Chapter 16: What Teo Carried

I had my leggings on before Tancredi had found his shirt.

I opened the door.

Teo fell in against me.

His lip was split, his left eye was swelling shut, and there was blood on the front of his good coat.

He held his right arm against his ribs.

"Sit," I said. "Sit down right now."

"I'm all right."

"You're bleeding on the floor."

Tancredi was already behind him, easing him down on the edge of the bed.

He did it gently, one big hand at the back of Teo's neck, and Teo let him.

I found the first-aid tin on the shelf over the hot plate.

It was the same tin Tancredi had in his truck.

He had put one in every room I slept in, and I had never asked why.

I wet a cloth and crouched in front of my brother.

"Hold still," I said.

"Pip, I'm fine."

"You said that when you were nine and you fell out of the pear tree."

"I did fall out of the pear tree."

"You broke your wrist and told Mamma you'd bumped it."

He laughed, and then it hurt him, and he stopped.

I cleaned his lip.

My hands were steady.

That surprised me, because inside I was shaking.

"Who?" I said.

"Two of Papà's guards. The big one from the courtyard, and the one with the scar."

"Where?"

"In the garage. Right under your feet." He tried to nod at the floor. "They were waiting for me when I came in from the van."

"Why?"

Teo shut his good eye.

"Papà's lawyer wrote a statement this morning. Cosima's driver signs it and a witness signs under him. I was supposed to be the witness."

"What does it say?"

"That I saw Corrado hand the manifest to the agent. That I was seventeen and scared, and I kept quiet for five years."

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