Prologue New York City Brownstone on East 73rd Street “Promise me, Marlena, promise me, mi amor!” The strength had drained out of my grandmother’s voice, but her will was stronger than ever. “I promise you, Nana, I will find out who killed your sister.” I gazed into her warm cocoa eyes that had transformed from lustrous to dull over the past few weeks of her pneumonia. Accepting a few ice chips that I offered her, the dear woman who raised me wet her throat as tears moistened her eyes. “I always thought that I would be the one to solve Silvia’s murder. How can I leave this world without knowing who killed my sister?!” Her voice was scarcely more than a raspy whisper mingled with a cough. “Stop tormenting yourself,” I urged, squeezing her wrinkled hand. “You’ve done everything you can to solve Aunt Silvia’s murder. But she was killed in Spain. You’ve been in New York City for the past 50 years. It would have been a miracle if you had been able to solve the crime from here.”
