Chapter 17: Dario's POV

Dario's POV

I sewed the recorder into the lining of her left glove while she watched me from the cot.

It was the size of a thumbnail, and it had cost me one favor from a man who owed me three.

"It carries four hours," I said. "It sends nothing. It only listens. When you're done, you walk to the sedan and give me the glove."

"And you'll be at the end of the bridge."

"Yes."

"Where you were last time."

"Closer."

"How close?"

"Close enough to put my hand on the rail before you do."

She said nothing.

Five days in the cabin had left her thinner and calmer.

Stefano had gone back to his father's house on the first night, with his hand stitched, to play the grieving heir and keep Camille believing him.

I had spent the days listening to Maeve breathe on the other side of a wool blanket I'd hung across the room.

I had not touched her once.

"You think it's a mistake," she said.

"I think Camille will kill you if she can."

"She'll try to scare me. She won't try to kill me. She wants to talk. She always wants to talk."

"You don't know that."

"I know how she talks to her enemies. She laughs and tells them everything, because she's already decided they won't be around to repeat it."

I put the needle down.

"That is exactly why I'm afraid."

"Then be afraid," she said. "And let me go."

I looked at her across the lantern.

She had my green notebook open on her knee, and she had been looking at it for an hour without turning a page.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"What I'm going to say to Camille."

"That isn't what you're thinking about."

She closed the book.

"I'm thinking it's the fourteenth night," she said.

My hands stopped.

"The doctor called this morning, on Stefano's phone," she said. "I asked her. She said I was healed, if I was careful."

"Maeve."

"You've been counting too. Don't lie."

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