Page 110 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
I should have given it to her a month ago.
I hold it out.
“If you want to talk about anything,” I say, careful, “I’ll be home. Door’s yours.”
She takes the key like it weighs more than it looks.
She slides it into her pocket like a secret she’s not ready to admit to.
She nods once, tight, and turns away.
Rizzo hooks her arm through Elisa’s and steers her toward the hospital doors like a small bulldozer with a heart.
The guard, suddenly heroic, steps aside with his mouth set and his eyes sorry.
The city swallows them.
I stand there for a second with my hands open and nothing in them.
Alvarez wanders over.
He looks at the sedan and at me and at the place in the air where Elisa just was.
“You got there fast,” he says. “Good ears.”
“She had better ones,” I answer. “She bit the woman.”
“Good,” he says, approving. “You want to give me a name to put on this or should I make one up?”
“Make a good one,” I say. “And keep their phones.”
“I like phones,” he says. “They tell the truth even when people won’t.”
He eyes my sleeve where that spray hit and quirks his mouth.
“You should wash that before you touch your eyes.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I say.
He leans in a fraction. “You okay?”
“No,” I say. “But I will be.”
He nods, once.
It’s the closest thing he gives to comfort.
He goes back to being useful, which is his best quality.
Rafe and Tino stand by the open hood of the sedan like mechanics, checking nothing, watching everything.
Tino lifts his eyebrows.
Do we shadow her anyway?
I give him a small nod.
Far. Quiet. Invisible.
