Page 70 of The Lies We Play

That morning, my hand had stopped because my body had moved past tremor into something quieter.

Stillness is what the body does when it can't afford to react.

My hand is doing it now.

I look at the signatures.

Margaret Ellery, Foundation Director.

Everett Saint Claire, Board Treasurer.

Six other names that mean nothing.

And one signature at the bottom, smaller than the others, clearly added at the last minute, the ink slightly different, the slope of the letters not the same as any other hand on the page.

H. W. Saint Claire.

I have not seen that handwriting in years.

It is the same.

The same loop on the H. The same impatient lift between the W and the S. The same way the final E trails into a half-finished line, like he ran out of patience with his own name.

The hand that signed this paper today is the hand that signed the certificate at the courthouse on Centre Street on a Tuesday in February a decade ago.

The hand that kissed my knuckle on the sidewalk after.

The hand I have been pretending was buried in Connecticut for ten years.

It is alive.

It is signing things.

It has just signed this thing.

And someone in New York has decided that the next document this hand needs to touch is the one currently sitting on my workbench in Florence—the one I am the only person credentialed to release.

I sit down because my legs are no longer trustworthy.

The portrait of the woman with the dog watches me from the easel, expression unchanged. She knows where the bodies are buried.

Apparently, so does someone in New York.

I look at Moises across the room. He is pretending to clean a brush. He is not pretending well.

“Moises,” I say.

“Yes.”

“I think I have to make a phone call.”

“All right.”

“It might be a long one.”

“All right.”

“And I might need you to drive Bruno home for me.”