet. The overhead ceiling-mounted
lighting are bright LEDS. The four walls are translucent and, if my gut serves
me right, I can see out but no one can see in. But, that doesn’t really matter
because there’s an audio-video camera system set up in each of the four upper
corners.
    Knowing I’m being watched, I stand
and start to get dressed as casually as I would if I were in my own bedroom at
home in either Florence or New York on Prince Street above the pizza joint. I
even look directly into the camera when sliding into my beer mug boxers one
pale leg at a time, and paint a big shit-eating grin on my face. What the hell,
sometimes you gotta lighten things up. Chase the optimist.
    When I’m dressed, I take a seat at
the long table that fills the center of the room … and I wait. At this
point, I’m mostly waiting for a cup of coffee since it’s going on five o’clock
and I haven’t enjoyed a wink of sleep all night. Maybe I should be yelling,
screaming, and carrying on over having been kidnapped, post coitus. I should be
kicking at the glass walls, hoisting my middle finger at the closed circuit
cameras. Hell, taking an arcing piss on the rug.
    But two things come to mind.
    First, if these people wanted me
dead, I’d already be sleeping with the anchovies at the bottom of the mud-colored
Arno. And second, why give them the satisfaction of knowing how truly upset I
am? Best to give them calm, cold, and collected. Like James Bond, maybe. Or
Steve McQueen in The Great Escape .
    A few more beats pass until the
door opens again and four people enter the room. Rather, two people, and the
Poseidon Brothers following close behind. What’s their names? Bear and Jackie?
    Andrea is included in the group.
She’s still dressed in the same cute outfit she wore last night when I met her
pretending to tend bar at The Goose. The other is a man who, by all outward
appearances, is about my own age. He’s a black man. Dignified looking. Tall,
well built, with black hair trimmed close to the scalp. Highly educated, no
doubt. His dark blue suit has been tailored to fit him. Perhaps at Giovanni’s
down on Via della Scala near the river in the Florence center. He’s holding a
manila folder which he sets down on the desk before seating himself.
    “Mr. Baker,” he says, his
expression serious and concerned, “you’ll have to excuse the methods by which
we brought you here.”
    Andrea takes a seat beside him. I
catch her eyes catching my eyes, and I smile. She offers me just the slightest
grin.
    “You might have simply called me,”
I say. “But then, that wouldn’t have been dramatic.”
    He just looks at me like he doesn’t
understand what I’m saying or why I’m saying it.
    “Please accept my apologies for
upsetting your night like this.”
    “Don’t apologize to me,” I say,
nodding at Andrea, who is still looking fresh and beautiful in her purple beret
and cotton turtleneck with no bra. “Apologize to the dame.”
    He turns to her, gazes at her for a
beat or two, then refocuses on me.
    “My associates sometimes get
carried away with their methods, and this was one of those cases.”
    I look beyond Andrea at the
Poseidon Brothers. Both of them smile at me in unison. I’m guessing these guys
enjoy their work.
    “Tough to find good help these days,
isn’t it?” Then, “And what did you say your name was?”
    “I’m Deputy Inspector Eric Millen,”
he says. “You’re already familiar with my associate, Andrea Gallo.”
    I smile. “Extremely familiar. Isn’t
that right, Andrea?”
    Poseidon Brother Bear shoots me the
evil eye.
    “Your reputation