I look at her, confused. “But I’m the one you want,” I say. “I’m the one you think caused your death back then.”
Veronique starts pacing in front of me, the nervous energy almost visible. “I don’t want you dead,” she says. “Death is way too easy. Don’t you see? After everything that’s happened, do you still think you killed me that night? You are the one who took everything from me in a few brief seconds, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Alessandra was everything to me.” Veronique stops and walks over to the spot at the railing where she fell so long ago. Her voice is soft as she starts to speak. “Do you finally get it? You took something precious from me a century ago, and now I have to take something precious from you.” She takes several steps toward me and glances at the splint on my arm.
“At first I thought taking your ability to play cello would be enough. But then I saw that there was something even more valuable for you to lose.” She glances at Griffon. “Something that you could never recover from. Like what you took from me. I’ll never recover from my loss. In any lifetime.” Veronique stands right in front of me. I can see every individual lash as she stares into my eyes. “Look carefully. Who do you see?”
I shrink back from the force of her energy. As I look into her eyes, her features blur, and for just a second I see a bright white smile and shining dark hair. I look up at the tiny birthmark over her right eye. It’s in the same place a distraught boy would have put a gun to his head centuries earlier—just before pulling the trigger. My heart races as I recognize the essence I knew so long ago. It can’t be. “Paolo?”
“Ha ha!” Veronique claps her hands and steps back. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I stare at her, trying to see the handsome boy she once was. I’ve thought of her as Alessandra for so long, it’s impossible to think of her as anyone else. “But I thought you were her. Alessandra.”
Veronique shrugs. “You obviously assumed wrong. When I was Paolo, you took away the most valuable thing in my life, and I’ve spent every moment since looking for Alessandra’s essence. When I recognized you at the conservatory concert, I hoped that maybe her essence had been drawn to you in this lifetime.” She looks down at the gravel rooftop. “But I didn’t find her.” She looks up again, a cheerful expression on her face. “But I did find the next-best thing. The essence that you’re drawn to above everyone else.”
I hear a metallic click as Veronique pulls a thick black gun out of her coat and aims it at Griffon’s head.
“Veronique!” I yell. “This is crazy. We’re friends. It’s me, Cole. Whatever happened in the past doesn’t matter now. Griffon has nothing to do with this.”
“I love that you think that,” she says, not taking her eyes, or the gun, off of Griffon. “Such wonderful naiveté. However, I totally disagree. What happened in the past matters a lot. It’s the only thing that does matter.” I don’t even see her hand move as the gun explodes to life, my heart racing with the deafening sound, and I can’t help but flinch.
The bullet kicks up tiny fragments as it ricochets off the railing behind Griffon, but he keeps staring at Veronique as if he’s daring her to do it again. “You missed,” he says calmly.
Veronique narrows her eyes at him, her teeth flashing in a half smile as she steadies the gun on him once again. “I never miss.”
Giacomo grabs Griffon by the arms and shoves him roughly forward. “That isn’t necessary,” Griffon says, looking at Veronique with hatred in his eyes. His voice wavers only a little as he speaks. “I’m not going to fight you.” He turns to look at me for the first time, and the total honesty in his eyes makes me catch my breath. Despite everything that’s happened the past few days, the thought of living the rest of this life without him is unbearable.
“I’ll do anything for you.” Griffon is speaking only to me, as if there’s nobody else on the roof with us. “If it means that I have to end this life to save yours, then it’s fine.”
Veronique laughs, and I see nothing but cruelty in her smile. “Brave words. Let’s see if you can match them with even braver actions.” She motions the gun toward the edge of the roof. “Whether you go over on your own or need a little ‘encouragement’ makes no difference to me.”
Griffon stumbles on the gravel as Giacomo pushes him toward the edge where Alessandra fell so many years ago. It feels as if everything is happening in slow motion. This can’t be real.
As they walk, Veronique follows them with her eyes, the gun firmly gripped in her outstretched hand. “I hope you really understand what you’re about to lose,” she says, not looking at me. “Any last words for Griffon? Everyone deserves the mercy of a proper good-bye. That’s more mercy than you showed to me and Alessandra.”
“You can’t kill him!” I scream, watching Veronique aim the gun at Griffon’s head again.
“Oh, but I can,” Veronique says flatly. “I have to. It’s the only way to even things up so that we can all move on. I think popular psychology would call it ‘closure.’”
I’m even more unprepared this time as the sound of the gun echoes off the buildings around us. Griffon jerks back as the bullet hits him and he falls back over the waist-high railing. My screams rush through my ears as I lunge forward, knowing it’s already too late. “No!”
Veronique grabs my left arm as I try to twist away from her toward the railing. The pain is blinding, and I can feel the newly attached nerves and tendons straining and tearing where her hands are holding tight. Just as I feel like I’m going to pass out, everything seems to move into slow motion. I feel energy flowing between us where our bodies are touching. I’m slipping into a memory, but this time, I’m not alone. Somehow Veronique is with me.
As Signore Barone leans over the edge of the roof to show me the lights of the city, his right arm tightens around my neck until breathing becomes uncomfortable. I reach up in shock when I see him looking down at me, hatred and disgust flashing in his dark eyes. He turns so that his back is to the railing and all of my weight is now supported on his arm. I can hear myself gasping for air, and I claw at his hands, but it makes no difference.
“It’s your fault they want to force Alessandra out of the troupe,” he says, spittle flying from his mouth. “If you hadn’t arrived, her career would still be on the rise!” He turns around so that I am now hanging half over the railing, and I can see the light-colored cobblestones far below. There is a loud ringing in my ears and my vision is fading when I hear a commotion behind him.
“Papa! What are you doing!” Alessandra cries, and I can feel her weight on him as she tries to pry his arm from around my neck.
“Get away!” he yells. “Go back downstairs. This has nothing to do with you. I’m only acting for your own good.” His grip loosens just a little as he pushes her back onto the gravel roof, giving me two or three desperate breaths of air. In seconds she is up again, flying at the two of us.
“This is not the way!” she yells. As she fights with him, Signore Barone brings his arm back to fling her off, but misjudges his own strength. As he pushes her, she loses her balance, and in seconds she has disappeared over the railing, her screams echoing back up to us as she falls.
“No!” he shouts, the noise a primitive, animal cry. I turn to look down, and see that her arms and legs are bent at unnatural angles and watch the dark pool spreading out underneath her across the hard stone walkway.
Signore Barone reaches over the railing as if he can still catch her falling figure. I scream her name, not believing what I’m seeing. Before he can turn on me, I run for the stairwell door, in time to meet a crowd of men rushing up from below.