the comments.”
“Ever thought of giving up smoking?”
“Who wants to get fat?” So there was something still left in there of the old Valerie. Her gallows humor spared Rosa a pang of conscience for feeling no pity.
“What are you doing here?”
Val stepped aside to let her into the room. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Rosa stayed out in the hall. “Trevini has my cell phone number.”
“Your friend Trevini—”
“He’s no friend of mine.”
“He’s just waiting to stab you in the back.”
“Too true. That’s why he sent you here.”
Valerie shook her head. “No. His people bought me a ticket to New York and dropped me off at the airport. Then I ran away.”
“And you can bet they’ve been doing their best to catch up with you.”
Valerie shrugged her thin shoulders. “No idea. Come in. I can’t…I mean, standing is a bit of a strain for me at the moment.”
“Try lying down. On your back. With a couple of guys holding you there.”
Sarcasmo came in and pressed against Rosa’s leg. He growled at Valerie, who took a step back. “He’s been standing outside the door for three hours, yapping,” she said.
“Sleep deprivation is one of our specialties here in Sicily. If we don’t pump our prisoners full of drugs first.”
“Leave the dog and come in. Please.”
Rosa gave her a cool stare. “You shouldn’t have come here. That ticket was your chance to go back to New York.” She looked down at Valerie’s emaciated body. “Although I wouldn’t be too sure that Michele will welcome you with open arms.”
“I’m here because I want to ask you to forgive me.”
“Well, then everything’s fine again, isn’t it?”
“Could we spare ourselves the verbal sparring? I know I have no right to be here. And maybe I really should have disappeared. But I did want to say it to your face, at least once. I’m sorry. For everything. Not only the party, and taking you there. The lies earlier, too. Not telling you anything about Michele. I want to ask you to believe that I’m sorry.”
Rosa bent down to Sarcasmo, patted his head, and sent him off with a gentle tap. Then she walked past Valerie into the room, closing the door behind her. Slowly, she went over to the window, pulled back the heavy red velvet curtain—and saw, to her surprise, that there was no glass behind it. The tall window had been bricked up. She remembered noticing it once from outside the house. But she’d had no idea that it was this room.
Then she understood. Iole was so much smarter than anyone expected.
Rosa let her eyes wander around the chamber. There was no other way out, only a door to the bathroom, which had no window. Iole hadn’t simply offered Valerie a place to rest. She had shut her in.
“Why is that window bricked up?” Valerie was still standing close to the door, as if afraid that Sarcasmo might be able to press the handle down from outside.
Rosa didn’t know the answer to that. But then she noticed the initials embroidered on the canopy of the four-poster bed. And the fact that this room was almost twice the size of most of the others.
Up on the canopy, it said C. A.
Costanza Alcantara? Had this been her grandmother’s room? The C could stand for all kinds of names, yet she felt a strange certainty.
Had Florinda had the window bricked up? Two months ago Rosa had given orders for all rooms in the palazzo to be thoroughly cleaned. All of them without exception, because she wanted to drive the mausoleum atmosphere out of the walls. Had this one been locked until then? A prison for all the memories linking Florinda to the mother she hated?
She said to Valerie instead, “This is what you might call our condemned cell. You wouldn’t think it of Iole, but she knows exactly what’s up.”
The corners of Val’s mouth twitched, but she couldn’t hide a trace of uneasiness. “If that’s it…if you’re planning to have me killed, go ahead. I’ve told you the truth. I’m only here to apologize.”
“For the rape, too?”
“I didn’t know that would happen. That’s the truth. I had no idea.”
“Michele got you to bring me to that party, and you thought—what?”
“I didn’t think anything. I was in love. I was stupid. God, I’d have done anything for him. He’s a Carnevare. You know how they—”
“Don’t you dare compare Alessandro with Michele!”
“If you say so.”
Rosa felt a macabre fascination in watching the play of expressions on Valerie’s face. At the same