Chapter 8: The Study

Carlo opened the front door himself on Sunday night.

He wore the grey cardigan and house slippers, and his silver hair was brushed back from his forehead.

For a second he only looked at me.

Then he opened his arms.

I stood on his doorstep with my hands at my sides.

Behind me Santino didn't move, and I knew the small recorder was running inside a slit he'd cut in the lining of his coat.

"Livia," Carlo said, and his voice cracked in half. "My girl."

He pulled me against his chest.

He smelled like pipe tobacco and starch, exactly the way he had smelled when I was twelve and sobbing in the hospital hallway.

I let him hold me because I needed to know what I would feel.

I felt nothing but cold.

"Come in," he said. "Come in, both of you. The house is empty. I sent them all home."

He led us down the hall past the dining room, where fourteen chairs sat pushed in around a table laid with one candle.

His study was at the back, lined with books he'd never read.

A fire burned in the grate.

There were three glasses of wine on the desk.

I didn't touch mine.

Carlo lowered himself into his leather chair and put his face in his hands.

"I thought you were dead," he said. "God forgive me, I ordered it, and I thought you were dead, and I haven't slept in a week."

"You nodded at me," I said. "At my funeral."

He lifted his head.

"I was wrong to do it," he said. "I wanted to see you with my own eyes. I'd had a feeling in the night that Santino couldn't do it."

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