The Curse - Book 1 (Completed)

Chapter 23: KXM Venezia

Leeroy checks in at the Gritti Palace in Venice. He is completely lost in thoughts while a young beautiful female employee of the Hotel is showing him his suite. Leeroy is neither paying attention to the hand painted walls and stucco decorations nor the marble bathrooms. His thoughts are completely focused on the forthcoming meeting with his agent.

As soon as the young woman leaves his room with a "buona sera signore O'Connor", Leeroy sits down at the mahogany desk in the study of his suite.

Leeroy opens his Computer typing in the password KXM1516. Slowly he goes through the whole evidence he collected.

The last time one of his agents found a woman he suspected to be Katrina was in 1981 in Rio de Janeiro. Leeroy travelled to Rio de Janeiro based on a photography. It ended up being a fiasco. The woman turned out to be the wife of a drug lord. In his rage Leeroy had killed four people. The shootings and the turmoil caused by Leeroy's intrusion into the favela alerted the military police. More than 25 drug dealers and 10 police officers died on this day. The extreme safety measures implemented by Rio's police in the following days made it nearly impossible for Leeroy to leave the country.

In order to prevent any similar experience Leeroy took various precautions. His agent sent him various videotapes, pictures and voice records of the woman he claimed to be Katrina.

Leeroy double clicks the file interrogation1.mp3.
"Come ti chiami?" a high male voice asks. "Io non diro niente a lei. Io non ho paura..." a woman is answering in a firm voice in Italian. With great satisfaction Leeroy hears the slight and barely existing Russian accent in her Italian.

Even though the woman claims not to be afraid and she is controlling herself quite good Leeroy clearly hears the undertone of terror in her voice. That is a thing Leeroy is pleased to hear. Katrina always played the confident, strong and authoritative Russian princess. Nevertheless, she has never been completely able to hide her fear of him.

The deep fear Leeroy detected in her voice and the way she speaks are comforting him.

Obviously if the woman was Katrina, she knew very well who was behind the high jacking and who she was about to meet very soon. Nevertheless she would never reveal her real identity which she was able to hide from him throughout the last centuries.
Everything makes sense.

Interrogation2.mp3, interragtion3.mp3 and interrogation4.mp3 Leeroy is listening to all of them over and over again. With every repetition, Leeroy gets more confident that this time he might have found her.

After having finished analyzing the audio files, Leeroy takes a look at the pictures again. His agent took 63 pictures of the woman in the course of the last week. The photographers are showing her in all kinds of situations.

Leeroy stops at one in which she is drinking a coffee in Café Florian at the saint Markus Square. This one is especially sharp.

The same chocolate brown eyes, the dark colored hair and the seductive playful smile.

The pieces were falling into place one by one.
More than anything else there is one fact, which is reinforcing Leeroy's belief in this woman. Even though she had an Italian passport on her, his agent found a small Russian book in her pocket. Is it possible that this is her?

Katrina must have done everything in her power to hide her true origins. Which is exactly what this woman did. Is it true? Is this his Katrina? Could it be that she hid the truth so well that he never found her, and now this tiny book, put in the bottom of her bag by destiny, brought her back into his life?

With every second that passes Leeroy's mood amends. He closes his eyes and tries to picture Katrina on the first day he saw her back in 1516 in St. Petersburg.