Chapter 12: Brennan's Answer

Brennan's POV

I let the old man in because the boy would not come down for anyone else.

Aurelio walked into my kitchen with his coat open and sat in a chair without being offered one.

Rocco stayed outside the gate with his lawyer, looking at his watch.

Aurelio had told him to wait in the car.

Rocco had laughed and said, "Father, really."

Aurelio had said it again, in a voice I had not heard from him in seventeen years, and Rocco had gone.

Fiorella sat at the far end of the table with her hands folded.

I went up and got Elio.

He came down the stairs one step at a time with his fingers in mine, and he stopped in the doorway.

Fiorella made a sound I did not want to hear again.

She was out of the chair and across the room before I could blink, down on her knees with her arms around him.

"I told you not to come," she said into his hair. "I told you. I told you."

"You said find the lady in the red coat."

"I know what I said."

She was laughing, and crying, and kissing his muddy face.

I stood against the wall with my hands in my pockets and looked at the floor.

Britta was at the counter.

She did not say anything.

She had the gray phone in both hands, and she was crying silently, without moving her face.

I wanted to cross the room.

I stayed where I was.

Aurelio had not moved.

He watched the woman on his kitchen floor with her son in her arms, and he said, in a heavy voice, "Why was the boy walking in the dark?"

Fiorella looked up at him over Elio's head.

She did not answer.

"Fiorella."

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