Johnny had been working for Orsini lately, traveling back and forth from Reggio, down in the toe of the country, in the lower part of the boot. In between these excursions, he’d been hanging out a lot with Frank. I knew Johnny, and I wondered what he was up to.

I thought of that boy back in Dallas, the one who had tumbled over my balcony railing.

I thought of the inquest, and the police, and how the incident hadn’t happened exactly as we’d described.

I thought of the boy’s body crumpled on the sidewalk.

Maybe Frank was thinking of all that, too. Or maybe he was just thinking of his ex-wife. Of the daughter who wanted nothing to do with him.

“You love your brother.”

“Of course.”

“I’m fond of him, too. He’s been a friend to me. More than that—like a son.”

I picked up the blouse that had finished off our credit at Biagiotti. Like most beautiful things, it was simple, really, the way it was cut, how it hung.

“I should take it back.”

“No.”

“But—”

“Put it on,” Frank said.

When he kissed me, I closed my eyes. It was a tender kiss, but Frank watched me the whole while. Most men, when they look at you like that, while you kiss, it’s not you they see but the thing in their imaginations. I pulled him close.

“Last night . . .” he said.

“I went for a walk.”

“You were out for a while.”

“The blouse,” I said, pulling away. “Let me put it on. And you can tell me how I look.”

5.

After Isabella’s death, the investigation kept coming back to that evening at Palazzo Orsini. Though evidence was thin, the investigators sought to establish motive, a connection. It was a sensational case, and people wanted to know about the events leading up to Isabella’s death, to that moment when she was found lying bruised on the tile in her blue silk.

There was a lot of speculation.

I have read accounts of my own behavior that evening. It’s true I followed Isabella into the garden, as people say. And I was flirtatious, maybe, with her husband, and foolish, and perhaps my blouse slipped off my shoulder, and the champagne went too much to my head.

It’s also true Frank and I exchanged words on the pavement before entering, when he asked once again where I’d been the evening before.

“I was with my brother,” I said. “I told you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

Whether that comforted him and whether he believed me, I don’t know. He was jealous of Johnny sometimes—of the closeness between us—but afterward he would feel silly. Once we got inside the party, the issue vanished. Johnny and Frank talked like the best of friends and left me to mingle on my own.

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