Chapter 13: Brother

Quentin was dressed and sitting at my kitchen table by five in the morning, with his phone face down in front of him.

I came out in his sweater, because mine was somewhere under the couch.

He didn't look up.

"I'm calling her," he said. "I want you to hear it."

He put the phone on speaker and it rang twice.

"Quentin." Constance sounded awake. She had been sitting up.

"Mother. Vittorio Bellandi thinks he is my father."

Nothing came down the line. Somewhere in her hotel room a clock was ticking.

"Say something," Quentin said.

"Come to the hotel, darling. We'll talk privately."

"Is it true?"

"The man who raised you held you before anyone else did. He taught you to swim."

"That isn't what I asked."

"Sabina, dear, I'm sure you can hear me," Constance said. Her voice had gone thin. "Please let him come alone."

"I can hear you, Mrs. Wexley," I said.

The line went dead.

Quentin laid his hand flat on the phone and looked at it.

"She didn't say no," he said.

"No."

"She had three years to say no to something that stupid and she just didn't."

The knock came at six.

I opened the door on Vittorio and Rocco, both in yesterday's clothes. Neither of them had slept either.

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