Chapter 7: Pressure

I took Daniele's hand off my arm one finger at a time.

"Don't touch me again," I said, loud enough for the whole table. "You've done it twice in a day and I've counted."

He let go.

Nobody spoke, and then the gray-haired captain cleared his throat.

"A vote," he said. "Friday, at this table. Until then no order goes out under the seal without Mrs. Greco's mark."

"Seconded," said the man beside him.

"Seconded," said another, and another, until the right side of the table had finished and the left side sat quiet.

Daniele looked down the table, one man at a time.

Four of them looked at their plates.

"Friday," he said finally. "Enjoy your week, Cara."

I took the ledger and the keys and went out through the front door and down the gravel.

Agnese's cane knocked once behind me on the hall floor, and I knew she was watching from the doorway.

Domenico was parked outside the gate with the engine running.

I got in the passenger seat and shut the door.

"Well?" he said.

"Friday."

"That's a week."

"It's enough."

He pulled out onto the road and I looked at the keys in my lap.

They were warm from my skin.

I was thinking about Paolo and one sentence that Daniele had said, and about how I had not asked him what he meant.

Domenico drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on the gearshift, easy and unhurried.

The road ran through bare trees, and there was nobody on it except a gray van behind us.

"That van has been there since the gate," he said.

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