Chapter 13: The Window

My parents' house in Mondello has a lemon tree under my sister's window.

I had climbed it at fifteen, to get into her room and take back a necklace she had stolen.

At midnight, in a black coat, I climbed it again.

Nella stood in the lane below with the engine off, watching the guard at the gate.

Venera's two guards slept in a car at the front, because their orders said to watch the road.

Nobody had ever told them to watch a tree.

The window was unlatched.

She never locked it.

I slid over the sill and stood still in the dark.

My sister lay on her side with one hand under her cheek, in a white nightdress, and a small black phone glowed on the pillow beside her face.

I crossed the floor and picked it up.

She woke at once.

She saw a woman in black standing over her bed, and she opened her mouth to scream.

I put my hand over it.

"It's me."

Her eyes went wide, and then they went wet.

She pulled my hand down with both of hers.

"You're dead," she whispered. "I saw you at the church. I told myself I didn't."

"You saw me, and you said nothing."

"I didn't know what to say."

"Say who is on this phone."

She tried to take it from me.

I held it up out of her reach, the way I had held that necklace at fifteen.

"Venera. Who is on the phone?"

"A man. He has no name. He said he works for the Ficarras."

"What did he want?"

"He came to the café after the shooting." Her voice broke on the word. "He said Don Ficarra would forget it if I helped."

"Helped with what?"

"With knowing when the Lanzettas would move."

I looked at my little sister in her white nightdress.

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