Now, grip it firmly. It was so large, so smooth, that it was difficult. There seemed no way to get purchase on the damned thing, but she reminded herself it was just a balloon. All she needed to do was puncture it.

  She clawed at it with her nails, raking them over its sheer, slippery surface, and just as she was thinking it was an impossible task, it burst, the explosion so loud and close to her that her heart raced again.

  But her plan had worked. Now the carcass of the balloon was hanging limply below her. She needed to do another one, because she was still rising, just not as fast.

  But at that moment, she heard a massive explosion, a hissing bang in her ears, and this time, panic suffused her because it was too late; the worst had happened, she'd reached the breaking point, and now they would all explode at once.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  When the noise came, Juliette instinctively squeezed her eyes shut. But a moment later they flew open again because she wasn't falling. The balloons hadn't burst. What had that noise been, then?

  A huge bloom of light unfolded in the air below her and the sound came again. This time, Juliette realized what it was. Fireworks. Somewhere in Naples, or perhaps off the shore, there were fireworks being set off.

  She was still alive and attached to her balloons, but the problem was that she was still rising. Urgently, she now needed to burst a few more. She had no idea how many she'd need or what the results would be, but if she didn't act quickly, she would still face just as much at risk.

  Desperately, Juliette reached out to grab another balloon. This time, it was a bright pink one. She hauled it down toward her, feeling it bob and jostle against the other balloons. The upper ones were tightly packed, and she had a moment of fear that grabbing hold of one might somehow damage too many.

  Then, she managed to pull the pink balloon down toward her; she dug her nails into it, feeling the latex give way beneath her fingertips. The balloon burst with a bang that made her flinch.

  But now she was two down, so she was at least not rising.

  However, she needed to get herself back to ground level and this would mean bursting a third, possibly even a fourth balloon. She had no idea what would happen next or if a controlled descent would be possible. It might be that, without sufficient air to keep her buoyant, her body itself may cause such a drag on the balloons that they all failed.

  She had no idea how the physics of this worked, but all she knew was that she had probably eight or nine giant balloons keeping her airborne, and already she was leaving the city behind and being blown out to sea in the gusting wind. Blackness, punctuated only by the tiny twinkle of a boat's lights, was replacing the blaze of the city lights below.

  She grabbed for another string, trying not to think about the fear that still boiled inside her, because so much could go wrong. She hauled the balloon down, hearing the explosion and feeling a rush of air as it deflated.

  Now, she was descending. And immediately she realized that she'd made a mistake.

  The problem was that the balloons she could reach easily, the first three that she'd burst in her quick efforts to stop going sky high, had all been attached to her arms.

  Now, her feet were being held up by the remaining balloons; her head and arms were lower, and she was starting on a buffeting, twisting descent.

  At first, it was slow. But then, she heard another massive bang above her, and she realized the balloons themselves, now banging and bouncing off each other, were causing damage. And the fewer of them there were, the more room for movement there seemed to be. The pain around her wrists, and worse still, her ankles, was excruciating, and even though the balloons were fastened tightly, she felt a wave of fear that the movement, and their swirling in the wind, might loosen the strings to a point where they would all be ripped away.

  But now, she was head-first, pointing downward and moving in a spinning, swirling descent. Another balloon burst, and her fall sped up. Her fears had been right, the fewer balloons there were, the greater the stress and drag on each of them, and the bigger the chances of them bursting.

  She tried to control her descent, but it was useless. She was spinning and twisting uncontrollably, and each burst of a balloon only made it worse. She felt like a rag doll being tossed around in the wind.

  Utterly alone, she fell from the sky at an increasing speed, with nothing to break her plunge except the balloons that were now bursting one by one.

  Juliette was spinning out of control now, her arms and legs flailing as she plummeted toward the ground. She could see the lights of the ships in the Bay of Naples coming up fast, and she knew that she was going to hit hard. She tried to focus on her breathing, to stay calm, to do the best she could in these circumstances.

  Glancing up, she took stock. There were only four balloons left, and at least they were slowing her speed enough that the water wouldn't hit like a wall. But she needed to make sure she dove in straight and true - as impossible as that might seem now, as the force of the wind and her own fall caused her to twist and turn uncontrollably.

  The water was closer. She had no idea how deep it was, or how far into it she would plunge when she hit it. But she took a giant breath, trying to gulp in the air that was rushing past her.

  She tried to make her body as pencil like as possible so she would hit the water cleanly and not slam down into it with a hard impact.

  And then, it was there. Her body pierced the water with a cold rush and she was plunging in, feeling the tugs on her wrists and ankles like agony as the balloons met the sea.

  The impact was jarring, and she felt like she was being pulled in every direction at once. She fought to keep her eyes open as she sank deeper and deeper into the water, bubbles streaming around her as she tried to orient herself.

  Now she had a whole new problem. The thin nylon strings were wrapping around her in the water, like tough, clinging reeds, and she was getting entangled.

  In the blackness, with the strings encircling her, she had no way of telling which way was up, and now, she felt a suffocating panic fill her.

  She thrashed and kicked, trying to break free, but the more she struggled, the more entangled she became. The string was tightening like a noose around her ankles and wrists, and she knew that she had to calm down, to stop and think.

  She forced herself to still her movements and focus slowly, carefully getting one arm out of the tangle.

  There. She now had one arm she was able to use. And she could kick her legs together, like a mermaid's tail, even if they were twisted together by the strings.

  Her lungs were burning, but she could see a pattern of lights in the water that told her where the surface was, a surface to which she was slowly rising thanks to the air in her lungs.

  She kicked and thrashed her way to the surface, gasping for air as she broke through the water. She bobbed there for a moment, disoriented and dizzy, before she realized that she was still alive.

  Alive, but in the middle of the Bay of Naples, tangled up in a whole mess of strings and bizarrely attached to one red balloon that had survived the impact, along with her.

  Had she survived a fall like that, only to drown? She knew there was a real risk.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  Gasping for breath, feeling the strings hampering her ability to stay afloat, Juliette looked around, taking in her surroundings. She was in the middle of the Bay of Naples, surrounded by darkness and the distant glimmer of lights from the shore. She was treading water with difficulty, her arms and legs feeling heavy and sluggish, the waves bobbing her up and down like a cork. The strings were now on the way to cutting off her circulation completely.

  She had one giant red balloon that had survived the fall along with her. Could she use it as a flotation device? Not really. It was too round, too slippery; there was no way of climbing aboard it, and she suspected that if she tried, it would burst.

  She knew she needed to get to shore, but she wasn't sure how. And then, from the direction of the shore, she heard the faraway sound of a motorboat.

  A searchlight, faint but visible, cut the darkness, and she felt a rush of hope.

  Wyatt! Could it be him?

  "Juliette Hart!" Very faintly in the darkness, she could hear his voice over a loudspeaker. "Juliette Hart?"

  Relief filled her. He must have tracked her downward plunge, gotten out to the shore, and commandeered a boat to use - or at any rate, he'd gotten someone else to go out on the water.

  She had no way of waving, tangled in the strings as she was. It was all she could do to keep her head above the water. But she had one tool at her disposal. A giant red balloon.

  Juliette moved her legs, to which this balloon seemed to be attached. She made a grab for it with her arm and caught hold of the string and tugged it up and down, creating movement, creating a point of focus for the searchlight to find.

  "Over here!" she shouted, her voice hoarse and strained from the shock of the fall and the struggle to stay afloat. "Wyatt, I'm here!" Shouting might be superfluous but it gave her strength and courage to be calling for him.

  The searchlight swept the water again, and this time she saw the red balloon light up in its glow. It wavered, then steadied on her position. She could hear the motorboat coming closer, the sound of the engine growing louder with each passing moment.

  “Juliette, hang on!" Wyatt's voice was clearer now, more urgent. "We're coming for you!"

  The motorboat slowed as it neared her, and she could see the silhouette of a man standing at the bow, a flashlight in one hand and a flotation ring in the other.

  "Can you reach this?" he yelled.

  "I'm caught up in the strings," she yelled back, her voice breaking. "But I'll try!"

  He threw it in her direction and it landed a yard away.

  Juliette kicked her legs, mermaid like, and swam toward the flotation ring. She reached out as far as she could, as far as the tangle of strings would allow. And she managed to grab it, as Wyatt clambered into the water, wearing a life jacket, doing so carefully so that he wouldn't destabilize her with a big splash.

  "Is the signora alive?" she heard the man behind the light say in an incredulous tone.

  "The signora is, miraculously, alive, yes, Antonio, and I can't thank you enough for taking me out here in your fishing boat." Breathlessly, Wyatt responded to the skipper, and then, under his breath, "I'm not sure how you survived that. But I sure as hell am relieved."

  Gently and carefully, he began working to cut the strings away.

  "Make sure you keep them safe,” Juliette said anxiously, offering her other arm for him to work on, seeing that her wrist was raw and bloody now, the wounds stinging in the seawater. “I mean, they're very easy to get entangled in. They might be damaging to sea life."

  She heard Wyatt give something that sounded like a suppressed laugh.

  "We'll make sure to get them all into the boat, and these scraps of balloon, too. We’ll even bring this big red one along. We wouldn't want the Tyrrhenian sea life being in any danger thanks to this escapade."

  Juliette smiled weakly, grateful for Wyatt's reassurance, delivered with a note of incredulous humor.

  "What about Stefano? Did you get him?" Worry briefly surged inside her at the thought he might have escaped.

  "Yes. I arrived just as he was letting you go. I wasn't in time to grab you." She could hear the frustration in his voice. "But I knocked him out, handcuffed him to the same railing he'd tied you to, and then radioed for police backup. Two cops arrived at the warehouse to arrest him, and the rest headed out to try and find you. I rode with them, lights and sirens on."

  "How did you know where I was?"

  "Sierra tracked the prevailing winds. We realized that, from their direction, you were going to be blown out to sea, and she was able to plot the approximate line you would take. We were rushing, panicking. We tried to get a safety mattress organized, but in the time available, there was no way. So with Sierra giving us guidelines, we followed your route until we got to a place where we could see you. You were already falling by then, but it looked like the balloons were slowing your fall, so I found a fisherman who'd just come in, and out we went."

  "Thank goodness you did," she said gratefully.

  "How did you survive? How did you manage to stop all those balloons from bursting at once?" he asked.

  "I realized I had to stop myself from getting to the altitude where they would," she explained. "So I popped a couple and it slowed me. Then, unfortunately, things went wrong. But at least the worst didn't happen."

  "At least it didn't," Wyatt agreed in a heartfelt voice.

  The last of the strands was snipped away and Wyatt passed the tangle of lines to the skipper. Then, Juliette half-swum and half-floated to the edge of the boat. Wyatt scrambled in first, and then she let herself be pulled onto the motorboat, feeling the solid bench underneath her as she collapsed, shivering and exhausted, feeling bludgeoned with shock that she'd managed to survive this deadly ride. They'd caught the killer, thanks to teamwork, some luck, and determination. Juliette felt thankful beyond words that nobody else would have to endure the hellish flight that this scarred, psychotic man had sent his victims on.

  Wyatt wrapped a warm jacket around her shoulders and they headed for the twinkling lights of shore.

  EPILOGUE

  "Do you think it will be possible to grab a pizza before we leave Naples? Seeing it's, like, the birthplace of pizza and we haven't yet had a bite of one?" Sierra asked Juliette.

  It was eleven a.m. the following morning, and they were sitting in the police station, where they'd just finished the paperwork on the case, as well as the last of seven media interviews which had been conducted in the small, shaded courtyard behind the police station.

  Every news site, TV station, radio station, and magazine in the area wanted to hear more about this unbelievable balloon flight. Some people, alerted by the police sirens, had seen her and there were already videos up on social media showing her as a faint, colorful blob, unbelievably high in the night sky.

  Juliette couldn't blame the media for latching onto this incredible story - it wasn't every day that a woman flew through the sky attached to a cluster of giant balloons.

  Juliette hadn't been able to watch the videos, though, and didn't think she ever would. The memories of that flight still made her feel sick. The bandages on her wrists were a painful reminder of the terror she'd endured.

  But they'd caught the killer, and she'd saved herself. Juliette told herself to focus on the positives.

  "I think that's a great idea," Juliette replied with a smile. "I could use some comfort food after all of this. Do you want to look up where the best place is? And book us a table? We're flying back at four-thirty, so we have time."

  "We might have to go in disguise," Wyatt said. "We are now the biggest celebrities in Naples, thanks to all of this."

  "That's the truth," Sierra said.

  Juliette's phone started ringing and, glancing down, she saw it was Lucien. Her heart skipped a beat.

  "I'd better take this quick, before we go," she said. "I won't be long."

  Leaving the police station, she hurried out to the shaded courtyard where she'd done her interviews. Now it was unoccupied apart from a couple of empty coffee cups, and an ashtray with a few cigarette butts.

  "Hey, Lucien," she answered.

  "Juliette! What is this madness I've just seen on my news feed?" he asked, his voice resounding with concern. "Did you really end up flying over Naples, attached to giant helium balloons?"

  Juliette took a deep breath. "Yes, it's true. I did."

  "Mon Dieu, Juliette," he said, reverting to French to express his feelings fully. "Are you okay? You were not hurt? This footage is unbelievable."

  "I know, I know. It was crazy. But we caught the killer. And I'm okay. Just a little shaken up. Luckily, thanks to research Sierra did, I was able to avoid going too high and having them all burst at once, like what happened to the other victims," she explained.

  His indrawn breath was horrified.

  "I'm so glad to hear that," he said, the relief in his voice palpable. "And you are sure you are not hurt? What about mentally, after that ordeal?"

  "I'm a bit banged up, but nothing serious. I'll be fine," Juliette assured him. "I'll make sure I talk it through, maybe later today or tomorrow, and that will help. I'm sure I'll have a few nightmares for a while, but I'm used to that. It happens after every case. It's happened since -"

  Abruptly, she caught herself, not yet ready to talk to Lucien about what had happened to her father, and thinking it wasn't the right time. Talking through her airborne experience was easy compared to the thought of this.

  "Since I was about twenty-one," she finished off instead.

  "I see," Lucien said softly. "Well, Juliette, I am glad that you are safe. And I am glad that you caught the killer. You are a brave woman."

  "Thanks, Lucien," Juliette said, touched by his concern.

  "Are you flying back this evening?" he asked.

  "Our flight's leaving at four-thirty," she confirmed.

  "Can I fetch you from the airport? If you want to talk through your experience, I will gladly listen. Perhaps we can have a glass of wine and then I make sure you get home safely?"

  Juliette felt warm inside. The scars and trauma of her ordeal seemed to be fading already. And it would be great to talk it through.

  "Thank you for the offer," she said. "I'd like to do that and really appreciate it."

  "I will meet you in the arrivals hall," he promised.

  Feeling very cheered by the thought of some company and conversation when she landed, and particularly Lucien's company, Juliette said goodbye and hung up.

  But as she did, a thought solidified in her mind, one that had been niggling at her for a while. The reason she was having such difficulty with putting the trauma of her father's murder behind her was partly that it was unsolved. There had never been answers, and that made her feel as if a gaping abyss lurked in her mind.

 

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