“Bad news.” She blew out a breath. “No more figurines.”
My heart pounded overtime, but at that, it sank. “What happened to them?”
“Someone wiped them out.” She checked her outside mirror and then went a different way. “Maybe you can find another store that has them. They’re French, like you thought. Antiques. The seller said they’re rare. Expensive. He told me to try a place in Paris. He wrote down the name. I have it in my pocket. Maybe you can ask Scarlett if she knows anything about it. I remember her saying that she lived there for a while.”
I shouldn’t have risked the trip for the figurines. I should’ve asked her to look when she was alone. When I wasn’t in the car. It bothered me that someone had bought them, but what bothered me even more was what I’d done.
Maybe I’d put my husband in more danger. If Achille connected me to Italy, to Amadeo, maybe he’d make sense of something. Or become curious enough to find out what I was doing on his territory, after he’d seen me on the church steps in another country, the day ofNonno’s funeral.
To make matters worse, the figurines were gone. The risk wasn’t even worth it.
It took me a few minutes to realize we were headed in a familiar direction. “Where are we going, Kee?”
“Harrison’s. I told him I’d swing by later, but then you called. I’ve been meaning to give him his baseball glove from when he was little. When we moved out of Mam’s place, somehow it got mixed with my stuff and I kept telling him I forgot it at home whenever he asked me for it. I took it to Home Run without telling him and had Caspar frame it with his old jersey. I was hoping to surprise him. I never bought him a house-warming gift. And he got a new puppy. I’ve been dying to see it.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Kee. I should go home.”
“Come on, Mari. You can still be friends with him. We don’t have to stay long.”
I thought about it for a minute. If the Scarpones were tracking us, maybe it was better not to go home right away. I didn’t think they were. I’d been staring out of the outside mirror since we left, but chancing it wasn’t worth it. Maybe I’d have Giovanni pick me up from Harrison’s. Or better yet, wherever we went shopping after leaving his place. Yeah, that was a better idea. I wouldn’t even mention Harrison or the house on Staten Island.
I didn’t want to have to deal with my husband’s fury when he found out that I’d slipped out without telling him right away, or any of the men at the house. I’d played them all and knew I was going to have hell to pay.
24
Capo
Did she really think I wouldn’t find her? Just because she didn’t take her watch didn’t mean I couldn’t track her a different way.
It didn’t take me long to find them. It didn’t take me long to realize where she’d gone first andwhostared at my wife. The Scarpones. She must’ve realized it, too, because not long after her friend got back to the car, they took off like the devil was on their heels.
He was, but the wrong one.
I followed them to Staten Island. My gut told me they’d be headed that way. After her friend parked the car and they stepped out, Harry Boy met them at the door, the biggest fucking smile on his face when he noticed his sister wasn’t alone.
The smile was for my wife.
She smiled back, but not as wide. When he got closer, she held up her hand, and he looked at it a minute before he caught on. Instead of hugging him, she offered him a high five. His smile dropped a little, but I knew it wouldn’t deter him for long.
Then a puppy came bounding out of the door, a white German shepherd. My wife sat on the porch, letting the dog attack her with his tongue, while she laughed that laugh that twisted my heart in a weird fucking way. Harry Boy ate it up with an invisible spoon.
So this was where she went when she ran from me.
She told me she loved me.
She fucking loves me.
Then she runs to her old stomping ground and into Harry Boy’s safe house.
It took a lot to stump me, and Harry Boy was far from it. Even though he bought the house without me in mind, he knew someday, when we’d fight, she’d run to him—to a place she felt comfortable.
Fuck. That.
Fuck Harry Boy, too.
Fuck love.
Where is the loyalty she vowed to me?
