Chapter 16: The Swap

Lucia's POV

I woke on the study couch to an empty house and a dead phone line.

Remo's chair by the door was empty, and the Lincoln was gone from the drive.

I called him six times, and then Silvio answered.

"Bring the ledger to the Pesaro pier at ten," he said. "Come alone, or I send you his ears."

He hung up.

I stood in the study with the cane in my hands and felt something go quiet inside me.

It was not fear.

It was the thing my father must have felt, every time, before he picked up the phone.

Bianca came in at a run with her car keys, and behind her came Jake.

She had fetched him from the cottage at noon, because Narragansett was no longer safe.

He was gray, and he held his side when he walked, but he stood up straight.

"I heard," he said.

"Then you know I'm not asking you for anything."

"You don't have to. I'm offering." He looked at the floor. "I sold you for money, and I can't unspend it. Let me do one thing that costs me."

"They'll shoot you."

"They already tried the soft way." He gave a short laugh and winced. "Put me in front. Silvio trusts a man he's bought."

"He knows you failed."

"He knows I was beaten and begged. He thinks I'll crawl." Jake met my eyes. "Let me crawl."

I looked at Bianca.

Bianca looked at the ceiling and said, "I hate this plan."

"We don't have a plan."

"I'm making one, and I hate it."

She knelt, and from the bag of cables the computer man had left behind she pulled a small black recorder the size of a lighter.

"He said he put cameras in this house," she said. "He kept this for the booth microphone. It records for eight hours."

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