Never Say A Word

By Alan Brenham

A political storm erupts when Claire Deveraux, a deaf employee of the U.S. Embassy in France, is abducted at a conference in Rome. The kidnapper, Franco Lazzari, is a wealthy pharmacist who has been scouring Italy for the perfect wife. Unable to hear, and with time against her, Claire must use all of her wits to escape Lazzari’s remote home in the Italian countryside. Yet neither Claire nor the police know the actual danger she is in. Lazzari is in league with a senior official at the U.S. embassy—a man who is willing to leverage all of his clout to stop Claire being found.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Brenham
• Release date: Sep 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215731680

Alan Brenham

Alan Brenham is the pseudonym for Alan Behr, an author and attorney. He served as a law enforcement officer before earning a law degree and working as a prosecutor and a criminal defense attorney. He has traveled to several countries in Europe, the Middle East, Alaska, and almost every island in the Caribbean. While working with the US Military Forces, he lived in Berlin, Germany. Behr and his wife, Lillian, currently live in the Austin, Texas area.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

A man using the name Franco Lazzari folded and refolded his copy of Il Tempo four times after reading the feature story about the deaf American woman. Claire Deveraux. She was the one he wanted. The one he had to have. It took him only two hours of deliberative thought and two phone calls to devise a plan. During that time, he reread the article three more times.

The picture doesn’t do you justice, he said, running his fingers over the photograph beneath the headline. "You are a bella signorina. You are far prettier in person."

He kissed her picture four times then, while gazing adoringly at it, said, "Mia tesora, my darling, I count myself the luckiest man in all of Italy, for soon I will have you and will never let you go. Not ever."

She hadn’t been his first choice only because he hadn’t been aware she was even on the list. He could have found a local Italian girl or even a prostitute but he didn’t want one of them. He wanted a foreign woman. With the conference having any number of foreigners, he scouted out the list of presenters given to him a week before, thanks to a lucrative payment he made to an associate in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who was hosting the convention. Lazzari had known him since their days as university roommates.

After seeing her walk up on the stage, he switched his plans from the blonde-haired Commissioner of Innovation, Research, Culture, Education, and Youth from the European Commission to the pretty young American. Poised and beautiful she had taken his breath away. She was the perfect choice—foreign, and even better, American.

His next step was to contact a certain hotel employee in the hotel maintenance department to have him fulfill his end of their agreement. The employee had already helped with a couple of essential matters, starting with a diagram of the hotel’s interior and its exits, all for two thousand euros, half now and half when the job was done, plus a quantity of fentanyl.

By eight o’clock that night, he had scrubbed out the back of his van. While its floor dried, Lazzari inflated a camping mattress. Later that night, he tucked a lavender-scented sheet over the bed and set a pillow on one end of it. Next, he laid a roll of duct tape and a batch of zip ties on the passenger seat. He followed that with the placement of four lavender-scented room fresheners in the slots along the van’s walls.

With that part of his plan finished, he drew a dose of a sedative into an insulin syringe, capped it, and set it in a small ice chest. Before dinner, he rechecked the guest bathroom to ensure it had all the amenities she would require. He laid out freshly laundered bedclothes and a robe along with a pair of slippers. Aware that she was deaf, he set a yellow writing pad and a pen on the table in the guest room.

After a dinner of fettuccine con le rigaglie di pollo, he browsed the selection of suits hanging in his bedroom closet, deciding on the navy blue one. After all, in the feature story, the young woman stated that blue was her favorite color. Besides, a navy-blue suit was what every discerning gentleman wore on a first date. He then sifted through an assortment of ties before choosing the silk burgundy one. He held it up next to the suit and gave an approving nod. It was the perfect complement. As for a shirt, although he liked the blue one, the white would be a better pairing. For his shoe choice, he selected a pair of black patent leather Oxfords.

He took a good hot shower then lay in bed, rereading the feature story and gazing at her picture. The next morning, he would return to the conference at the Marriott Hotel, where he would study the young American.

Soon she’d be his. Of course, it would take some time, maybe three or four months, for her to adjust to her new life entirely, but he felt confident she’d come to appreciate all he had to offer her.

CHAPTER TWO

At breakfast on the third and final day of the conference, Claire Deveraux, Carolyn Telford, Edward Fletcher, and Charles Ekman, by unanimous vote, decided to visit the Colosseum and go on to dinner after the session had ended.

I know of an excellent Italian restaurant not far from the Colosseum, Carolyn said. They serve the best cannelloni I’ve ever eaten anywhere in the world.

I’m in, said Charles.

Me too, added Edward.

Carolyn passed a note to Claire asking the same question.

Claire nodded and flashed the OK sign. Seeing the city was a dream come true for Claire. She had always wanted to visit it but could never find the time. The only thing that would have made her visit better was if Megan had been with her. But Megan, now known as Sister Magdalene, was a nun in another country.

After breakfast and with an hour until the conference started up, Carolyn and Claire left the hotel to do some window shopping. While they moved from one store to the next, Carolyn used Claire’s pocket pad to communicate. Mr. Fletcher tells me you want a transfer to Luxembourg.

Claire wrote back. Yes, I want to be closer to my sister. She’s a nun at a convent there.

Which convent?

Les Servantes du Seigneur et de la Vierge de Matara, Claire wrote.

Is being with your sister the only reason?

Yes, ma’am. I love Paris and working for Mr. Fletcher, but Megan is my last living relative, and I want to spend as much time with her as possible.

I understand. I’ll have to see what I can do to help you out.

I’d appreciate that very much, Claire scribbled quickly. If she could make that happen, it’d be great. The embassy kept her on the move, traveling from mission to mission. Claire wished the U.S. Embassy in Luxembourg City would hurry up and announce a vacancy so she could transfer.

Telford didn’t add anything, so Claire figured there was no use in getting too excited too quickly; she’d thought that a transfer to Luxembourg was imminent before, but it still hadn’t happened.

Even in the morning light, the sun seemed heavier in Rome. It infused the cobbled streets, cars, and old arches. Scooters zipped by, and Claire imagined their sound. Like in Paris, people lounged at cafes on every street corner. Rows of old buildings flashed past. It was European but distinctly different. Perhaps its difference was derived from it being a progenitor and not a progeny.

In the conference room, as on both previous mornings, the broad-shouldered usher held Claire’s chair. She panned the audience as the first speaker, the Spanish foreign minister, was introduced. The room seemed to have filled to standing room only with people lining the outside aisles and along the back wall. Claire checked the day’s schedule but didn’t see the Pope or any country’s head of state listed.

She felt several pairs of eyes on her but shifted her gaze to the speaker’s podium. Not that she could hear what was being said. When the foreign minister finished his presentation, Claire took her cue from Carolyn on when to clap. Then, the host tendered a question-and-answer session where anyone in the audience could ask a question of any of the presenters. And that’s how it went for the final day of her first outside-of-France conference.

Once the conference was officially declared as finished, Carolyn huddled with her group, suggesting that since the audience had ballooned from the first day, they make their way down the middle aisle to the exit. She asked Claire via lip-reading to stay close as they weaved their way through the crush of people. Claire did her best, but the orderly exit seemed to become a stampede. This crowd was nothing compared to what they merged with outside the room. All the other meeting rooms had finished their sessions at the same time.

There was no point in being on guard or looking over her shoulder like she’d normally do. The hallway was wall-to-wall people. Claire just moved with the flow.

In the crush, she got cut off from her group, and being one of the shortest people in the mob, she couldn’t see over anyone. Claire stumbled over somebody’s foot as she tried to peer over and around bodies and almost fell. Luckily for her, a man caught her. The crowd surged ahead, and that’s when Claire felt a sting in her neck. Probably a muscle tweak. Pushing it out of her mind, she kept moving until she started feeling lightheaded. Then everything went black.

When Claire woke up, she realized her wrists were bound behind her back. She wasn’t sure what to think at first. Was it a joke? No, she realized as fear set in. Nothing about this was humorous. It was real. She was being kidnapped. She strained to move, and that’s when she realized her ankles had been bound together with duct tape.

She wriggled her hands and legs, attempting to free herself, but the zip ties were too tight.

The duct tape even more so. Whoever took her had made sure she couldn’t escape. Helpless, she started to cry. Why had this happened to her?

Stop it, she thought as she panned her surroundings for anything sharp to free her wrists with. Stay calm. That’s the only way you’ll get out of this mess.

Claire discovered that whoever had tied her up had laid her on a mattress covered with linen. The scent of lavender was everywhere. From what she could see, she was in the back of a van, alone. The vibrations she felt meant the van was moving. She raised her head and saw the double doors at the rear. She turned her gaze to the rear window—still daylight. From her position, she couldn’t see anything but blue sky and a few puffy clouds.

A metal partition separated the driver and passenger seats from the rest of the van. There was a small square window in the partition, but she couldn’t see anything through it. She noticed that her purse and her green notebook weren’t anywhere in sight. They could be in the front with whoever was sitting there. If not, she hoped one of her colleagues found them. Especially her purse.

Was she drugged, or had she been hit on the head? With her hands tied, Claire couldn’t feel any sore spots.

Then she remembered the sting in her neck back at the hotel when she’d been separated from her group, then nothing until she’d woken in this van. She must’ve been drugged. She had to stay calm and hold it together. Don’t do anything rash.

She wondered who her kidnappers were. Did they attend the conference? Was one of them that usher guy who held her chair? Or was it that newspaper guy from Il Tempo? Or could it have been any of the presenters?

Claire tried to think of reasons why they’d chosen to kidnap her. She hoped they weren’t part of some terrorist group wanting to make a statement. If it were ransom money the kidnappers were after, they’d be very disappointed. If it were anything else, they’d have a hell of a fight to deal with before they succeeded.

Claire considered the sliding doors, thinking of a way to escape. After further consideration, she let the idea fade away. If she were to open one of the sliding doors somehow and roll out, they’d have her back inside before she could free herself from the bindings. Plus, diving out of a moving vehicle would be tantamount to suicide, and she wasn’t ready to die yet. Her best chance would be to wait it out until they untied her. Think about something else.

She lay there, staring at the ceiling of the van, figuring that if she closed her eyes and thought about better days, that when she woke up her reality would be different. When she did open her eyes, she was still in the back of the van, bound up like a turkey on the day before Thanksgiving.

The vibrations Claire was feeling changed. The van bounced as if it was traveling on a bumpy road. It rocked from side to side, then a force tugged her to the right before easing. Seconds later, it pulled her to the left. The van had gone around a left curve, then a right curve.

The vibrations stopped, which meant the van had stopped. A moment later, it started moving again but only for a short distance. Gazing out the rear door window, she saw a wall with shelves. Seconds later, the view grew a little darker. The van must’ve backed into a garage or some kind of shelter.

Where exactly am I? she thought. What do they want with me?

Knowing she had to do something, Claire wiggled her body into a position where she could use her feet. Even though they were bound together, they’d be able to hurt whoever tried to pull her out. She drew her knees close to her chest, ready to kick out.

Some time passed before the sliding door opened. An older man with graying hair around the temples, wearing a navy-blue suit and burgundy tie, laid a blanket on the floor of the van, then sat on it. Claire’s stomach knotted up when she saw his face. He was the usher who’d been helping her to her chair on the stage. He gave her a snarky grin and looked at her. The glint in his eyes suggested he knew things he wasn’t going to share. Trembles shot up her legs to her head. Claire’s heart pounded against her chest at a dizzying rate. A sick feeling came over her when he held a stack of poster-sized cards with printed words.

The first one had a message in large letters: YOU ARE SAFE HERE.

That message was like a fifty-pound weight pressing on her chest. It seemed as if time stopped right at that moment. As if she’d passed into another dimension where she was floating. Her pounding heart brought her back to Earth. Claire shook her head and said, No. Please.

His eyes opened wide as if her talking was a shock.

Claire had rarely spoken to anyone except her parents and her brother—when they were alive—and to her sister. But this was different.

When he quit staring at her, the man laid the card down and showed her the second one: I WILL NOT HURT YOU.

When she read that, a wave of cold blanketed her. She began to cry. Please. No.

The third card said: UNLESS YOU TRY TO LEAVE.

Claire stopped breathing when she saw it. Please. Tears blurred her vision. Let me go.

A fourth card read: IF YOU TRY TO LEAVE, YOU WILL BE PUNISHED.

The second wave of nausea washed over her. Images of her bound up and stuffed in a closet rolled through her mind. Claire thought of Patty Hearst’s kidnapping many years before. If she were to survive, she’d have to act passively. Her well-being and health would be dependent on her compliance.

As soon as he laid that card down, she read the fifth one: NOD IF YOU UNDERSTAND.

Not knowing what he meant by punishment, she nodded, which made him crack a smile. Limited compliance was her best option for now. Nothing she’d seen so far gave her enough of a picture of exactly what it was he expected from her, other than he wouldn’t allow her out of his sight. Of course, it wasn’t a ransom situation, or he wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble with the cards, the mattress, the pillow, and the scented sheets. Claire didn’t want to be injured or worse. But if she saw a decent chance to escape, she’d take it. She had to. He was crazy. She did her best not to hold eye contact with him. She was afraid it’d signal her ultimate goal.

He stood up and walked out of her sight. He returned carrying leg shackles, handcuffs, and a gun.

He showed her the sixth card. The print was smaller than the others, probably because it held a long message. YOU WILL WEAR THESE UNTIL I AM CERTAIN YOU WILL NOT TRY TO ESCAPE. LAY FACE DOWN.

Once she rolled onto her stomach, he moved inside the van, close to her lower legs. He fastened the shackles around her ankles. The duct tape was removed next. He tugged her off of the mattress toward the opening, where he sat so her back was to him. He cut the ties off, then dropped the handcuffs near her.

Claire looked over her shoulder, hoping he was close so she could drive her elbow into his face. He stood outside the van, holding the seventh sign: FASTEN THE HANDCUFFS ON YOUR WRISTS.

She complied and felt fury replace the earlier helplessness. The handcuffs and shackles had longer lengths of chain than the ones used by police officers. Those extra lengths could be helpful only if she could get him close enough to loop them around his neck.

The eighth and final card showed: YOU MAY COME OUT NOW.

He stepped back, giving her space. Her legs were a little stiff. She reached for his arm for support, but he quickly backed away. Claire assumed he knew of or suspected that she was proficient with defensive skills.

She swung her legs around and hurried out of the van, then scoped out her surroundings. He had her in what looked like a garage that held only that gray van. He had backed it in. There was a large door at the van’s front end. Boxes were stacked at the other end. By the near wall, Claire saw two magnetic signs with the words Il Borgo. She wondered if his van was gray or if he had painted it to throw off the police.

She inched her way away from the van until the stiffness subsided. Standing a few feet from him and the vehicle, she gave him a now what? look.

He walked to a windowless door, giving her a wide berth. There was a keypad on the door, like the one Claire had at the main entrance of her apartment building. He punched in a code that she couldn’t see, opened it, and stepped back. He gestured with his hand for her to go inside.

As Claire stepped through the door, she found herself in a bricked-lined room with a bed all made up. A pink robe lay folded on it. A pair of pink slippers were on the floor at the end of the bed. One window had bars on it. The furniture included a bedside table with a simple lamp, a well-worn armchair, a floor lamp, a dresser, and a table with a small TV.

He directed her to an open door that led to a bathroom. It had all of the necessary amenities and toiletries sat on the back side of the basin.

On the far side of the room was a white door, which Claire assumed led into the house or whatever was beyond it. She moved farther inside and felt a whoosh of air, caused by the door she had entered being closed and likely locked.

After he left through the white door, Claire shuffled over to a window covered with black metal bars and gazed out. She saw a yard bordered by a high fence. Beyond it was a line of trees. By the left corner of the fence, she saw a large white dog. Movement caught her eye. Another white dog trotted in from the right side of the yard. Dammit. The animals complicated things.

She backed up against the wall and slid down. From her position on the floor, she spotted the video cameras, five in total, mounted high above, one aimed at the brown door, one at the white door, and one at the bed. Another was aimed at the chair and the fifth at the bathroom door. Great, she thought. My warden is a voyeur. He’d hung framed quotes hung on each wall. Two stated You are safe here. The other two said You are home now. On the table by the chair lay a yellow pad and a pen.

Claire started crying, wondering where she was. Why her? What was on the other side of the white door? What was it her kidnapper meant with all those signs?

CHAPTER THREE

Carolyn and the group slid off to the side in the lobby, away from the rush of people. Where’s Claire? She looked around. Anybody know where she went?

Last I saw her, Fletcher said, she was walking beside you.

The three of them waited until the crowd thinned, but there was still no sign of their young colleague.

All right, Carolyn said. Let’s split up. I’ll check the ladies’ room and her hotel room. Ed, retrace our steps back to the conference room. See what you can find out. Charles, stay here in case she shows up. Let’s meet back here in ten minutes.

Not finding Claire in the women’s restroom, Carolyn headed up to the sixth floor to Claire’s room. She banged on the door and rattled the handle even as she knew it was unlikely to rouse Claire. Seeing a maid towing a cart, Carolyn went to her, flashed her embassy ID, and pointed at Claire’s room. Would you please go into that room? I’m worried about the welfare of a colleague. She’s missing. I’ll wait out here.

The maid used her key card to gain entry. A few minutes later, she came out and closed the door. There’s no one in there.

Carolyn thanked her and returned to the rally point. She told Charles that Claire wasn’t in the ladies’ room nor her hotel room. Charles looked around, then shrugged.

We wait for Ed, said Carolyn. I’m betting she stayed behind in the conference room to avoid the glut of people.

Their hopes rose when they spotted Ed coming down the hall in a crowd of people. But when he moved clear of them without Claire beside him, their expressions turned sour.

All I found was her green notebook, Ed said, handing it to Carolyn. It was on the floor just outside the conference room.

Carolyn flipped through it, knowing it was highly unusual that Claire would venture off somewhere and leave her notebook behind. Even more so was the fact that Claire wouldn’t have gone off without letting someone in the group know first. Nothing in the notebook