Get your act together, Izzy.

He knew I was coming to meet him. He was okay with that. And right then, I was, too.

I raised my head and looked at Elena. I bent down and dabbed my forehead with the skirt of my dress, then I threw my shoulders back.

“You are ready now?” she asked.

“I am.” And I meant it.

We retraced our steps until we were down inside the aqueducts, across the gangplanks and outside the door. Elena knocked. Nothing happened. She knocked again. Her eyebrows knitted together. She looked down at her watch, then took hold of the knocker and rapped once more. Still nothing.

“Should we call someone?” I asked. Like my father?

She shook her head. “There is no service down here.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that.”

Finally, Elena shrugged. “I usually don’t just go in…” she said, her voice trailing off.

Elena grasped the knocker and turned it to the right. The door clicked and popped open just a little-not enough to see what lay behind it.

Elena gestured at the door, then nodded at me. “Go ahead,” she said.

“Go ahead,” I repeated inanely. This was the moment I’d been fantasizing about since that night in Chicago when the man in the garage saved me, when I’d heard those words, You’re okay now, Boo.

“Okay,” I said, remembering.

My aunt stepped aside, and I pushed the door. It was made of heavy iron but it glided smoothly.

Behind the door was an office, a dark, wooden desk in the center, bookshelves along the wall to my left. I scanned them quickly, seeing a hodgepodge collection-psychology texts, books on the Mafia, current thrillers, tall leather tomes that looked like ledgers.

But there was no one in the room. I was about to turn to Elena when a book caught my eye. I took a few steps and touched the spine. Poems & Prayers for the Very Young, a copy of the book my father used to read to me.

I closed my eyes, and I could hear his voice: I wake in the morning early; And always, the very first thing; I poke up my head and I sit up in bed; and I sing and I sing and I sing.

When my father read that book to me in bed-Close your eyes, Boo, and just listen-I understood it. And yet when he was gone, the poem seemed to be about some other girl. I couldn’t imagine that I would want to wake up and sing ever again. For a long time, I didn’t even want to wake up.

I opened my eyes now. I was about to say something to Elena, but something beyond her caught my attention.

That’s when I saw the blood.

On the other side of the room, a red couch was pushed against the wall. Except that one side of the couch had been pulled away, and behind it…I peered closer, took a step closer…

Elena swung around and gasped.

He was lying on the floor beside the couch, one arm draped over his face as if he’d raised it to wipe sweat from his brow, just like I had, and had been stopped midges-ture. His face was splotched with blood. He wore a brown linen blazer, cream slacks that were spattered red, and a blue shirt. And in the center of that shirt was a hole, black on the sides, crimson from where blood had recently coursed from another wound.

I took another step. “Oh my God, someone shot him.”

“Wait!” Elena moved toward me. Her steps were slow, cautious. When she reached him, she took a hold of the hand that rested near his body. She grasped the wrist, obviously looking for a pulse.

She stood and a strangled sound came from her. I stared at her, my brain reeling. Her mouth was open, her eyes horrified. A cry escaped her mouth, sounding like a distant note, a long “O” that didn’t stop.

“Elena!” I said.

She snapped her head to mine, seemed to realize I was there. She looked at the body again, then her head swiveled around; her eyes careened about the place.

“Andiamo!” she said. “We must go!”

She grabbed my arm and propelled me through the office and into the hallway.

“No, wait,” I said. “We can’t leave him.” I tried to push around her and back into the office, but she gripped my arms and tugged at them.

“Isabel,” she said, her voice like a slap. “We are going.”

“What if he’s alive? We have to help him.”

“He is not alive.” Another strangled sound came from her throat. “We must go. Now. We must run, Isabel.”

We raced through the aqueducts and over the gangplank, then up the stairs, away from the sight of my father cloaked in blood.

“This way!” Elena yelled, grabbing my arm again when I tried to run down a gangplank. “That’s the wrong way.”

I tried to catch my breath. I made sure to stay close behind her.

Finally we reached the front door, and Elena threw it open, the fading sunlight of Rome sneaking inside the marble foyer.

She drew me outside and down a block before she turned to me. “You’ve got to leave me.”

“What happened down there? Who did that to him?”

Elena shook her head fast, so fast that her perfect chestnut hair ruffled, and she squeezed her bown eyes closed. “You must get away from me. I bring nothing but tragedy. You must leave before something happens to you.”

And with that, Elena turned and ran.

I tried to follow her, but my mind couldn’t catch up with my feet. My mind kept seeing that blood pooling, running in rivulets across the ancient floor. I shook my head to try and dispel the images, but they wouldn’t go away. I stumbled over the cobblestones, falling on one knee. I stood, couldn’t get myself to run. I took a few halting steps in one direction, then another. I had no idea what to do. I had no idea what just happened. In the distance, I heard the splashing of the Trevi.

Run, Iz. Let’s go!

Finally, I got my head to connect with my body and I ran in the direction of the noise. At least there would be people there.

Once I reached the piazza, I stopped at the sight of the huge white fountain, of the water, clean and light blue, splashing almost gaily. It all seemed an insult to my father. I turned and dodged up a small alley, not knowing where I was running. Rome, if you don’t pay attention, will lead you in nothing but circles, and soon I was lost. And yet it seemed fitting, since my search for my father had led me in nothing but a circle. He’d been dead when I started, and he was dead now.

“Call her again,” Maggie said.

We sat across from each other on the hotel beds, both of us wide-eyed, our skin white with fear.

I hit Redial again for Aunt Elena’s number, let it ring, then hung up. I shook my head. “She’s still not answering.”

I’d finally found via Giulia. By that time, it was night. When I’d gotten to the room, Maggie was curled up against the headboard, talking to Bernard on the phone.

She was laughing at something, her tiny giggle filling the room. When she saw me, she said, “Oh my gosh, she’s back.” She threw back the covers and knelt on the bed. She was wearing a pale green nightie that made her look like a little girl. “How did it go, Iz?”

When I didn’t answer, her eyes swept my face. “Call you back,” she said to Bernard.

Maggie had gotten dressed by now in a pair of cuffed jeans and a T-shirt that read Chicago Fire Department. “This is scary,” she said. “This is awful. Who killed him?”

“Maybe he shot himself? Is that possible?” I wanted to cry. I felt so bad for the father I didn’t know. “Maybe the Camorra killed him. Maybe they found out he was still alive. Or maybe he had done something so awful he couldn’t live with himself. Maybe he was still with the Camorra, like really with them.”

“But if he was still Camorra, he would have to be a ruthless guy, so why kill himself?” Maggie stared up at the ceiling, as if willing answers from the heavens. “Unless maybe he knew you were here…”