Suspicious (On the Run) Read Online Free

he was to retirement. If he were paying them out of his own pocket—and he had to be since the job was off the books—he had to be worried about not only the thefts, but his own job.
    The bill arrived and both Harrington and Jack reached for their wallets. “No, this one is on me,” Harrington said. A folded piece of paper fell out of Harrington’s pocket as he removed his wallet. Zoe picked it up and saw the glossy brochure advertised various walking tours.
    “Thank you.” Harrington took the paper as he left a ten-euro note for their bill. He tapped the brochure. “Excellent tours. I highly recommend the Obelisks of Rome Night Walk. Takes you to all the best bits. Nice overview of the city. Would you like to keep it?”
    “Sure. I’m always up for a good night walk,” Zoe said, tucking the flyer into her messenger bag.
    “Now, tell me what you’ve seen,” Harrington said.
    Zoe described their sightseeing as Harrington nodded his approval. “Don’t forget to go to the Trevi. Horribly overrun with tourists, but what can you do? You have to throw a coin in,” he said, referring to the legend that if you threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, you’d return to Rome.
    Zoe looked at Jack. “Well, we have to do that.”
    “I do it every time I’m here. Insurance,” Harrington said with a wink.
    “Makes sense,” Jack said. “You are an insurance man.”
    “I wish I could be here more. I find the Roman sun a nice antidote to the rain of London. That’s where I’m based, you see.”
    “Are you able to visit Rome often?” Zoe asked.
    “Not as often as I’d like. I hope to retire here. Well, not Rome itself. Too expensive, but a place along the coast would be nice.” He leaned forward as if he had something to confide, but then he seemed to think better of it and checked himself. Instead, he glanced at his watch. “Must get back. I am at the Hotel Santa Maria, but it would be better…”
    “I’ll only get in touch if it’s an emergency,” Jack said. “You go first, we’ll follow later.”
    “Want an espresso?” Jack asked after Harrington left.
    “In this heat? No way. I’ll take a Sprite or ginger ale, if we’re burning time.”
    Jack ordered their drinks. “So not quite the routine job. I should have realized something was up when he offered to pay for our travel to Europe. And he called me, never emailed. His calls always came in the evening, his time. He wasn’t calling from the office.”
    “So? He takes work home, like lots of other people. Nothing unusual there. Has it been long enough? I want to see the Piazza Navona on the way back to the hotel.”
    “Yeah, I think it’s fine.” They paid for their drinks and hit the cobblestone streets again. As they strolled down a quiet street away from the Pantheon, Zoe stopped abruptly.
    Jack looked up from the map. “What is it?”
    “I thought I saw Harrington, up there ahead of us, going into that building.” She nodded at a salmon building with brown shutters and green double doors. “But it couldn’t have been him. Those are apartments, not a hotel.”
    “Maybe he’s visiting a friend,” Jack said, but Zoe saw him take an extra-long look as they walked by.

Chapter Three

    Gemma Neeley, of Scotland Yard’s Art Squad, did not look up from the catalogue of Dutch paintings when she sensed that someone had stopped in front of her desk.
    “I’m not going to the pub with you, Davy,” she said in her American accent. “I already told you that. Doesn’t matter what you call it, that’s not football.” Gemma had strong feelings about football, having spent her childhood after her parents’ divorce shuttling back and forth across the Atlantic between her English mum and her American dad, who was a staunch Green Bay Packers fan. She had other reasons she wasn’t going to the pub with Davy, but she kept those to herself. Better to let him think it was the football thing.
    “Davy giving you problems, Gemma?”
    She looked up and