Chapter 23: The Four O'Clock Slot

Silvio's POV

She sat in the front seat with the coffee I had bought her and did not drink it.

"You took the clock out of the study," she said.

"It's been there since October. Nobody's wound it."

"I noticed."

"I didn't want it in a room where it had to be hidden."

She turned in her seat and looked at the long case in the back, with the towel around the pendulum.

"Where are we going?"

"Home first."

Bruno was waiting in the front hall with two of my men.

He stood well, for a man who still breathed carefully, and he had put on his driver's cap for the occasion.

"Boss," he said. "Mrs. Carrara."

He had called her that since the day he held the door at the club.

Claire smiled at him.

It was the first real smile I had seen on her since the night of the gun.

We carried the clock in between us.

It stood a little over six feet, with a brass face.

When we tipped it upright, the weights shifted inside with a soft clunk.

The hall in my father's house had one blank wall that nobody had ever hung anything on.

I'd cleared it in November.

"There," I said.

The men set it down, and I wound it.

Three turns of the key on each side.

I took the towel from the pendulum and gave it a push.

It swung.

The tick sounded in the hall, slow and plain.

Claire put her hand on the wood.

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