Chapter 16: What He Never Said

Giacomo cut the green dress open at the hem with a pocketknife.

A tracker the size of a shirt button was sewn into the seam, and a second, smaller disk sat in the lining under the left arm.

"A microphone," said Franco, holding it up to the kitchen light. "He wants to hear you breathe."

"Then let him."

Giacomo looked up from the table.

"Sew them back in," I said. "Exactly where they were. If the signal moves, he'll know we found it."

"You'd walk onto that stage wearing his ears."

"I'd walk onto that stage in whatever makes him certain I'm where he wants me."

Franco put the disk down very gently, though I could see he wanted to crush it.

"My sister," he said, "is scarier than I am."

"She always was," said Giacomo.

It was the first thing in a week that made me want to laugh.

By evening the house was full of men packing things into black bags.

Gabriel was asleep sitting up on the couch, and I could not stand to be inside.

The brownstone had a roof door at the top of the stairs.

I went up and stood by the low wall in the last light, with Brooklyn spread out gold and dirty to the river.

Giacomo came up a minute later, and I did not turn around.

"The men downstairs are watching the door," he said. "Nobody's watching the roof."

"I know."

"I wanted you to have one place with nobody in it."

"You're in it."

"I'll go."

"Stay," I said.

He stood beside me at the wall, an arm's length away.

For a long time neither of us spoke.

"Seven years," I said. "You had two men under my window, and you never knocked once."

"I know."

"I'd like to know why."

He didn't answer straight away.

His jaw moved.

"Your father asked me not to. That was the first year. After that it wasn't your father anymore."

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