Ethan deftly wielded the small knife; crimson droplets spilling from its finely honed blade, trickling down the underside of his wrist.

“Fragola!” he practiced his Italian aloud, dropping the strawberries into the bowl, and washing the juice from his hands.

Ethan had moved to Rome three weeks ago, an impulsive tactic used both as an escape from a heartbreak, and a panacea for his twenty-something malaise.

He had impetuously enrolled in the American’s Abroad Fine Arts Program. Explore the world of Art, Learn a new language, Meet new friends, the flyer happily decreed. With school over, la dolce vita certainly beat another summer bartending. With some hurried paperwork and a low interest credit card, Ethan was off to dabble in the esoteric world of the “artiste.”

The romantic plan soon soured when Ethan was greeted to the eternal city with a significant language barrier, cell-like apartment, and daily fourteen block commute to campus. But Ethan had wanted new adventures, a personal renaissance, so when in Rome….

Ethan adapted to his new environment with surprising Darwinesque agility; soon navigating the complex city streets with relative ease, competently ordering spaghetti carbonara, even enduring the antiquated plumbing. A cold shower had never actually killed anyone.

“Boun Giorno”, the waiter at his favorite haunt welcomed him, setting the tables overlooking Piazza Novena. “See you and beauuuutiful woman yesterday… your girlfriend?”

“Wasn’t me…” Ethan exaggerated a frown. He wished he was with a beautiful woman, even a semi-beautiful one.

“Yes… black dress…bellissimo” The waiter etched a voluptuous female form in the air with his hands. Ethan chuckled and shrugged, ordering a cappuccino “to go”: an alien concept in the birthplace of the three-hour meal.

With time to kill before class, Ethan wandered the piazza, drinking in the midday sun; the cool wet rush from Bernini’s fountains misting its statues in a frosty haze. He stopped before the languid marble gods entwined with dolphins and cherubs. 300 years ago, he waxed philosophical, someone could have stared at this very view.

“You like picture?” a voice queried behind him. Ethan paused, admiring the artist’s work and remembered promising his mother a portrait.

“And not one of those ridiculous caricature’s with the giant heads…” she chided, “something I could display in the den” Ethan chuckled at the thought of a beautifully rendered charcoal sketch adorning her paneled wall in Peoria.

“Ok” Ethan agreed, checking his watch.

“Mia madre” he explained lest the artist should think him an egomaniac.

The man selected a small black stick from a suede pouch as Ethan relaxed in a folding chair. He watched the artist’s skilled hand dance swiftly across the paper to the scratching charcoal. With a flourish the artist presented the drawing.

Ethan started at the sight. It was him, quite accurately portrayed, but beside him, an exquisite raven-haired woman dressed in black.

“Chi?” Ethan asked, bewildered. The man nodded and winked as Ethan fumbled for euros in his pocket. Was it a joke? Did the waiter set him up? Not wanting to play “rude tourist”, Ethan said “grazie” and walked on, perplexed. Italians! Maybe he could cut it in half and give his likeness to his mother. He was keeping the girl.

The room went black as the slide machine wearily clicked to life. With a flash, the famous smirk of the Mona Lisa appeared on screen, the projector illuminating particles of dust hovering in the air.

“You better know this one” professor North snorted, his glasses two luminous disks. The class emitted the obligatory giggle.

He continued through Leonardo genius, Brunelleschi, impressive, Hieronymous Bosch just plain weird.

“And now to some lesser known pieces.” A click produced a small portrait of a striking young woman with ebony hair.

Ethan jolted in his seat, rescuing his coffee. Classmates glared, as he rebalanced his cup safely on his desk.

“Sorry” he mouthed.

The resemblance was uncanny; same quizzical eyes, same mane of onyx hair. Discreetly, he unrolled his portrait, studying it intently in the darkness. It was her. But who was she? Dumbfounded, he rehashed the morning’s peculiarities in his head.

The professor’s voice droned on.

“La Vedova Nera, The Black Widow, 1665, artist unknown. A wedding portrait of Maria Fiore… Rather scandalous!” He lured the class to attention. “Forced into an arranged marriage to an aristocrat, Maria convinced her young lover to release her from her misery. The obliging paramour agreed, savagely stabbing Maria’s husband to death in his sleep”. The class murmured with delight. “Legend says Maria still walks the streets of Rome, and when a young man catches her eye, seduces him into doing unspeakable things.”

“Women haven’t changed much…” a student chuckled, readying himself for the punch from the blonde in the next seat.

Another click and a newspaper photo appeared: the awkward professor shaking hands with a well-heeled couple, the portrait in the background.

“Here I am with the owner of the painting who has generously willed it, upon his death, to the museum with which I am affiliated.” He waited for adulations, and when none came continued, “Signor Rossi joked that he had spent the estimated several million euros on the work due to its striking resemblance to his young wife”

Ethan compared the bored woman in gigantic sunglasses to the portraits, admitting an eerie resemblance.

Should he show the professor his unusual portrait? North was an expert, undoubtedly. Aside from his connection to the museum, he had written several books; impressive credentials which he managed to insert into almost every conversation. Still something about the man was unsettling.

Instead, after class, Ethan logged on to the computer in the library, printing up as much as possible about Vedova Nera and toted that, along with three impossibly heavy volumes on Italian art, fourteen blocks back to his temporary home.

“Signora” he greeted the matronly pension owner. Pension Ghilberti had been the woman’s childhood home before hard times forced her to open it’s mahogany doors to any stranger willing to pay.

“Helloooo, you miss pretty girl for you, she just leave”

“To see me? Which way?” Ethan sputtered, breathless as Signora motioned left. Dropping his books, he sped frantically into the street, seconds before a woman in black disappeared around the corner tobacco shop. Ethan broke into a controlled run, dodging cars, trailing her amongst the crowds heading home for siesta.

“Signorina” he called out futilely. He lost sight of her in Piazza del Fiore, medieval execution site, now bustling flower market.

Frantically, he scanned the myriad of streets and alleyways, jutting out from its center like legs of a very large spider. She had disappeared.

“Vino?” Signora offered on Ethan’s return, noticing his anxiety. He gratefully drank her homemade vintage, its unrefined texture rough but welcome in the back of his throat.

It was two a.m. before Ethan succumbed to sleep; his dreams troubled by haunting voices, “Help, please!” He floated through the back streets of Rome, the black haired girl elusive, calling his name. Just out of reach. “Please, for me!” Bernini’s statues rising lifelike from their marble posts called “Follow her”. A flash of metal. Then a man’s deafening scream.

Ethan woke with a start, head throbbing. He rubbed his temples, his fingers moist. But it wasn’t sweat. He leapt panicked from the bed. Scarlet stains spattered the back of his hands and forearms; his t-shirt was plastered, burgundy red, against his chest, crusted with blood. Trembling, he approached the mirror revealing an angry jagged graze down one cheek! A superficial scratch. So whose blood was this?

A sudden pain gripped his abdomen, radiating upward through his chest. Head reeling, he steadied himself against the desk and noticed two pin-prick size scabs on his inner arm.

Suddenly a commotion echoed from the lobby floor. Not the typical caffeine induced commotion of morning hustle-bustle. These sounds were methodical, the voices deliberate, footsteps determined.

Within seconds, five Italian policemen burst through Ethan’s narrow doorway wrenching his arms behind his back. In the frenzy of their foreign tongue, Ethan tried desperately to understand a word, a phrase, anything. They violently handcuffed him, motioning towards the stairs, seizing the portrait from his desk.

Ethan was lead, trance-like, down the corridor as horrified faces peered from adjacent rooms, retreating with the sharp clicks of locking doors .

A suited man in the lobby informed Ethan in accented English that he was being arrested…for first degree murder! The air was suddenly sucked from Ethan’s lungs; his listless legs struggled to support his weight. The room became an eerie spinning carousel: Signora, the armed men, the floral wallpaper swirled about until all went dark.

Ethan was carried to an awaiting van; Signora instructed to lock his room until forensics arrived. Obediently she climbed the stairs, securing Ethan’s door; but not before carefully removing a small tape recorder from beneath his bed.

Aching and groggy, Ethan awoke in a small windowless room. His wrists cuffed to the arm of a sturdy wooden chair, a glass of water in front of him.

“I’m Daniel Simmons from the American Embassy,” a balding man announced, flashing an identification card. “We need to talk.”

Ethan tried helplessly to explain the bizarre events to the dubious embassy attaché’.

“ I know it makes no sense,” he pleaded.

“So you know nothing of this” Simmons slapped a newspaper on the table. Ethan gasped, he didn’t read Italian but immediately recognized the man on the front page. It was Rossi, the word OMICIDIO! underneath. Murder!

“Seems someone placed you at the scene…your… girlfriend…”

“I don’t have…” Ethan started “I want a lawyer. What the hell…”?

“According to the paper” Simmons translated aloud, “Rossi was found stabbed to death in his bedroom early this morning. The prominent art collector, furious about an alleged affair, was filing for divorce. This photo shows his wife and suspected lover.”

My God, it was Ethan, seated with a dark haired beauty, posing for a portrait in Piazza Novena.

“You’ll be transferred to a facility for international detainees,” Simmons stated flatly. “A lawyer will be provided.”

Ethan felt as if he were underwater, sights and sounds distorted in the murky sea of his thoughts. Could he have done this? The blood? His dream? Of course not!

Breath! There were now painful bright red rings circling the pricks on his arm.

Ethan was provided a fresh shirt and khakis; his blood-soaked clothing, stowed in plastic bags, labeled as evidence.

Discreetly, he was escorted to a black unmarked sedan, astoundingly, by a single policeman.

“Inconspicuos. It’s for your protection”, Simmons explained, “You‘ve made some enemies”

Ethan helplessly watched the city of Rome flicker past him from the black tinted window; traffic, fountains, churches. He closed his eyes, heart pounding, but Rossi’s face appeared. OMICIDO.

Suddenly Ethan realized they had stopped. The sedan was double-parked at Leonardo da Vinci airport. The policeman mumbled into a radio. “Si, aeroporto”

Unbeknownst to Ethan, that morning six envelopes brimming with Euros were being delivered throughout Rome:

One to a down-and-out pensione owner,

One to a street artist with an ailing wife,

One to a waiter with a penchant for high priced prostitutes,

One to a raven-haired model with a past,

One to a corrupt policeman.

Officer Moreno opened the car door and nimbly unlocked Ethan’s cuffs.

Envelope six went to Ethan

It contained stacks of euros, a U.S. passport with a new “identity”, customs papers and a first-class ticket home. An odd list of strict instructions was provided with a small parcel to be opened during flight. Ethan obeyed unquestioning.

“You are now free to move about …” a canned voice announced as Ethan guzzled his vodka.

Ethan opened the small cardboard parcel, dumping the contents onto the plastic meal tray. Inside was a small glass orb, embedded within it a large black insect, an infamous scarlet hourglass marking its abdomen.

A handwritten note accompanied the gift. “Grazie!”

“Good thing we’re out of here” a fellow passenger nudged Ethan as Rome disappeared below, “just heard some crazed murderer escaped”