He hands over his phone and turns to the nurse who does the same.

“Thank you,” I say.

Bruno is waiting for us in the doorway. “Naples?”

“No. Sicily. Stefan Sabbioni will house her until this is done,” Amadeo says.

“I’ll arrange transport.”

“Where’s Francesca’s body?”

“In the kitchen. She and Hyacinth are both there. They were surprised, I think. It would have been quick.”

I nod because I don’t trust myself to speak.

“Jarno?”

He shakes his head. “He was in the library.”

Amadeo mutters a curse under his breath.

“And Vittoria and Emma aren’t here,” I say. It’s not a question.

“You’re sure? You searched everywhere?” Amadeo asks.

“Everywhere. I got here about an hour ago to find the carnage. Called in men. We searched the house and the grounds. No trace of them.”

“Find out where my uncle is,” Amadeo says as he and I walk into Emma’s bedroom to find it torn apart, like the rest of the house. No bullets here, though. No one was killed in here. I set the little well-loved pig on the bed. The closet door is open, and I see the tea party they must have been having. Someone kicked the tiny cups over and the icing from the cake is embedded in the carpet. I crouch down to see the heavy tread of the boot’s imprint.

I stand, look over the stuffed animals. There are dozens in various sizes along with baby and Barbie dolls strewn in. I turn to go when my gaze lands on Emma’s torn-apart little shoes. She always put them on the minute she got out of bed.

Amadeo lays a hand on my shoulder “We’ll get them back,” he says. “He took them. He wants something in exchange, or he’d have killed them and left them for us to find.”

I nod. I know that.

“I want to have a look at the other bedrooms,” he says.

I follow him and am almost to the door when I hear a sound. It’s so soft I almost doubt that I heard anything at all, but I stop and listen. It’s quiet, unnaturally still. Graveyard still. Amadeo leaves, but something tells me to wait. A full minute passes before I hear it again. It’s so quiet it’s almost nothing. Not quite a whisper. Almost not noise at all. I take my pistol and cock it as I turn back into the room.