Lost Your Mind novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Cuff Link

I woke with his name in my throat and my nails in his arm.

"Giulia." Nico was already sitting up. "What did you see?"

"The car. Get up. We have to look at the car."

He didn't ask me why.

He pulled on trousers and yesterday's shirt, took his cane from the bedpost, and followed me down the stairs in the dark.

The garage stood across the back courtyard, a long stone building with one lamp over the door.

One of the two men on watch sat on an upturned crate, drinking coffee from a paper cup.

He stood up when he saw us.

"Mr. Nico. Nothing's moved. Nobody's been in."

"Open it," Nico said.

The man unlocked the padlock.

The wedding car sat alone under the work lights, black and polished, the white ribbon still tied to its mirror.

I couldn't make myself walk toward it.

Nico gave me one look and lowered himself to the concrete, his bad leg out to the side.

He slid under the front end with a flashlight in his hand.

I heard him go still.

"Giulia," he said, from beneath the car. "Stay where you are."

"What is it?"

"Tell your father's man to go to the gate and wait there."

The guard went, white-faced, before I could say it.

Nico came out slowly and sat up.

There was grease on his cheek.

"A grey box behind the front axle, with a short antenna," he said. "Wired into the fuel line, packed round with something that isn't putty."

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