Gage was silent for a long time before he shook his head once again. “I can’t think of anything, Nina. They could be anywhere in Venice.”
His grip loosened, and I tore my arm from his hold. “I can’t give up on him. He needs me now, and I won’t just leave him. Don’t worry. Your conscience is clear. You did what you could, but I won’t go with you.”
Turning, I set off running toward the bridge, unsure of where to find Tristan but sure I’d never give up until I did. I heard Gage yell my name and then I felt his hand on my arm again. “No! Let me go!”
“I remembered something, Nina. There might be a way to find out where he is. Just stop so we can check.”
He held me tightly, giving me little chance to run, so I stopped trying to escape. “Tell me what it is and how we do it.”
Gage reached into his pocket and in seconds he was on the phone. “Daryl, they got him. We need to know where he is.”
Daryl said something that sounded like it was about me and Gage nodded. “Yeah. I know. Can you find out?”
As he waited for Daryl to answer his question, I looked around, worried we might be caught before we ever found out where Tristan was. “Gage, we don’t have time for this. We have to go.”
He nodded again and smiled. “Thanks, Daryl. You might be right about technology. I’ll tell Tristan you said hi.” Gage stuck his phone back into his pocket and pointed down the sidewalk toward The Richmont Venice. “They have him at the hotel.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t, but if his phone is still on him, that’s where he is. Did he have it when he left the hotel earlier?”
I nodded, unsure of how Gage knew Tristan’s phone was there but thrilled at the hope that he could still be alive. “Yes, he had it. He showed me a picture on it as we walked toward the museum.”
Taking my hand in his, Gage smiled. “Then let’s hope it’s still on him. Now we just have to figure out where in the hotel he is and how we get in without Karl’s thugs grabbing us.”
A tour group of what looked to be at least thirty people milled about the Richmont Venice lobby waiting to check in, so we attempted to blend in with them as we figured out where Karl could be holding Tristan. Unsure if the hotel staff were helping Karl and his men, I pulled Gage behind a marble pillar farthest away from the concierge desk to plan what to do next.
“There are any number of places he could be,” I whispered into his ear as I peered over his shoulder to make sure nobody had spotted us.
“The suite you two are in is on the fifth floor. There’s only one other suite on that floor, so I think we should start there and eliminate that possibility. The problem is how are we going to get up there without being seen? The main staircase is in the center of the building, and there’s no way we can get upstairs and not be noticed, even with all these tourists.”
My mind flashed back to something Tristan had told me the first time we visited the hotel. I closed my eyes and replayed the conversation that night after we’d made love and spent hours in each other’s arms. Suddenly, I remembered. “There’s a back staircase that’s only used by staff. It used to be a secret staircase back when this was a palace.”
Two women I recognized from the concierge staff walked past us trying to herd all the tourists toward the check-in desk, but one seemed too interested in Gage and me as we stood huddled behind the column. Her stare lingered just a second too long on us, making me worry. Did she recognize me from when Tristan and I returned to the hotel?
I turned my back to the crowd and whispered, “Gage, we need to get to that back staircase, but I don’t know where it is. All I know is that Tristan told me it existed.”
Gage moved to shield me and nodded his head toward a hallway that transected the lobby. “If this is the front stairway, then maybe the back one is down that hallway.”
“I think that could be right. We just need to get past the concierge, who I think might have recognized me from last night.”
An elderly female tourist backed into a large ornamental vase and knocked it from one of the lobby’s tables with her oversized purse at that very moment, and with its crash to the floor, we had a perfect diversion. She screamed in surprise, and the crowd formed in around her to see the results of her clumsiness, including the two hotel employees. Quickly, I yanked on Gage’s arm to lead him away from the scene. “Let’s go!”
We raced down the hallway until we reached a door that looked like a closet. Opening it, he found our back staircase. “Come on. We’ve got four flights of stairs to climb.”