earned her claim to the inheritance, and in the end she enjoyed managing things after all. Maybe she was afraid that Davide would come back after Costanza’s death and take it all for himself, the way their mother had originally planned. Florinda would have had good reasons to get rid of him.”
“But now you don’t think she did?”
“No. Because I know Florinda…or knew her. And because she came to New York to see me a few months after Davide died.”
That was news to Rosa, too.
“We talked for a long time, she and I, and she assured me that she had nothing to do with his death.”
“She was a good liar,” Rosa pointed out.
“But not a hypocrite. There wouldn’t have been any need for her to show up here and pour out her heart to me. However, that’s what she did. She told me how Costanza had made her suffer, even as a child. Part of that was because Costanza always preferred Davide. And Florinda made no secret of the fact that she was glad at first when Davide left Italy with me. Until she realized what it meant to be head of the clan with her mother breathing down her neck. If Florinda ever killed anyone, it was Costanza herself—I could have understood that. I don’t know if she did, and I never asked. But she swore to me that she was in no way to blame for Davide’s death. I mean, she was head of a Cosa Nostra family! Why would she bother to come and talk to me about it? Never in her wildest dreams could I have harmed her. And whatever can be said about her, I had the feeling back then that she was honest with me.”
Rosa tried to reconcile all this with her own picture of her aunt. She had certainly hated Florinda’s methods—but at the same time she had to admit that her aunt had been a woman who lived by principles of her own. If Florinda had done away with her brother, she wouldn’t have made any secret of it. She had been cold as ice, and must have walked over corpses more than once to get where she wanted—but she would never have flown halfway around the world just to put on an act for the benefit of Davide’s widow.
Rosa leaned against the cold glass of the window. “How did he die?”
“A heart attack. It was very quick. In business class, on a Boeing 737 as it took off. There was an autopsy, and Florinda had him laid to rest in the vault in the chapel of the palazzo.”
“I’ve seen his slab on the tomb.”
What connection had there been between her father and TABULA? Had he really died a natural death? And if not, could it maybe have been the work not of a Mafioso or Arcadian, but of TABULA?
“Why are you telling me all this now?” Rosa asked.
“Because you blame me for keeping secrets from you and Zoe. And I want you to understand why. Should I have made everything even worse for you both after Davide’s death by telling you the truth? That I didn’t lose him because he died, but because it was his own decision to walk out that door and never come back? Exactly how would that have made anything better?” She shook her head. “Think whatever you like about me, Rosa—but I still believe I did the right thing. I wanted you and Zoe to have a chance to grow up as normal girls, and it was bad enough with all that Mafia garbage, all the times you were summoned by the police for interrogation.” She looked tired now, drained by her memories. “And as for the transformations: I’m not an Arcadian, and Davide never had the ability to be anything but himself. I hoped that as the children of ordinary parents, you’d be like your father and me—not like Costanza. Just what should I have told you? That the two of you might turn into snakes someday when you grew up? Don’t you think that I’d have lost you much earlier that way?”
Outside, an ambulance raced down the street, its siren howling. The little dog that Rosa had seen on her first visit ran around the building and barked at the noise.
“If you think I’ve let you down, then I can’t change it now,” said Gemma. “It’s too late for so much—certainly too late for that.”
“Maybe you did lose Zoe to Florinda,” said Rosa. “But