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I stepped into the bathroom, fizzling excitement in my belly. It was quiet, and only got more so as I flushed and zipped up my jeans. Heading out to the sinks, I stopped in my tracks. There was a reason it was so quiet. A person stood barring the door, and another leaned against the sinks.
Detective Vane and Detective Whitely.
“Miss Burke, or should I call you Mrs. De Sanctis? You’re a difficult lady to get alone.”
I seriously considered backing into the cubicle and locking it, but Renato would come looking for me soon, and finding me here with the detectives? I was terrified to see his reaction.
“I have nothing to say to you.” I jerked my head toward the door. “Let me out, my husband is waiting for me.”
“Waiting for you or watching to make sure you don’t run away?”
“What do you want?” I demanded, but I knew, of course. They were never going to just let me go without a fight. They saw a hole in Renato De Sanctis’s inner circle, and they wouldn’t be giving that up so easily.
“What happened to the listening device? It was transmitting perfectly fine and then, nothing.”
“I don’t know,” I blustered.
Detective Vane stared at me closely, her face calculating. “You got rid of it, didn’t you? You’ve switched sides, haven’t you, Charlie?”
“Sides? I was never on your side, or his. I’m on my side.”
Whitely made a frustrated sound. “And you want to throw in your lot with a kingpin. This man is dangerous, Charlie. He’s a killer.”
I waited for a long moment, taking slow breaths, my brain working furiously over the predicament. “Are we done here? I’m assuming you don’t have a warrant?”
Detective Vane stood and folded her arms. “No, no warrant. But we do have evidence leaked from inside Casa Nera. I bet your husband would justloveto know he has a mole, and that it's his wife.”
A pang of regret went through me. Great, now that I’d made the mistake of planting the bug in the first place, Detective Vane would try to use it against me.
I shrugged. “Tell him, I can’t stop you.”
She laughed. “You think he cares enough about you to overlook it? Don’t you know how families like his work? Loyalty is the most important thing. Omertà, look it up.”
“Are we done?” I repeated, injecting a bored note I didn’t feel at all into my voice.
Detective Vane’s face grew red. She was getting pissed off, so I had to be doing something right.
“Okay, say you actually trust the killer you married. Let’s imagine you really do have shit for brains, or he has a magic cock. What about your sister?”
“What about her?” I demanded. This woman was absolutely coming unhinged to speak to me like this. Her erratic behavior felt dangerous.
“We have a warrant for Lucy, all ready to go. She was at the scene of the crime, she knew the deceased, and his friends say he was cheating on her. That’s what we call opportunity and motive.”
“Circumstantial at best.”
Detective Vane shrugged. “Sure, maybe, but if she confesses to what happened, whatever it was, then we have a witness. Do you really think Lucy can take hours of interrogation? She looked pretty fragile the last we saw her. I wonder if seeing crime scene photos will jog her memory. Maybe if we tug the right thread, it’ll all come tumbling down.”
My thoughts raced around my head. My old motto of surviving another day screamed at me, and my responsibility for Lucy counter balanced the new feeling of trust that had developed between me and the dangerous man I’d married. I was pulled in all directions and had no idea how to fight my way out of the spiderweb.
I swallowed hard and gripped my St. Anthony’s medal. It was my go-to move. It always comforted me.
You’re not alone anymore. A pair of white and black chess pieces, united against the horde, a perfect balance. Renato’s ring on my finger and the cut beneath.Only this ring keeps you safe, only our union protects you.I was so tired of being alone. I was so weary of being the only one making all decisions and sacrifices. I was done.
I needed someone to lean on, and I chose him.
“Do what you want. I won’t speak to you again without a lawyer present, and if you want to speak to our attorney, contact the De Sanctis offices. Now, fuck off and leave me alone.”
I pushed past Detective Vane. Whitely stepped aside when I got to the doorway and wrenched it open, spilling out into the hall and coming to an abrupt stop.
