Lost Your Mind novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Key

We met her at the garage door in our coats, with Nico's cane tapping on the stones.

Benedetta flinched at the sound and then made herself stand straight.

"I saw your lamp," she said. "I thought, if I wait any longer, I won't come."

"How did you get out of Donna Livia's rooms?" I asked.

"Through the kitchen. Nobody watches the kitchen." She tried a smile. "I've been a nun. I know how to leave a building quietly."

Her fist opened.

On her palm lay a flat brass key on a tag of faded blue rope.

"He came to the garden under my window on Saturday night," she said. "The guard at the gate let him through. He said I'd been a good girl and I could come home."

"Home to the boat," said Nico.

"He's moving it to the quay by the cathedral road. On the wedding day, I'm to wait on board in the white coat he bought me." Her voice dropped. "He said I'd hear a noise, and then we sail."

She pressed the key into my hand.

"That's the spare for the engine. He had two made, and he forgot he gave me one."

I turned it over.

It was warm from her grip.

"Why are you giving this to us?" I said.

She looked at the ground and then at me.

"At the chapel, you looked at me like a person," she said. "He never did, not really. He looked at me like a door he'd found open."

I said nothing.

"Last night I sat in the room Donna Livia gave me, and I felt the baby move. And I thought, if I go on that boat, he'll sail us both into the water."

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