Dreamveil by Lynn Viehl Page B

motorcycle didn’t require as much fuel, which was outrageously expensive over there, and it could be parked almost anywhere. He suddenly realized why he disliked the bike so much. It was a Ducati.
    Nathan had loved Italian racing bikes.
    Although his own years in Europe were just a blur of anger and confusion now, Meriden could clearly remember a few things about Nathan. The rest he’d put together after some careful, painstaking research. He’d been sent to Rome to study, but he’d left there after a year to hitchhike his way across a half- dozen countries, paying his way by picking up work as a cook. He’d met Gisele at her father’s restaurant, and it had been all over for Nathan the moment she smiled at him. She felt the same, for she had been the one to convince old Giusti to take him on as an apprentice.
    Meriden knew Nathan had fallen for her, hard, and had gambled everything to have her. They’d had only a year together, but from all accounts they’d been incredibly happy. If the dark men hadn’t come for Nathan, he’d still be there, cooking beside Gisele’s father.
    When he’d learned the details of what had happened to the Giustis, Meriden had gone back to Nice to make sure Nathan was dead. He’d bribed a hospital employee in Nice to obtain copies of the medical records. Nathan had been horribly burned in the accident that had killed his wife, and despite attempts to resuscitate him, had died that night in the hospital. His death certificate had been signed by the attending physician.
    The facts were undeniable. Irrefutable. Inescapable. Pain spiked through Meriden’s skull. Thinking of those days gave him a migraine; if he didn’t stop he’d end up locked in a dark room. He’d accepted what had happened to Nathan, how he had died, and the bizarre aftereffects that had brought Sean together with Dansant in France. One accident, one horrific, tragic choice, and three lives had been changed forever. Sometimes he wondered what Nathan would think of him and Dansant. If he would be as accepting, or if he’d want them dead, too.
    If he had known what would happen, Sean thought, would he have still run into the flames?
    Despite his and Dansant’s efforts to discover the truth about Nathan’s past, and if there was any possibility of it affecting them in some way, there were still countless, troubling gaps in the man’s personal history. Nathan had gone to Rome, but then he had disappeared for almost a year. There were no records of when he had left Italy or how he had traveled to France; it was as if he’d simply rematerialized there. He’d been running from something, or he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of forging his papers and creating an entirely new identity for himself. He’d done an excellent job of becoming someone else, but the dark men had still caught up with him. Why they would wipe out an entire family simply to get their hands on an expat who liked to cook made no sense to Sean, but few things about Nathan did.
    “Hey, Sean.” Eugene, one of his regular customers, strode in through the shop door. “Where you been, you lazy bastard?”
    “Job across town.” Sean stood up and shook hands. “What can I do for you?”
    “I need to order some parts.” He bent sideways to look at the bike. “Is that a Ducati Monster?” He whistled. “Tires are fucked. What’d the owner do, get spiked?”
    Eugene had a couple of motorcycles he was perennially working on, and Sean didn’t mind asking for a consult. “Collision in an alley. You ever seen two tires blow at the same time?”
    “If they were spiked, yeah. Or maybe some shitty retreads.” Eugene crouched down to finger the split in the rear tire. “This don’t look right. See how the rubber is peeling outward? This bitch blew fast and hard.” He stood up and walked over to look at the front tire. “Same here.”
    “Overfilled?”
    “If you filled ’em with cement or something.” He scratched his head. “This is some