Chapter 4: Dressing

In Marianne's living room, Luciano answered Renata Corvi as if she had asked about the weather.

"It's healing well," he said.

"The nurse is very good."

Her brown eyes slid to me and stayed there a moment too long.

"This is Lila's sister? I'm so sorry for your loss, dear."

"Thank you," I said.

"Your sister did our books for four months.

"Such a bright girl, and so tragic."

She squeezed my fingers once, soft and cool, and drifted back into the crowd of lilies and wool.

I watched her go with the locket cutting into my palm.

In the car I said, "She knew."

"Yes," said Luciano.

"You didn't tell her about the shoulder."

"I told no one outside my house."

"Then she knew from the man who shot you."

"Or the man who ordered it," he said, "and she is married to him."

The driver turned onto the parkway and the trees closed over us.

I looked at the locket in my hand and could not look at anything else.

"I didn't plan on that," I said.

"The locket."

"I know."

"I didn't plan on any of this."

"Neither did I," he said, and for the first time, he sounded like a man who was telling the truth about something small and personal.

I changed his dressing the next evening at six, in the book-lined room with the long table.

He sat on the edge of it with his shirt off, and the light from the lamp threw a gold edge along his shoulder.

I peeled off the old gauze.

The wound looked clean.

"No fever," I said.

"No infection."

"You sound disappointed."

"I'm a professional."

"You're a liar," he said.

"You came here to put a bullet through me and now you're counting my pulse."

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