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So we lie quietly, he in his world, me in mine. That is, until he breaks the silence.
“I went to the cemetery,” he says, surprising me that he’s sharing something.
I rest my chin on the hand I have on his chest and peer up at him. He’s staring at the canopy above us, though I’m not sure he’s actually looking at it. More like beyond it, to wherever his thoughts have been.
“Did you visit Tony?” I ask him.
“My father.”
“Oh.”
He shifts beneath me, and I make to move off him, but he tightens his arm around my back. When I stop moving, he relaxes. Then he soothingly trails his fingertips over my skin. The soft tickle lulls me, and I sigh, but I don’t move again, because I don’t want him to stop. I’m not even sure he’s aware he’s doing it.
“What you found the other day,” he continues. “It got me to thinking that perhaps it didn’t mean he was the Ferryman, but rather, it was a clue that he had the answer to who is. So I went to look.”
“Did you find anything?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing but bitter memories.”
I pull my lips into a straight line as I wonder how willing he’ll be to listen to my ideas. Since he already took what I found in the painting and ran with it, I imagine he’ll be open to it.
“I believe you’re right. Your father wasn’t the Ferryman. When he and Daddy spoke, they were talking about a third party. Not one of them.”
Luca tilts his face toward me and arches a brow. He studies me, his gaze narrowed. “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?”
I shrug. “I like to solve things.”
“So what have you come up with?”
After biting my lower lip, I add, “Daddy might know who it is. I thought about calling him. You should go to my… I mean,hishouse and question him.”
“Already tried,” he says. “He’s gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?” I frown, completely taken aback and not liking the sound of this at all.
“I mean, he’s gone. There was no one at the house. The closet is empty. Everything was locked up as if he wasn’t planning on returning for a while.” He runs the backs of his fingernails over the skin of my back absentmindedly. “You haven’t communicated with him?”
I glance away and swallow hard. He left? The thought that he threw me to the wolf and ran hurts.
“No. I figured my phone was bugged, and with the threat you made…” I trail off, leaving the rest unsaid because there’s no need.
“Itisbugged,” he admits. “I just figured you would find a way to send him a message if you really wanted to.”
Laughter bursts from me at the irony that he’d think me that clever, when I’ve racked my brain for days on end trying to figure a way, and all I could come up with was a good old-fashioned letter. I’d have to then somehow draw attention to itwithoutdrawing attention to it. It’s not like I could give it to a mailman. Even Nan would have betrayed me to Luca in a heartbeat.
No, I’m not that…
I sit bolt upright. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Startled, Luca sits up too.
“A good old-fashioned letter. If Tony became paranoid and didn’t trust anyone, he would have found another way.” Without explaining further, I grab my discarded shirt and slip it on as I scramble to my feet.
“Where are you going?” Luca yells behind me as he too gets into his clothes, then follows me down to the study where I’m already standing in front of the fireplace.
I grab the painting of Nico Sinacore and try to lift, but the damned thing is heavier than I thought. “Help me.”
He does, moving me away and bringing it down easily. “What are you doing?”
