Chapter 12: My Girl

Nino pulled Francesca down behind the marble angel at the end of the next row.

They crouched in the wet grass with their shoulders pressed together.

The angel's wings stood over them, black against the sky.

"We go," Nino breathed. "Now. Back down the hill."

"No."

"Miss Francesca."

"She's looking for Papa's box, Nino."

She slipped out from behind the angel before he could catch her sleeve.

She kept low and moved along the side of the crypt, where the tarp over the bronze door made a long shadow.

At the corner she stopped, and leaned, and looked in through the open gate.

The crypt was one small room, granite on every side.

Her grandfather's marble plaque was on the back wall, with his name and his dates and a carved olive branch.

Beside it was the empty niche that would hold her father tomorrow.

Claudia was on her knees in front of it in a dark coat, running her flashlight along the seams of the granite.

She wasn't alone.

A man stood behind her with his hands in his overcoat pockets.

Silver hair. A gold watch that caught the light when he moved.

Ottavio.

"Not the niche," he said. "It's empty. They opened it Monday."

"Then where?" Claudia sat back on her heels. "You said he came up here every week. You said it had to be here."

"I said Nino Ferrante drove him here every week. Nino isn't a man who tells me things."

Out in the dark, Francesca felt Nino's stare on her back.

Claudia stood and swept the flashlight over the plaque.

The olive branch glowed white.

"Tomorrow the masons take that down in front of everyone," Ottavio said. "If there's anything behind it, the captains watch it come out."

Keep reading free with an account. Start His Ring on Her Finger, My Name on the Door from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.