THE MAFIA BOSS DISCOVERED HIS FIANCÉE HAD SECRETLY INVITED ONE OF HIS MOST DANGEROUS ENEMIES TO THEIR ENGAGEMENT DINNER, BUT THE REASON WAS FAR MORE SHOCKING THAN HE EXPECTED.

The picture of the red bird changed everything.

Matteo had mentioned the dock because the memory belonged to him and Enzo alone. The photograph looked recent: daylight on a hospital wall, the shape of a leafless tree outside the window, a smudge on the glass that matched the reflection in Costa's earlier picture. Detective Shaw couldn't prove who had sent it, but she said it increased the urgency of finding the property.

I spent that night at my parents' house for the first time since the engagement dinner. A patrol car drove slowly past at intervals. My father had replaced the porch light and tested every lock. Mom insisted we eat together at the kitchen table, though neither of us had an appetite for the chicken she'd cooked.

“Are you going back to work?” Dad asked.

“I don't know.”

“You don't have to make a decision because we need the money,” Mom said.

“I know.”

It wasn't entirely true. Our bills were still real, even if Enzo had offered emergency assistance. But I was beginning to imagine another future, one in which I could be a daughter without serving as the family's shield.

At midnight, Tessa called to say an investigator had found the name of the business that installed stained-glass panels at the former Blue Lantern property. The owner remembered a red cardinal made for a small therapy room five years earlier.

Shaw confirmed the lead in the morning. She explained that officers were coordinating across state lines, and that no civilians would be permitted near the building during a search. I was relieved. I was also terrified that Matteo might be moved before they arrived.

At ten, Enzo called from Claire's office.

“They have a warrant,” he said.

“Are you going?”

“No. I'm staying here, which might be the hardest thing I've ever agreed to do.”

“Your brother would want you to stay alive long enough to see him.”

There was a small pause. “Mara said something similar.”

“Smart woman.”

“Very.”

We talked until his phone rang with another update. I went back to my mother's kitchen and tried to distract myself by peeling apples for a pie. It felt absurd to be making dessert while a stranger searched a building that might hold Enzo's missing brother. But my mother said ordinary actions kept fear from occupying every room in the house.

At three, Claire called. The property had been searched. It was empty.

I sat down so abruptly my chair scraped the floor.

“Empty?”

“The rooms appear to have been cleared recently,” she said. “There were medical supplies, but no patients. Investigators recovered records and a hard drive. They'll determine what those show.”

“Was Matteo there?”

“We believe so. We found the room with the cardinal window.”

“Where is he now?”

“We don't know yet.”

The answer felt like losing him all over again, even though I had never met him.

Enzo didn't call that night. I assumed he couldn't bear to repeat the disappointment. At eleven, I received a text from him that read, simply: Thank you for reminding me that waiting is not the same as giving up.

I stared at the message until my eyes blurred.

The next morning, Shaw asked me to review photographs of personal items recovered during the search. She said I wasn't expected to recognize them, but one object had a connection to the Caruso household. On her tablet was a picture of a black leather notebook with a gold compass stamped on its cover.

I recognized it immediately.

“Matteo's?” I asked.

“Possibly. Have you seen it before?”

“It was in Enzo's study. There was a picture of his brother holding one just like it. Enzo said Matteo wrote down every interesting place he wanted to visit.”

Shaw showed me another image: a page filled with shaky handwriting.

THE BIRD ISN'T THE WAY OUT. IT'S THE WAY THEY KNOW WHERE I AM.

Below that was a rough map with a circle around a warehouse building beside water. Another line read: ROURKE SAYS DOMINIC IS COMING FRIDAY.

“Friday is tomorrow,” I said.

Shaw nodded. “We are treating this as urgent. But we don't know when Matteo wrote the note.”

I looked at the letters again. The handwriting slanted badly at the bottom, as though his hand had grown tired. Still, he had found a way to record what he knew.

“Why would he call the bird a way to track him?” I asked.

“Perhaps he was moved between properties with similar markers. Perhaps he was sending a clue. We're not assuming anything until we can corroborate it.”

That afternoon, I met Enzo at Claire's office, where he was reviewing records with an investigator. He looked worn down, but when I arrived, he stood and offered me the chair nearest the window. I wondered whether kindness came naturally to him or whether he was working hard to become someone his brother would recognize.

“May I show you something?” he asked.

He opened Matteo's childhood notebook from the family's archive. The first page showed a clumsy drawing of a red cardinal sitting on a dock. Beneath it, in a child's uneven letters, was a sentence: IF I GET LOST, FOLLOW THE RED BIRD.

“My mother told us cardinals carried messages from people we'd lost,” Enzo said. “Matteo decided the bird would be our family signal.”

“So he painted the clue at the clinic?”

“Or he recognized something already there and used it because he knew I would understand.”

Enzo touched the drawing. “He wasn't telling us where he'd been. He was telling us he was still leaving messages.”

For a while we sat quietly, watching taxis creep through the gray traffic below.

“When I was fifteen,” Enzo said, “I promised him I'd always find him if he got lost. Once, at a county fair, he wandered away to see a magician. I found him by the popcorn stand, eating something he'd bought with money he wasn't supposed to spend. He thought I was furious. I hugged him so hard he couldn't breathe.”

“And now?”

“Now I'm furious at myself for believing he was gone.”

“You believed the evidence you were given,” I said. “The people who created it are responsible.”

He looked at me. “You sound like your mother.”

“She has arthritis and can barely open a jar some mornings. She still wins every argument in our house.”

His laugh surprised both of us. It lasted only a second, but I was grateful to hear it.

Claire returned with new information. Investigators had traced the recent medical purchases from Blue Lantern to a warehouse district along the Calumet River. An ambulance had been seen near a property owned by a company linked to Peter Bellomo. The evidence was not enough to conclude Matteo was inside, but teams were watching the area and seeking additional authorization.

“It's close,” Enzo said.

“Close isn't safe,” Claire replied. “You need to remember that.”

He nodded.

I went home before dark. The air was cold enough to sting my healing cheek. At the front gate, Marco approached carrying a small padded envelope that had been delivered to Claire's office. He said it had come through Serena's lawyer and had already been documented by investigators.

Inside was a photograph of Serena and Matteo seated together in the therapy room. Serena looked younger than she had at dinner, without her usual diamonds. Matteo's hand rested on an open book. On the back Serena had written a sentence.

I TOLD HIM I WOULD HELP. THEN I CHOSE MYSELF.

I turned the photo over, studying Matteo's face. He was looking at Serena with something like hope, as though he'd found the first person willing to tell his brother the truth.

There was more in the envelope: a letter addressed to me.

Ruby, I know an apology cannot erase what I did. I hit you because you carried the evidence of my lies. That was my choice. I am cooperating now because people will be hurt if I keep lying, not because I deserve your sympathy. The last time I saw Matteo, he told me Dominic had hidden something in a recording called North Star. I don't know where it is. I think it proves how the bombing happened. If you want to destroy this letter, I understand.

I read it twice, then passed it to Shaw for the case.

“North Star,” she said thoughtfully. “We'll look for the reference.”

I watched her put the letter away.

“Do you think Serena is telling the truth now?”

“Some of it,” Shaw said. “Possibly all of this particular part. We don't decide based on how convincing someone sounds. We check.”

That evening, Enzo finally called with good news. A judge had signed an order allowing investigators to search records associated with the riverside warehouse. They were preparing a plan to protect any patient found there.

“Matteo's close,” he said again, this time with caution rather than certainty.

I rested my forehead against the cold kitchen window.

“Enzo?”

“Yes?”

“When you find him, don't spend the first minute apologizing.”

“What should I do?”

“Ask if he wants to come home.”

On the other end of the line, I heard him inhale.

“I will,” he said.

An hour later, Shaw sent a message saying that investigators had identified the river property, but that someone had removed the external security cameras just before sunset. The building's owner claimed it was routine maintenance.

I looked again at Matteo's note about Dominic arriving Friday.