Page 117 of Saltwater

Aaron had pushed a piece of peach off his tray and onto our green marble floors.

Ciro was probably right.

A week later, I am walking the same route home, past La Scala, the cacophony of the city unfolding around me, and for a moment, I think I see her again. Only she doesn’t wear a black dress now like she did last week, and she isn’t accompanied by an older man. She is across the street, watching me. She waits there until I meet her eyes—big and cunning, smiling, maybe, at the corners—then she holds up a hand. I do the same.

It’s Lorna, isn’t it?It has to be.

But our connection doesn’t last. A tram rattles along its tracks, a glossy yellow one that survived the war, the noise deafening. And when the car has passed, she’s gone.

If she was ever even there at all.

Lorna

Epilogue

It was an accident, thatday in Brera. I should have noticed the swing of her blond bob. The baby, fat and burbling.Ciro.

But in the two years since Capri, I had grown casual. Too casual.

Still, I hurried us from the table. Threw down the euro notes before my companion could reach for his wallet. And then I slipped us into the crowd and we walked, slowly, like we belonged.

It might have happened eventually, I knew that. I had decided to stay in Europe. Ten million euros was easiest to deposit in Switzerland, it turned out. The stiffly dressed banker didn’t blink when I pushed the duffel across the table. It took him only fifteen minutes to feed the bills through the counter. He was happy, next, to help me transfer the five hundred thousand from Marcus into a shell account before moving it back to me. The money, he assured me, would be untraceable.

It didn’t matter. No one was looking for me anyway.

I was dead.

Death wasn’t always the plan. I would have been content to split the money with Helen, to cash Marcus’s check, to walk away. But as soon as the door to the villa closed behind us, I knew money wouldn’t help me escape. People like the Lingates, people like Stan, don’t let go.

We are their ballast. Without us, they capsize.

And despite what she thought, I knew Helen wouldn’t be able to make a clean break.They were family.Even with the money, theywould have been in the wings, a chorus in her ear. No. She didn’t know how to get out; she didn’t have the stomach for it. But I did.

I considered disappearing. Simply taking the money and never coming back. Part of them, I know, suspected I might. It was why Marcus came to find me in the marina. To talk to me one last time,to be sure.I reassured him.

He was always the kindest of them all. Even if none of them gave him credit for it.

The boat that was supposed to take me to Naples still hadn’t arrived when Marcus left me in the marina.They’re running almost an hour late,he said.Italians.Then he nudged my shoulder, like it was a joke.

I wondered if he would ask for a refund this time, too.

He walked away. And in that moment, I watched him walk right by her—Martina. I don’t think he even noticed. Her arms wrapped around her slender frame, her halting, angular walk. She was sober, I knew. I had seen how, on the boat, she didn’t drink. How, at the club, she passed on the drugs the other girls were taking. And when she got close enough to me, I said:

“You had enough, too?”

She seemed surprised, at first, to see me. Then relieved.

“Yes. Stan said I could take the boat back. I’ve been so tired recently.”

I knew what she meant.

She scanned the marina for Stan’s tender. It was tied up, unmanned, along the outer jetty. I had seen the captain, before I left the club, tucked in a back booth with one of the stewardesses. A liberty Stan either didn’t mind or wasn’t aware of. The keys, I knew from experience, would be in the glove box.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” I said.

She leaned against the wall next to me.

I had planned to leave a crime scene for them to find. Some blood, a torn piece of my clothing, a wad of euro notes. Enough evidence that anyone would be able to infer the outcome. Naples, I knew, would be a more believable site for the “crime” than Capri.

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