The Mafia's Forbidden Captive novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Log

"Show me," I said.

We were back in the library in Great Falls, and it was past midnight.

The Corvi shooter at the cabin had run into the woods, and no one had caught Marianne.

Luciano stood at his desk with his back to me.

He didn't ask what I meant.

He unlocked a drawer, took out a thin grey folder and laid it on the blotter between us.

"Sit," he said.

"I'll stand."

I opened it.

The first page was a printout of call records, with a column of times and numbers and a yellow highlighter streaked across two lines.

Tuesday, September twenty-second.

4:12 p.m.

An outgoing call from a Chicago cell phone, six minutes long, to a Chevy Chase landline.

That was mine.

Underneath, in a second column from another phone, 4:20 p.m.

An outgoing call from the same Chevy Chase number to a mobile number that had a name typed beside it in blue ink.

R. Corvi.

I read it three times.

The paper began to shake, and it took me a moment to know it was my hand.

"Where did you get this?"

"A bookkeeper in Silvio's office," Luciano said.

"A man who owed me a favor.

"He pulled Renata's phone records the day after your sister died.

"I knew by the twenty-sixth."

"The twenty-sixth," I said.

"A month ago."

"Yes."

"You knew who made that call before I came to the garage."

"I knew."

"You sat there while I told you about the voicemail," I said.

"You let me say your men killed her.

"You let me hate you."

"Yes."

"Why?"

He turned around.

He looked tired and grey, and for the first time since the night in the garage I saw how badly his shoulder hurt him.

"Because you were already breaking," he said.

"You'd come home to a funeral.

"You'd lost your sister and found out the police had lied.

"You had one clean thing left to hold, and it was a name to hate.

"I would sooner you pointed a gun at me than at yourself."

"That wasn't yours to decide."

"No," he said.

"It wasn't."

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to put my fist through the glass in the bookcase.

I had called Marianne.

I had called her because I was scared, and Lila had died of it.

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