Chapter 16: The Trap on the Stairs

"Where?" I said.

"Our Lady of Pompeii. Ten o'clock. The side door's never locked." She was already backing away. "Alone. If I see Teo, I'm gone."

Benedetta had come up behind me in the truck.

"Absolutely not," she said.

"She's scared, Benny."

"She's a snake. Snakes get scared too. It doesn't make them puppies."

Teo said no.

"She's the only person alive who knows how that lab works," I said. "If she'll say it, I want it said."

In the end we split the difference.

Teo drove me and parked a block down Lexington with the lights off.

The old baker had slept on a cot in my kitchen every night since the fire.

He stayed, and so did Benedetta, and Teo's two men stood on the sidewalk under my awning.

I kissed both twins' heads before I left.

I put my phone in my coat pocket with the voice recorder running.

The church was dark except for the candles in front of the Virgin.

Six weeks ago my husband had stood at that altar in a black tuxedo.

Carlotta was sitting in the front pew, right where her guests would have been.

"You came," she said.

"You asked."

Her hands were knotted in her lap, and the locket was out on her coat now, catching the candlelight.

"What do you want, Carlotta?"

"Money. A car. A name that isn't his."

"Tell me about the lab."

She was quiet for a long time.

"The lab is Uncle's," she said finally. "Not on paper. The two people in the navy shirts work for a company his cousin owns."

"He wrote my first result and he wrote yours. You were never going to be anything but zero."

"Did you know that when you cried at the table?"

"I cry very well," she said. "He paid for lessons."

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