“I thought I’d convinced you to talk,” I said. “I actually thought I’d cross-examined you into telling me.”

She looked at me, her eyes keen and clear. They were the same eyes, I suppose, that I had seen before, but they appeared different coming from this body, this version of Elena. “You did convince me, Isabel.” Her eyes slid from me to my dad. “And Maurizio died thinking I had betrayed him because I hadn’t told him that my brother was living. I would have told him about you as soon as Isabel found you, because I knew once that happened you would be leaving this life.”

My dad’s face grew sad. “You wanted that for me.”

A solitary nod from Elena. “Of course.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I had pulled a string a few weeks ago when I started looking for my father, after that night in the parking garage, and now so much had unraveled.

My father held out his hand, as if to stop me from falling. “No, I’m sorry. I wanted to get caught, to be found. Otherwise I wouldn’t have spoken to you that night in the stairwell. Elena is right. I was done with that life.”

My mother barked a disbelieving sound. We all looked at her. She rubbed her forehead as if too many realizations were flooding in.

My mother took a step. “Enough,” she said forcefully. “I am taking my son-” she gestured for Charlie to stand “-and my daughter out of here. Away from the two of you.”

Elena nodded. “You should. Immediately. Dez Romano has rigged this building with a gas leak. It hasn’t been activated, but if he-”

A distant clanging sounded in the building, and then thudding, as if someone were climbing stairs. And then Dez Romano staggered past the room, clutching his head.

“Romano!” my aunt said, her voice like a drill sergeant. “Stop.”

He kept moving, his feet shuffling down the hallway.

Elena spun and sprinted out of the room, her feet and her body moving like those of a woman years younger.

In the hallway, she kicked Dez Romano behind the knees, causing him to pitch forward, his face slamming the concrete hallway. An animalistic moan arose from his throat and he clutched his head again.

“What’s wrong with him?” I said. “Is it exposure to the gas?”

“No,” my father said, “he’s suffering from vertigo.”

“Your father’s trademark move,” my aunt said. “But Romano might still have been able to activate the gas.” She kicked him in the stomach, pointing the gun at his head. “Romano,” she yelled. “Did you start the leak?”

Still lying on his back, he clutched his head, his eyes swinging wildly at the five of us standing over him, his gaze landing on Elena. “Who the fuck are you, bitch? How do you know…”

Another well-placed kick to Romano’s gut caused him to yelp and move his hands from his head to his stomach and roll onto it.

“I own you,” Elena said. There was no mistaking the pride in her voice, and something else. Pleasure. She clearly enjoyed this role, being this Elena, much more than she did the weak, sad wife role I’d seen in Italy.

She looked over her shoulder at us before returning her gaze to Dez. “Go,” she said. A direct order. “I want to have a little chat with my friend here, and there is time. If he did activate the leak, it will take at least fifteen to twenty minutes before it ignites the flame. Isn’t that right? That is what you told the duke, right, il diavolo?” She scoffed. “He gave himself that nickname. Pathetic.”

With the heel of her foot, my aunt kicked Dez in the side, forcing him to roll over onto his back. She pointed the gun at him, releasing the safety. “Isn’t that right, diavolo?” she yelled.

He tried to sit up, failed, nodded.

“Now, go,” Elena said to us.

“Come with us,” my father said.

“No. I will handle this. You all must leave. Go somewhere where there are many people. You must be seen by many people. All of you together.”

“That sounds like an alibi,” I said.

My aunt nodded, although she was still staring down the barrel of her gun at Dez Romano.

“What do we need an alibi for?” my mother said. “We haven’t done anything wrong. We need the police.”

My aunt shot her a glance. “There will be questions after this. Many, many questions, and it could mean trouble for all of you.” She pointed her head in the direction of my father. “Christopher faked his own death and hasn’t paid taxes for twenty-two years. And you-” she nodded at my mother “-collected life insurance benefits because of it. That is fraud, a felony.”

“I didn’t know he was alive.”

I spoke up. “And the statute of limitations would have run on some of that.”

My aunt scoffed. “That’s the least of your problems,” my aunt said dismissively. She stared at my dad. “You have killed, Christopher. You killed my husband. And your daughter, knowing that, helped you to escape to the United States. You could both go down. Hard.” She nodded in the direction of the room we’d been in. “And don’t forget the body in there.” She shook her head. “Get out. Now. Be seen together by many people.”

“But what are we supposed to tell the police?” my mother said. “The superintendent has officers everywhere looking for Charlie.”

“Does anyone know you are here? At this address?”

My mother shook her head no.

“And you, Isabel and Christopher,” she said. “Does anyone know you are here?”

“No,” I said.

“No,” my father said.

“Then it was a prank,” my aunt said. “Charlie has no drug problems. No one will say he did. A friend, someone, was playing a prank. You can think of something. It will be easier than trying to explain the rest of it.”

“What about his face?” my father said.

“Make something up,” she said fiercely. “You’ve always been good at that, Christopher.”

“What are you going to do?” my father said.

His sister gave him a small smile but it faded fast. “This is where we part ways, brother.”

Dez tried to sit up. “Gotta get out of here,” he said, raising his hands to his head again.

My aunt looked at her watch, a large white circular face with a black band. “Now. Go.”

“Goodbye, Elena,” I said.

She smiled a sweet smile that made me remember the woman I’d spent time with in Italy. “Goodbye, cara.”

75

We pushed the door open, all of us shooting outside. We hurried up the street, running over the bridge suspended above the Kennedy Expressway. When we got to the other side, my father stopped us. We tried to catch our breaths, tried to focus our minds on what was happening.

“Where can we go?” my dad said.

I thought of Theo and his text from that morning. “Saint Pat’s Block Party.”

My father looked completely confused.

“It’s lots of people,” Charlie said. “About ten blocks long.”

“Let’s go.”

We turned and took off jogging down Lake Street, cutting over to Madison and then continuing west.

We got to the entrance of the block party.

Behind the gates, people were packed on the street, the crowd stretching back block after block after block. Beer and food tents lined the sides of the streets. A huge music stage stood on the right, and a band was going through sound check. Everyone was in a giddy mood, laughing and drinking and milling around in the sun.

I reached in my skirt pockets and found them empty. “I don’t have any money.”

My mother whipped out her purse and paid for all of us to get in. I wondered why Dez hadn’t taken it. He’d underestimated her and that had been a mistake.

The ticket taker frowned at us before she let us through the gate. “Do you need security?” she asked.

For a second, we all stopped and looked at each other. Charlie’s face was swollen, his blood was on my mother’s shirt, and my father’s shirt was torn so that a flap hung down from the shoulder, exposing his chest. I looked down at my own shirt and recoiled. A few drops of Ransom’s blood were clearly visible.