“You’re not the only one to suffer, Marcello,” Alana says. “And it all traces directly back to your site.”

Zanetti juts out his lip. “Why do you assume this?”

“Wake up, Marcello!” Nico snaps. “The Black Death! She is gone for over six hundred years and returns to Genoa only weeks after you excavate a monastery that was once overrun by the plague.”

Zanetti only shrugs. He looks so much older than he did only days before. “I know nothing about plagues.”

“Your man on the site, Paolo, does,” Alana says. “He told us how he and Vittoria hid Yasin Ahmed’s body. And how he later cleared the rats from the site.”

Zanetti eyes them coolly. “Did Paolo tell you I was involved?”

“No,” Alana admits.

“So why are you here?” Zanetti asks, lifting the glass to his lips again.

“People are dying,” Alana says. “Lots of them. Young people. Children, too. Yesterday there was a case in Rome. It all started at your construction site.”

“I . . .” Zanetti starts to say, but instead buries his nose in the glass.

Nico sits down beside Zanetti. He lays an arm over the older man’s shoulder. “How could you not have known, Marcello? You were there all the time.”

Zanetti drains the last drop of wine from his glass and then slowly lowers it. “Sì, io sapevo,” he says, his voice cracking.

“How long have you known?” Nico asks.

“I knew nothing about Yasin,” Zanetti says quietly. “That was all Paolo and Vittoria. I swear to you. I only found out after Vittoria became so ill.”

“You’ve lied to us many times,” Nico says in an even tone. “Why should we believe you now?”

Zanetti sighs. “We were behind schedule. Over budget. The economy in Genoa, for new construction, she is not so good. Paolo and Vittoria worried that an investigation of any kind into Yasin’s death would cause more delays and, perhaps, bankrupt us. They panicked. They decided to bury the body. Paolo told me only minutes before you came to see me the very first time. I had just found out they involved me in a . . . una trama criminale.”

“A criminal conspiracy,” Nico translates.

“I thought I would go to jail, Nico!”

“So you helped cover up the rest of it?” Alana says.

Zanetti nods. “We trapped the rats and cleaned up their mess. We thought it could only help. What was done, was done. What difference did it make?”

“What difference?” Nico yanks his arm free of Zanetti’s shoulders. “I just had to tell a woman that her fiancé is dead!”

Zanetti turns to Nico with pleading eyes. “It’s not my fault!”

Nico shakes his head. “We could have responded sooner, and better, if we had only known last week where the plague was coming from. Who knows what we might have found at the site if you had not tampered with it? Or how many would still be alive if you hadn’t valued your precious investment over their lives!”