Chapter 13: Not Taken

The senior officer got out of the first police car and looked from my father to Fiammetta.

"Signor Falconieri," he said. "Which daughter is this?"

"My eldest. She is unwell, and these people took her from the car."

Fiammetta stepped out of my arms.

She was in her nightdress and a coat, with her hair wild and her bare feet in the gravel.

She had never looked smaller, and she had never stood straighter.

"Officer, I am eighteen," she said. "My name is Fiammetta Falconieri. Nobody took me anywhere."

My father smiled at the police.

"She is confused. The doctors will explain."

"Which doctors?" I said.

He did not look at me.

"Officer, ask him to show you my admission paper," Fiammetta said. "Ask who signed it."

The officer held out a hand.

A man in a white coat had come out of the clinic's bright door, and he walked down the drive with a folder.

He did not meet the officer's eyes either.

"The signature is the father's," the officer said slowly, reading. "The patient's line is blank."

"A family emergency," my father said.

"For an adult?" The officer turned a page. "Signora, did you agree to come here?"

"No," Fiammetta said. "My brother carried me down the stairs while I screamed. Ask the staff. Ask the girl in the back of that car."

Hanna had her phone up, recording everything, her face set hard.

"I have it from the hallway too," she said. "Her scream is very clear."

The officer closed the folder.

"Signor Falconieri, an adult cannot be committed by her father's signature. If she wants to leave, she leaves."

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