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His voice was kind, though the question was brutal. But Dante really did know how to hold her hand, for he took it into his lap as he asked it, and held it gently even as it clenched.
‘Yes,’ Alicia finally admitted. ‘I’ve thought of that a lot of late.’
‘People move on,’ Dante said, his grip tightening as she went to pull back her clawed hand. ‘I haven’t kept in touch with anyone from my past...’
‘You’re stone-cold, though,’ Alicia said.
‘So was Beatrice,’ Dante reminded her, probing the parts of her that hurt with a tenderness that didn’t actually surprise Alicia—for just as he’d accepted her fiery nature, he’d respected, too, the quiet intermissions. The lulls where she gathered herself. Faced facts and regrouped. ‘Was it you keeping the friendship alive?’ he asked.
‘Maybe.’
‘Is it time to let go?’ he asked, and then one by one he unfurled her fingers as they sat there, as if unknotting a necklace, her hand the sole focus of his attention as Alicia thought things through and drew her conclusions.
‘I can’t,’ she finally admitted. ‘I mean, in many ways I have. I’ve got good friends here, and I’m doing well at work. Most of the time I can put it aside. But then I see a blonde woman who looks like her... Beatrice once said we’re sisters of the heart, and for me, at least, it’s still true. We shared a crib, Dante...’
‘Bambino oca...’He sighed. ‘Like little goslings... They love the first person they lay eyes on and follow them around.’
‘Maybe.’ Alicia nodded. ‘But I’ll never stop looking.’
‘You mean that?’ he checked.
‘Yes.’
She could smell a woman’s perfume now, and she noticed for the first time that there was lipstick on his cheek. Combined with the news he’d brought, it made her feel a little ill.
‘Well, thank you for trying.’
‘I haven’t really tried,’ Dante said as she stood.
‘You just said—’
‘Alicia, sit down. I want to put something to you.’
‘What?’
‘Just sit for a moment.’
‘I don’t have time. I’ll be late.’
‘Be late for once, then. Look, Beatrice has to be somewhere. The detective has suggested he goes back with you to—’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to go back.’
‘Even if it means you find Beatrice? You need to sit down with the nuns—or whoever’s still there at the convent. With someone who knows what to ask.’
‘I’ve already done that. I asked them so many times.’
‘Yes—as a teenager. You’re a woman now. You’re working and independent—they won’t be able to intimidate you as much and you’d have the investigator with you.’
‘I don’t want to go back to the convent. I don’t want to go back to Sicily at all.’
Dante’s eyes narrowed. She knew he had always known when she was flustered, but he chose to let it go—for which she was grateful. No doubt he’d file it away, though, as he often did pieces of information.
‘Anyway, you just told me you had Gino put the best person on to it.’
‘Yes, and I did—as a favour for a friend. I don’t owe you anything now.’ He said it quite coldly. ‘However, I can have the investigator build a team, bring in some fresh eyes—not just in Sicily and Milan, but beyond.’
‘Then do it.’
