Chapter 18: The Night Before

The night before the wedding, the whole house slept except two people and a hose.

Wynne sat on the stone rim of the lemon tree's pot with her dress bag over her knee.

Her mother had finished the bouquet at nine.

White roses, wired tight, with a ribbon at the heart of them.

Rosanna had stitched a flat black coin into the ribbon herself, where a careful eye would find it.

The recorder's button went in the ribbon too.

One press, and Aurelio's voice would fill a church.

Massimo came across the wet lawn in his shirtsleeves.

He had a cut over his eye from a fight he would not describe, and the knuckles of his right hand were split again.

"The driver's cousin is on the church door," he said. "He'll let in the five. He'll keep out anybody else."

"And Fabrizio's men?"

"Four of them in the back pews. I counted."

"Four against you."

"Four against a lot of people, by then." He stopped in front of her. "Say it's still a good plan."

"It's still a good plan."

"Say it like you believe it."

"I believe in my mother's stitches."

He almost smiled.

He sat down beside her on the stone rim, close enough that their shoulders touched, and neither of them said anything for a while.

The water ran.

The lamps on the terrace had gone out an hour ago.

"I'll be at the back," Massimo said at last. "Whatever he does, you don't run. You let it play."

"And if he comes for you?"

"Then he's coming for me in front of the capos, with his own voice in the air."

She turned her face into his shoulder.

He smelled of leaves and gun oil and the soap from the east wing.

"I should have said it in my room," she said. "Last week, when you said it."

"You don't have to."

"I love you."

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