Chapter 6: The Door

"She asked if I was still alive," I said.

My voice sounded like someone else's.

"My stepmother. She taught me to braid my hair."

Luciano took the phone out of my hand and gave it to the underboss without looking away from me.

"Photograph everything on it," he said.

"Then clear the room."

When we were alone he said nothing, and I was grateful.

I walked to the dresser and put both hands flat on it.

"I'm going to her house," I said.

"I'm going to ask her to her face."

"Then go."

I turned.

He stood by the bathroom door with his arm strapped to his chest, and his face was perfectly serious.

"I told you I locked your door," he said.

"I let you believe it, and in my house that was a lie.

"The latch only catches.

"Turn the knob from the inside, and it opens.

"The guard sits in the hall because the house isn't safe, not because you can't leave."

"You let me think I was locked in."

"You didn't try the handle."

That was true, and I hated it.

I walked to the door and put my hand on the knob.

It turned as easily as water.

I went down the stairs in my bare feet, past the guard in the hall, who looked at the floor.

I went through the kitchen and across the cold stone hall to the front door of the house.

Two men stood by it.

Luciano had followed me to the foot of the stairs, and he lifted two fingers, and they stepped aside.

I opened the front door.

The night air hit my face, sharp and clean, smelling of river and wet leaves.

The long drive was in front of me, lit by a single lamp, and beyond it the dark road and the whole free city.

I could walk out.

I stood on the threshold and understood, with a feeling, that I did not want to.

It wasn't the guards or the dead man upstairs.

It was the man behind me.

I closed the door and turned around.

Luciano had not moved.

He stood in the light with his hand loose at his side and waited for what I would say.

I was twenty-six years old, and he was thirty-four, and I had been alone for three weeks.

I walked up to him until there were inches between us.

"I want you," I said.

My voice shook, and I let it.

"I'm not saying it because of the dead man, or the house, or the lock.

"The door is open, and I would say it just the same if it were wide open and I were on the lawn.

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