We avoided the boats and walked back through San Ivo, the way Gianni would have come earlier. The calles were nearly empty, just the occasional umbrella bumping into ours in the narrow passages. Claudia was quiet, leaning against me. When we reached San Polo, she stopped under an arch near the hotel.

“Here,” she said, reaching behind and unclasping the necklace. “Take it.”

“You don’t—”

“No, it’s hers. What if something happens? If I lose it.”

“If you lose it,” I said dubiously.

She held it in her hand, looking down at it. “So. No more Cinderella.”

“There’s no rush.”

She pushed the necklace into my hand. “Listen to me. We can’t do this. I knew when he looked at me, Signor Howard. Tomorrow everybody asks questions. The ball, that’s finished now. And who do they question? How do I explain all those things? That night, everybody saw me with him. My job, all those things. Where is he? And who’s the one to suspect? Me. The easy one. Who else? Even if they don’t find him.”

“Without a body they can’t—”

“What’s the difference? It’s still me. And then you.”

“Stop it,” I said, grabbing her. “Don’t talk like that. No one is going to suspect anything.”

Her eyes were darting. I put my hand to the side of her face, as if I could stop her thoughts by touching it.

“They’ll come for me.”

“They’re not going to come for you.”

“Yes, they will. They’ll come.” Her eyes were wide, staring at me.

“No. They can’t. They can never get you.”

“Yes.”

I put a finger to her lips. “Never. Don’t you see? You were with me.” I moved the finger slowly along her lip, then rested it on her cheek. “I’ll be your alibi.”

She started to shake her head, turning it into my hand, but I held my finger there so that her eyes couldn’t move away.

“And you’ll be mine,” I said. “We’ll be safe.”

She stared at me for a minute more, then lowered her head.

“They’ll come,” she said, barely audible.

I brushed my hand down her cheek. “No,” I said, as quiet as she had been. “No,” I said again, a murmur, then suddenly a door slammed, someone leaving the hotel, and she jumped, startled, and reached for me.

“Oh.” A muffled sound, no louder than the water dripping in the passage. She pulled me close to her, turning her face away from the light, holding on to my coat until we heard the footsteps grow fainter in the campo, heading off toward the Rialto.

“It’s no one,” I said, my mouth close to her ear, but she was holding me even tighter, her arms around me, then one hand behind my neck, bending me toward her, kissing my face in a kind of rush, tasting it.

“Oh, I don’t care,” she said, still kissing me, as if the slam of the door had been a shot and she were running away from the evening, from whatever was going to happen. “I don’t care.” Clutching me to her. I felt her breath and then my mouth was open too, moving down to her neck, excited, both of us panting, the promise at the end of the evening, everything finally letting go, feeling the flush in my face again.

“We can’t,” I said, my face in her hair.

“Stay with me,” she said, moving her neck so I could kiss it again.

“I have to know what’s going on there tonight.”

“No, stay,” she said, kissing me. “What we would do. That’s what you said.” She pulled me closer until I knew she could feel me against her, already hard. “A party. And then you didn’t come up?” Moving now, pressing into me.

“Is that what we would do?” I said, kissing her again.

“Yes,” she said, her hands on me, holding me. “Don’t you want to?”

All evening, every sense working up to it. Spurting blood. The bundled tarp splashing into the dark water. My mother’s dressing room, warm with powder. The white skin at the back of her neck.

“The hotel clerk will say we were together,” she said.

“Claudia—”

“I know, I know. How can we do this? After. And I still want to. I want to,” she said, her breath on my face again.

“I can’t stay all night,” I said, my voice sliding away, skidding. “I have to get back. We have to be careful.”

“Yes, careful. A little while then.” She pressed her face against my coat. “Before they come.”

“Nobody’s going to come.”

My mother was still up when I got back, coiled in a chair near the space heater, a full ashtray on her lap.

“You’re a sight,” she said, raising her eyebrows, as if she could see through the rumpled jacket, the loose collar, to the rest of me, still sticky.

I stood in the doorway to the sitting room, surprised to see Inspector Cavallini on the couch. At this hour his presence was beyond the call of any duty. Was he waiting for me, the body already found, questions raised?

“I thought someone should be here,” he said, answering whatever he saw in my face. “So Signora Miller would not be alone.” Courtly to women, a man who visited Maestre. A brandy snifter was on the table near the couch.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said. “Any news?”

“Nothing,” my mother said. “Something terrible’s happened.”

“Signora, we don’t know that,” he said gently.

“Of course it has. What else could it be? What’s awful is not to know.”

Cavallini looked at me with an open palm of resignation. “I’ve sent a man to Dr. Maglione’s house. He will call if—”

“He comes home? He won’t. Something’s happened,” my mother said.

“No word at the hospitals? Anywhere?”

“No. So a great mystery. But, let us hope, with a simple explanation. The best thing now would be to sleep,” he said, turning to my mother.

“Sleep,” she said. Her face was pale but not splotched with tears, just in retreat, her eyes distant, the way they had been after my father died, days of it, not crying, away by herself. “I don’t see what we’re waiting for. Why can’t you trace his movements? He left the house, we know that. For Mimi’s. Unless he forgot and came here.”

“No, I was here. Until we went to Mimi’s.”

“But darling, I called. There was no one here.”

Inspector Cavallini looked up from his brandy.

“Oh, that was you?” I said quickly. “Somebody called, but I didn’t answer.”

“Darling, you might have picked up. It rang and rang. I mean, even in the shower—”

“I was busy,” I said, my voice a little clipped, nervous.

But Inspector Cavallini took it for embarrassment, his eyes amused over the glass.

“Busy?” my mother said.

“Signorina Grassini was here as well, perhaps?” Cavallini said.

“Yes.”

“Well, I still don’t—oh, darling.” She stopped, flustered. “Really.”

“Getting ready for the ball,” Cavallini said, having fun with it.

“Yes. Anyway, he didn’t come here.”

“Well, he must have gone somewhere,” my mother said. “Somebody must have seen him. You have to ask.”

“Signora, at three in the morning who should I ask?” Cavallini said. “You understand, my hands are tied in this. What is there to investigate? We tell everyone to listen for the accidents, a sickness, but that’s all we can do. It is not a crime to miss a party. Even such a party.”

“What do I do?” my mother said. “Officially. Do I fill out a form?”

“Not tonight,” Cavallini said, putting his empty brandy glass on the table. “Tomorrow I will make more inquiries. So we see. And you, signora, please, some rest. If I need you to help me.”

“Help? How?”

“You are his fiancée, yes? So who knows him better?”

“Yes,” my mother said vaguely.

“Till tomorrow, then,” he said, taking my mother’s hand. “Make yourself easy.”

“Thank you. I’ve kept you so late.”

He made a small “it’s nothing” gesture.

“I’ll see you out,” I said, leading him to the stairs.

“You have some pills for her? To sleep? Tomorrow will not be pleasant.”

“What do you mean?” I said. We were walking down the stairs, then through the hallway where Gianni and I had fought. Without thinking, I glanced up at one of the sconces, as if it might be dripping blood, but everything was in shadow, kept dim by night-lights.