“Tío, por favor. Tío!”

Setting aside the necklace, she pushed herself into his arms, holding him as he had wanted to hold her, comfort her, protect her. But how could you protect someone from the past? It was a task far beyond him. Still, they clung to each other like survivors of a shipwreck, which, in a very real sense, they were.

“She loved something about that shitbag, though God alone knows what it was,” she whispered in his ear.

Flix knew she was right, but that knowledge only caused the pain to burrow deeper inside him, like a worm intent on feasting off him. In a whispered voice he did not recognize, he said, “What, guapa? What did he do?”

“We had a basement, do you remember?”

“Marilena said no one went down there. It was too damp.”

“That’s where he took me, most nights. He tied me up, but it wasn’t what you think.”

Lucy was shivering; she clung to him more tightly. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed St. Vincent start toward them. His allotted time with Lucy was up, but he wasn’t having any. He shot St. Vincent such a poisonous look that the man stopped in his tracks, retreated to his former post, but not before tapping his watch face.

Lucy was still whispering in his ear. “He had a stack of magazines he got through the mail. Japanese periodicals on Shibari, ritual rope bondage. Much later, I learned it’s an art form in Japan, but my father had other uses for it in mind. He’d spend hours binding me, then he’d hang me from the ceiling, sometimes upside down, other times in a lotus position, still others with my arms and legs spread-eagled. By then, he was ready to burst.” Her voice broke apart like a sheet of glass shattering. “He … was … like … a … demon—the devil himself.” Each word was driven out of her as if it was her last breath.

She hung in his arms, limp and shivering. “But that wasn’t the end of it. Then he started in on the photos—hundreds of them. He posted them on a Web site, where people paid to see me … like that. They even sent in suggestions they’d pay a premium price for. Naturally, my father liked that best.”

Now St. Vincent was coming across the room, and by his grim expression and the firmness of his stride Flix knew there was nothing more he could do to hold him off.

“Time,” St. Vincent said.

Lucy either didn’t hear him or did not wish to hear him; she did not want to let go of her uncle.

“Listen, guapa, listen to me. You rest here for a while—a short while—and then I’ll be back, okay?”

She wiped her eyes and nodded against his shoulder. She gathered up the necklace, gave it back to him, but she kept the box, carefully folding the wrapping. She placed it in the box, held it between her hands like a temple offering.