The Good Daughter by Diana Layne Page B

have known we were watching.”
    “ Because you are professional, right? What kind of professional let’s his office get bugged? Either way, Nia and Daniele were at risk. My way would have been best had Carlo not discovered our plans.”
    “ I suppose she didn’t believe you after all,” Marisa said.
    “ She might have believed me. There might not have been time for her to have made arrangements.”
    “ Then why was she in the car?” Marisa asked. “Most likely she was trying to hunt down answers.”
    “ Believe you about what?” Dave asked. “Hunt answers for what?”
    “ I needed a plan to get my family out of the way once Marisa told me Carlo had put a contract on me.”
    Dave turned to Marisa. “When did you find out?”
    “ Early this morning. But I couldn’t get to Sandro right away. I was afraid I’d be too late.”
    “ You should have called me,” Dave told her, irritated he’d had to depend on tapes to be translated. He’d been a step behind all day. He hoped it wasn’t an omen.
    “ There was no time,” Marisa said. “I heard Gigi on the phone giving orders that poppa wanted Sandro. But I couldn’t leave until . . . later.”
    Because she’d been in bed with Gigi . . . Luigi, Marisa implied. Dave read between the lines. He’d known Marisa and Luigi Conte, the Peruzzo family consigliere, or advisor, were involved. It was actually good for their set-up that she was ‘sleeping with the enemy.’ Still, it didn’t stop the swift feeling of envy powering through Dave.
    Nothing more than lust, he assured himself. He’d simply been too long without a woman. “What is the plan you are talking about? The plan for Sandro to drop out of sight?”
    “ No, the plan to get Nia out of the way.” Marisa started her explanation with how she drugged Gigi with sleeping drops, slipped out and stole the BMW.
    “ A cop’s coming from straight ahead, Sandro,” Dave interrupted. “You’re still double-parked. Start driving again and we’ll keep talking.” Hardened New Yorkers would likely ignore a cop giving a traffic ticket, but for someone looking for Sandro, it would be waving a red flag.
    After Sandro merged with the traffic, narrowly missing a bike messenger, Dave turned back to Marisa. “No one noticed you swiping a car off the street in plain sight?”
    “ Of course not. I know what I’m doing.”
    “ Okay, so you swiped the car, then what?”
    “ I drove to a place where I could stop Sandro soon after he left his house. I was afraid they might get him on the way to the soccer field or be waiting for him once he got there.”
    “ Good thinking,” Dave said. “I know Carlo’s men were there sometime before we arrived.”
    “ You went to the field?” Sandro asked, looking in his rearview mirror.
    “ My translator discovered they knew about you when he was working on the tapes from last night. We rushed to the field, but you were gone. So, what have you two been doing all this time? Why didn’t you contact me earlier?”
    “ Sandro wanted Nia and Daniele out of town before we started working on any ideas to keep him alive.”
    “ We should have put them--and you, Sandro--in a safe house--”
    “ No. How many times do I tell you no?” Sandro cut him off. “I will be prigionero to the Peruzzo family no longer. It is why I offered help in the first place. So you could catch Carlo and get him out of my life.”
    Sandro switched on the turn signal and turned a corner. “I believed Nia would be safe. Carlo told me years ago he would never harm a woman. Marisa told me the same thing. He lied. She was wrong--”
    “ You don’t know he’s going to hurt her,” Marisa protested. “He’s only trying to use her to get you.”
    Somehow, to Dave’s ears, he picked up that Marisa wasn’t as confident as she sounded.
    “ Si .” Sandro nodded. “If I stay hidden, what will happen to her? Who knows how she will act as prisoner. She is fearless,” he said with loving admiration in his