Chapter 7: Guest Law

Corrado walked the whole length of the hall without hurrying.

Nobody stopped him.

Sixty men who had come armed to a family meeting watched him go by and kept their hands on the table.

My father stood up so fast the carved chair scraped.

"Dead men don't walk into my house," he said.

"I'm a guest," Corrado said.

He stopped beside me, close enough for his coat to touch my arm.

"Under the harbor law, any named person may bring a witness to a table that takes her name."

"She named me this morning."

"I did," I said.

I had no idea what law he meant, but I said it like I'd been born knowing.

The white-haired old man lifted a finger.

"It's the old law, Baldassare," he said.

"Nobody has used it in thirty years."

"It still stands."

My father's jaw worked.

"Then the witness can watch her sign."

"No," I said.

"I'm not signing today."

I picked up my phone and put it in my sleeve.

"The tape belongs to the council now."

"I'd like the families to hear Tancredi explain it at the next sitting."

I looked straight at my fiance, my ex-fiance, who was the color of old paper.

"And I'd like my sister to keep the emerald," I said.

"It suits her."

Fiorella made a small choked sound.

Corrado put a hand at the small of my back and turned me.

We walked out the way we had come.

When we reached the doors, I heard my father's voice behind us, low and flat.

"I'll bury you this time."

I didn't look back, and neither did Corrado.

In the car my whole body started to shake.

He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other clamped around my fingers.

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