“I’m sure the Colonia already have them by now,” I say.

“What? How are you here?”

“I wasn’t going anywhere until I knew you were all right.”

“You could have left me with any one of your people.”

“They’re gone, Sarah. Every one of them. Tamara and Oliver. Gone. Benny—”

“Massimo shot him when he came for me.”

My face must be on the floor.

She puts her hand on mine. “I’m sorry.”

What a mistake to leave her here with one guy, no matter how important. No matter how skilled.

“Benny taught me how to shoot straight,” I say, watching the water boil.

Someone’s buried under the flagstones. I could tell as soon as I got onto the patio that they’d been moved. Connor, I guess. He shouldn’t have hung around to do it. Shouldn’t have been standing on the street where Sarah saw him.

I shake it off. Grief is a luxury we don’t have.

“They were all supposed to disappear if I got captured.” I turn off the burner. “And they did. It was the right thing.”

I dump the pasta into the colander. Sarah turns the heat off under the sauce and grabs a ladle. We make the meal together like the only two cogs in a functioning machine.

“That means Connor’s somewhere. And Remo,” she says. When I look at her in surprise, she shrugs. “I saw him across the street too.”

“They must have seen the commotion yesterday.” Would they have? A hundred commotions have happened in Precious Blood without anyone knowing any better. “They left like they were supposed to in the first place. They’d be here if they could be.”

“You don’t believe that. They could still be by that bus stop.”

“You’re right.” I kiss her.

She’s given me a glimmer of hope. It’s a shaft of light in a dark room. I bring the two bowls of pasta to the table and pull out her chair.

“What about Willa?” she asks before eating as if she’d been starved with her family.

She has a dot of sauce at the corner of her mouth.

“Let me see you.” I hold up the napkin and dab her face when she looks at me. “Willa’s not answering her phone. Same for her parents on St. Kitts.”

“Can’t someone who’s already on the island go check?”

“I’ve been calling the authorities. They’re stonewalling. I’m sure your brother bought them out.”

“We need to go down there.”

“If your brother left right away, they’re already there. Which explains why the phones are dead. The women will be back in New York, in those cells, before I can even get there.”