Page 97 of The Butcher's Wife

“You tried sticking up for me, back at the house,” she says. “You thought everyone was going to sell me out to Junior, and you fought for me, anyway. That means more to me than you could know.”

Everyone?She couldn’t be talking about Dom as well.

I stumble over my words to defend him. “Dom only took me out of the house because he said Salvatore would sooner cut off his arm than let harm come to you.”

“Oh.” She looks surprised for a moment, then smiles. “That’s nice to hear. Regardless, you didn’t know that, so thank you.”

“Um. You’re welcome.”

She squeezes my hand and settles hers on her lap. Even her smile gives me the oddest sensation that she’s a cat, and I’m a little bird on her windowsill.

“You know, I think you and I have a lot in common.”

“Like what?”

“We’re both brave women married to dangerous men.”

I snort. Brave is the last word I’d use to describe myself.Scared and pathetic, more likely, with a heavy shot of depressed.

“And we both want the same things. You want to help those poor girls, don’t you?”

The pine needle shoots out from under my fingertip. I swallow. “I want to help get them home.”

“Yeah. I know. Dom’s been bothering Salvatore about them every day.” She wrinkles her nose. “It’s pretty annoying, actually.”

Affection for Dom clashes with cold distrust for Marisol.

“He said when Don Salvatore got back from his trip, he’d make sure he’d send the girls home.”

“Yeah, well, he made a promise he couldn’t keep. They said you spoke to the girls, so you already know—they saw Aceto’s face. And, unfortunately”—she draws out the word with distaste—“that’s the only evidence we currently have of Aceto’s involvement, so for now, we need those girls.”

“What about street cameras to Aceto’s warehouse?”

She scoffs. “Everything was cut. And Aceto is being very cautious about whatever he was using to talk with the Chiarellis. Which is great.” She rolls her eyes. “But, there are other ways to nail him.”

She reaches into her bag and, after a few moments of muttering and shuffling around, pulls out a tiny, white smart plug.

She places it on the table between us and taps it with one red nail.

“Do you know what this is?”

I stare at it without comprehension. “A smart plug?”

“That’s not all. It’s also a recording device. You plug this in, and it streams audio wherever you want. Easy.”

I flick my gaze up to Marisol’s innocently smiling face.

Does she have anything like this inourhouse?

“I have a proposition for you,” Marisol says, like she doesn’t know or care about my suspicion. “If you plug this little device into an outlet in Aceto’s office, I’ll get the girls sent home.”

She watches me expectantly. Hungrily, even. It dawns on me slowly that the doorman never called her up—she let herself in.

Maybe it wasn’t her soft innocence that drew Don Salvatore to her.

“So, you’re not already tracking him?” I ask, if only to buy myself time to process.

“We have plenty of equipment to watch him, but it’s not a perfect science. He’s still figuring out a way to evade us, and I’ll be honest, I’m getting a bit impatient. If he’s a rat, he needs to be gotten rid of. And if he is working with your late husband’s family, that’s something I’d like to know now. You know the Chiarellis will be visiting Chicago next month? The whole family.”