The Vesuvius Isotope (The Katrina Stone Novels) by Kristen Elise Ph.D. Page B

now?”
    My eyes had just fallen upon Dalfani when he leapt toward me and snatched my purse from my shoulder. I had no time to react, as Rossi grabbed me by the shirt and began shoving me into the street.
     

    I cowered at the onslaught of cars, brakes screeching and tires squealing as drivers swerved to avoid us. The policemen appeared unconcerned as they marched into the traffic with determination, dragging me roughly alongside them. I dug the heels of my shoes into the pavement, fighting against the inevitable pull toward a destination unknown. But the effort was pointless. Against Rossi, I had no chance.
    We reached the opposite side of the street, and before me was a tall building. I looked up at its façade. It was then that I knew I had made a terrible mistake.
    My experiences in Baja California had taught me that a cash bribe was invariably the fastest route to getting rid of police of questionable ethics. I had expected that the Naples police would simply pocket the eighty euros and walk away. Instead, Officers Rossi and Dalfani were shoving me into the Naples Police Station.
    Which meant that whatever they wanted from me was legitimate.
    Dalfani was holding my purse above shoulder level, like a severed head displayed on a spike as an example for other would-be traitors. Rossi’s grip on my shirt did not relax until a bone-splitting metal crack on each of my wrists left me handcuffed to a chair in the lobby.
     

    What do they want? What do they know? How can they know? Oh, God…
    There were so many things they could know, so many possible reasons for them to have brought me here. My crimes were snowballing.
    How did I not see this coming?
    I need a lawyer.
    A cloud of cigarette smoke swirled around me like gray confusion, and I felt like gagging from the staleness of the air. I blinked, in a feeble gesture to protect my eyes from the smoke, my hands bound uselessly behind me.
    Now, there were not two but dozens of policemen shouting at me, and at each other. They descended upon me like a lynch mob, cigarettes waving like torches between their stained fingers. They motioned toward me and toward my purse, each of them grabbing for it in turn as Officer Rossi began rifling through its contents. I watched as he extracted both of the iPhones within and began clicking through their data.
    A skeletally thin man was roughly brought toward me and handcuffed to the chair next to mine. Through his worn, filthy clothing, I could see the man’s shoulder bones jutting angrily forth. He looked up at me with eyes as dead as night, and I could see in his fixed pupils that he was strung out.
     

    A buzzer sounds, and the door before me swings open. I step forward.
    I enter the prison’s visiting area and approach a long bank of small booths. I sit at one of them. Then I wait.
    A moment later, Lawrence Naden enters the room. He shuffles slowly toward me, and the bones of his legs are visible through his paper-thin pants. He sits on the other side of the barrier. He lifts the receiver of the telephone beside him and raises it toward one hollow cheek.
    As if it is a mirror between us and not a panel of clear glass, I reach for the telephone on my side of the barrier and raise it to my own ear.
    “Who the fuck are you?” he asks me, a sneer projecting forth, accentuating his crack-rotted teeth.
    “I’m Katrina Stone.”
     

    The clamor of policemen and civilians echoed through the small smoke-filled Naples police station. I scanned the crowd for a kind face. “Does anyone here speak English?” I kept asking, and I felt as though I might start crying again. And then, as I continued searching through the horde, I did cry. But they were tears of relief as I saw, through the unruly swirl of people, a familiar backward baseball cap.
    The young man with the tattooed arms pushed his way aggressively through the crowd as he yelled rapidly in Italian. When he was close enough, he stepped boldly up to Officer Carmello Rossi, pointing a