It’s coming from a long way away, barely a sound, but I’d know that voice anywhere. I try to speak, but my lips are too dry, they won’t move…
* * *
I am standingin the doorway of Don Augustino Morelli’s conservatory, the great glass room filled with greenery, the place he likes to take his breakfast. On the humid air I get a faint whiff of black coffee.
I glance over my shoulder, expecting to see Angelo Messina waiting there, Tino’s faithful bodyguard, watching me with sharp, knowing eyes. But it’s not Angelo. It’s Marco, Marco Rossetti.
Why isn’t he with Finch? He’s supposed to be guarding Finch.
But Marco just gives me a nod and I turn back to the entrance. The scent of good coffee wafts out from among the plants. Tino is in there somewhere.
Tino hassummonedme. I can’t keep him waiting.
I step into the conservatory, but it’s so much bigger than I remember, the path disappearing into a riot of plants and flowers and herbs, the pungency of the basil and mint tickling my nose…it’s overgrown, but not yet out of control. The path, at least, is clear, though fronds and leaves stretch over it and brush my face. They’re heavy and damp, leaving wet trails on my face as I walk by.
I know I need to find Tino, but the walk itself is so pleasant, I take my time. The coffee scent comes and goes, and as I get closer to the center, I can hear snatches of a woman humming.
It’s a wild, overgrown garden, not a conservatory at all; there’s no glass overhead, only blue skies that I see peeping through tall treetops. Here and there along the walk I can see flashes of color—flowers, yes, but birds, too, magnificent parrots and even a peacock tail disappearing around one of the forks in the path I choose not to take. Butterflies erupt in a great cloud and they carry with them a scent, fresh and grassy, a smell familiar to me, though I can’t place it.
“You are dawdling, Luciano!”
That voice. I haven’t heard it for several years, and to hear it now makes me catch my breath. “Don Morelli?”
“Hurry up, my boy. I don’t have all day. I’m a busy man, you know that.”
I’ve been jogging along the path as he speaks, until the trees open out into a clearing, and there he is: Tino Morelli, sitting at the small table I know from the conservatory in his New York mansion. He has a steaming black coffee by his elbow, biscotti before him on a small china dish, and a still-wrapped cigar placed just-so on a silk napkin, resting in turn on a silver serving platter.
I stop dead and gape at him. “Don Morelli?”
He stands and beckons me over, but I’m rooted to the ground. He moves to meet me instead, embracing me, kissing me on each cheek, and then offering his hand.
The large black stone of his ring is so deep and dark as I stare at it that it could almost be a pool for me to fall into. It seems so familiar—and so out of reach. I bend low over his hand and kiss the ring, and then he pulls his fingers from mine, even as I try to grasp them more tightly.
“Sit down, Luciano,” he says gravely, though his eyes are still twinkling at me. “We have much to discuss, you and I.” He beckons me with his head, and I follow him back to the table.
“It’s been so long…” I take a seat opposite him and try to remember when I saw him last. Try to seal into my memory the lines of his face, the inflection of his voice.
“Tell me—Finch. What is he like?” Tino is leaning forward, eager to hear my answer.
An overwhelming sense of déjà vu comes over me, and I put a hand to my forehead, almost dizzy with it. “Finch?” I’m breathing harder, my heart beating fast, and I take a moment before responding. “He is—he is—”
“Are you making him happy? You promised me, Luciano. You promisedme. You said he would be happy.” Tino’s face fills my view, his glowering brows drawn and heavy.
I can hear someone calling me, calling my name.
Luca.
“Well?” Tino prompts.
I pull myself together, sitting up straight in the chair. “Everything I do is designed to make him happy, sir. Happy and safe. I’m keeping him safe.”
Tino is smiling again. “Has he tried to run?”
“No. Not again. Not since…” I frown. “Not since you…”
“And have you told him you love him?”
This, at least, I can answer without hesitation. “Every day. Every moment, every opportunity, I tell him. I show him. I don’t hold back anything from him. He has my heart, fully and completely.”
