“How did he know how to do that?” Mary Alice asked.
“Sardinian shepherds are surprisingly resourceful,” I told her. “He said once you’ve performed a caesarean on a sheep, most things are pretty straightforward. Anyway, he’d heard the news about the judge being shot in Cagliari and put two and two together. They don’t get many visitors out here.”
“You don’t say,” she put in dryly.
“Don’t talk shit about this place, Mary Alice,” I warned her. “It may not be the Ritz, but once a Sardinian decides to trust you, they’ll kill for you.”
She flapped a hand, turning her gaze once more to the approaching car. “Sorry.”
She was testy, but I didn’t need to ask why. This was thefirst time since our last mission that Akiko’s tolerance for what we did was being tested. It had been a sore point with her that she’d found out Mary Alice’s occupation after they got married—wayafter, and under challenging circumstances. She’d been a trooper, but I figured Mary Alice was worried about pushing her luck.
“How did she sound on the phone?” I asked, nodding towards the car.
“Stressed,” she said in a clipped voice. “I just hope—”
She broke off and I nudged her with my elbow. “The driver of her car is Micheli, Bernardu’s youngest. He’s a good kid—he’ll make sure they weren’t followed.”
I’d made the safe house arrangements with Bernardu before I’d left Sardinia, six weeks after I’d arrived and twenty pounds lighter. Turns out an infection in the bone is a good way to earn yourself a vacation. I’d had nothing better to do than sit around and learn Sard from Bernardu’s hundred-year-old uncle. I’d taught him poker and we’d played for bullets. He had cleaned me out a dozen times over, but in the process I had become a member of the family, and when I’d asked Bernardu if I could rent his mother’s house, he’d happily agreed. He had arranged the purchase of the car I had left behind the port terminal, and we’d covered every angle of my arrival if I ever called him with the code phrase I’d written down for him. He’d been true to his word. The house was clean, the car had been full of gas, and Micheli and his taxi had been on hand to pick up Akiko from the airport. Bernardu’s wife, Filumena, had even filled the demonic refrigeratorwith food. I would have worried about imposing on them except I knew how much Filumena loved to cook and how desperately Micheli lovedJames Bondmovies. He drove his taxi like it was an Aston Martin, and when he pulled in to the farmhouse, he performed an elegant handbrake stop that threw Akiko into the dashboard. She opened the door and staggered out, cat carriers in hand.
Mary Alice was watching her warily, chewing on her lower lip. She stepped forwards. “I’m so sorry,” she began.
She might have saved her breath.
Akiko threw her arms wide, causing the cats to screech. “Let’s get this murder reunion started!”
“Jesus, Akiko,” I said, coming to help her with the carriers. “That’s not exactly discreet.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, you mean Micheli? No worries. He’s been talking my ear off for the last two hours about how cool he thinks we assassins are.”
“We?” Mary Alice asked her in a strangled voice.
Akiko gave her a level look. “Yes, Mary Alice. You are an assassin. I married you. By the transitive property, I too am an assassin.”
I started to protest, “That’s not how—” but Mary Alice cut me off with a sharp shake of the head.
“I’m just glad you’re here safe,” she said.
Micheli grabbed Akiko’s backpack and tossed it onto the porch. “Adiosu,” he called. I waved and he pulled a few doughnuts, showering us with gravel and dust before he peeled out of the farmyard.
I shouldered Akiko’s backpack and jerked my thumb towards the house. “Come inside and eat. We have a lot to talk about.”
—
Two hours later, we werestuffed again, this time with more of Taverner’s bread and roast lamb and a dozen other things like olives and roasted peppers and little goat cheese tarts. Natalie was busy topping up everybody’s wine and Mary Alice was mooning over Akiko, choosing the fattest, crispest pastry for her. The cats had been let out of their carriers to roam around, and they had immediately started a mouse hunt. They were diving under rugs and behind furniture to pounce, emerging triumphant almost every time. They busied themselves lining up the tiny corpses in front of the stove.
Taverner shoved a platter of pastries drizzled in honey under my nose and I looked up in surprise. “Where did you get these?”
“Filumena brought them.”
I stared. “You met Filumena?”
“Oh yeah. She was opening up the house when I arrived. I gave her some of my sourdough starter and she brought up the sweets. It’s her own honey. Did you know she keeps bees?”
I shook my head. After all these years, I still hadn’t quite grasped Taverner’s ability to make friends wherever he went—especially if food was involved. He was a nurturer which didn’t make much sense in an assassin. I’d asked him about it during our first trip together. Romantic relationships in the Museum weren’t forbidden, but they did call your judgmentinto question, particularly if you were a woman. It was easier to keep our affair under wraps and Taverner had been willing to oblige. I never did know how Constance Halliday found out about us, because nobody else ever knew until I told Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie. We’d met for almost a decade in out-of-the-way places, campsites or resorts well off the beaten path. The isolation meant we saw a hundred sunrises in places most other people only read about inNational Geographic. It also meant there was nowhere to go when conversations got real, so the trips usually ended in a fight with one of us storming off to the nearest train station or airport. That first vacation had been one of the better ones—a rafting excursion in Costa Rica where Taverner did all the cooking from whatever he found each day in the local market. He’d been late back because one of the market grannies had been teaching him how to pat out the perfect tortilla. Over a plate of beans and rice and roasted redfish, I asked him about the urge to feed people. “It’s a contradiction to what you do for a living,” I’d pointed out. He’d cocked his head to the side and finished a bite of fish before answering.
“It’s not a contradiction,” he had countered. “It’s an affirmation. Food is life.” He’d paused to grin. “So is sex.”
I knew he was remembering that conversation as he passed me one of Filumena’s pastries. We had known each other for almost forty years, but we’d broken things off for nearly thirty of those when he chose marriage and I chose the job. I don’t talk shit about his wife. The truth is, I almost never think of her. She gave him exactly what he wanted—the white picket fence, a couple of kids—but she was unlucky enough to diebefore she got to grow old with him. I looked at his silver hair, at the lines on the face I’d loved more than half my life, and I made a mental note to send flowers to her grave. It wasn’t fair that she’d had to leave the show without taking a bow, but nothing about life was fair.