“Why would that matter?”

She looked back at me and seemed to hesitate, as if considering whether to speak. “Well, if he knew you were here, and he knew you learned that he had been in the Camorra, and he was still in it, still a bad guy, and he thought you were going to find out, maybe it gave him an attack of conscience.”

“So it would be my fault?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just throwing out a possibility.”

I nodded. I couldn’t be irritated at Maggie. I needed the truth now, and only that. “Well, here’s another question-shouldn’t we tell the police?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Because, Iz, it seems like anytime you’ve told someone something, scary stuff happens. I mean, you asked questions at the antimafia office, and next thing you know we’re in Naples getting chased by those guys with guns. You asked Elena questions, and she told you your father was alive, and now he’s…he’s dead.”

I winced.

“Sorry. I’m sorry to just say it like that, but I have to be your lawyer here, too, and I just don’t know who you should trust. I don’t know who we should talk to.”

I looked down at my hands, crossed on my lap. “I have to tell someone. Or I have to do something.” I raised my head again and looked at Maggie.

Her face was creased in concentration. “Here’s the thing. But what if the cops think you were involved somehow? In Italy, if they suspect you of a crime, they can hold you for up to a year without charging you.”

“If he killed himself, there’s no crime. So why would they charge me?”

“What if he didn’t kill himself? What if someone else did, or if they think it wasn’t self-inflicted for some reason? You’re the one who found him. If they suspect you for a second, it’s your word against…I don’t know whose, but it won’t look good.” She shrugged. “Think about that college student who was arrested in Italy. Her roommate was killed, she found the body, and then they charged her with murder. There’s also the issue of this legal system. Aside from stories like that, I don’t know the Italian system. I couldn’t represent you. I wouldn’t even know who to call to do that.”

“Mags, I’ve been suspected of murder once this year. I don’t think that’s going to happen again.”

“I don’t know, you’ve got some crazy energy going on lately. You’ve had a lot of weird stuff happen to you.”

We both went silent. There was no arguing with that point. Another brutal truth.

“I can’t just leave him there,” I said. “I have to go back.”

Maggie slumped down onto her bed, her elbows propped up behind her, and looked at me. “You realize that will only multiply the crazy-weird energy.”

“What would you do if you were me?”

She studied me. “If I were you, I’d go back. And if I were me, I’d go with you.”

Maggie and I left the hotel. Relative quiet reigned in the city since there was a soccer match in play, and everyone in the restaurants and bars was glued to TVs. I led Maggie through the streets, consulting a map over and over. Every time a goal was scored, a collective shout would ring through the city-Roma!-and each time it startled me, made my breath stop.

But I made my feet continue to move. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.” I kept saying that mantra over and over.

“Stop, Iz,” Maggie said gently.

I stopped the mantra, but different words rolled out of my mouth. “I had him. Or I almost had him, and now he’s dead. Just like that.”

Maggie eyed me.

“In some ways I think it’s worse than losing him when I was a kid.”

She reached out and touched my arm.

I stopped in front of a brightly lit but empty clothing store. I waited for Maggie to say something profound, one of those things that only a best friend can say to put things straight.

She nodded, said nothing.

A tick, two, then three went by.

A roar leapt out of the doorways and into the street as another goal was scored or maybe one blocked.

Maggie still said nothing.

I nodded back.

We both knew there was nothing she could say.

When we got there, the Trevi Fountain was still crowded, although less so. I guided Maggie past it, down the tiny side streets until we reached that plain doorway, the one that looked as if there was nothing behind it, certainly nothing exciting. Nothing dead.

I turned to Maggie. “Are you ready?”

She shrugged.

I studied her. Eyebrows drawn together, forehead creasing, she looked more stressed than she usually did at work. And Maggie was always stressed at work.

I touched her shoulder. “Mags, you don’t have to do this. I have to do this, but you don’t.”

She shook her head. “I’m with you.”

“Some vacation, huh? Getting chased through a hotel by those guys and now this?”

In an exaggerated way, she lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “Girl, you forget that I usually represent guys who own TAR 21s, so a couple of handguns don’t freak me.”

“What’s a TAR 21?”

“An Israeli assault rifle. So, really, all this stuff…” She pointed, made a circle with her finger as if including all of Rome, all of Italy and everything that had happened so far. “Nah, this doesn’t faze me.”

She was lying. We both knew it. It was one thing to represent the bad guys from the safety of a designer suit, your grandfather’s office or the heavily guarded confines of Twenty-sixth and Cal. This-this-was something different. But I was afraid to say that, to speak the truth, because I might lose her. And I didn’t know if I had enough balls to go down there, into the depths of that place, by myself. But my father-my father-was there.

I turned, and as I’d seen Elena do, I reached up and pressed the fist-size knob at the top right of the door. Nothing happened. I tried it again. Nada.

“She did it just like this,” I muttered.

But maybe she’d done something else, too, or triggered the opening mechanism some other way?

I tried again, pushing the side of my fist down with all my might.

A soft whoosh came from the door, and then click. Just as Elena had done, I pushed opened the door with the flat of my hand, and we entered the white marble foyer. The coolness inside was a bitter contrast to the still muggy night. It felt like a tomb. Sconces flickered but barely.

I went to the keypad and pushed the numbers and letters Elena had used. V-I-C-T-O-R-I-A 0618, and the door clicked open.

“What was that combination?” Maggie asked.

“My mom’s name, and the day they got married.”

“Wow. He still loves her.”

“Yeah.” For the first time since I’d seen the body, a crop of tears grew up from my belly, breaking through my heart, and shoved themselves into my throat. A few made their way to my eyes.

I pushed the tears away with my fingers. They felt hot, alive. “Let’s go.”

“What is this place?” Maggie asked as I led her through the aqueducts, sinking farther and farther into the earth.

I told her what I’d learned from Elena.

When I found the last gangplank, I led Maggie across it. I felt an intense sense of vertigo but ignored it completely. At the iron door at the end of the gangway, I halted. I didn’t want to see that sight again. And yet I couldn’t just stand there. I grabbed the round knocker in the middle of the door and pushed it open.