THE MAFIA BOSS HAD NEVER QUESTIONED HIS FIANCÉE’S LOYALTY, UNTIL HIS HOUSEMAID ARRIVED WITH A BRUISED FACE AND A PHOTOGRAPH OF A CHILD HE DIDN’T KNOW EXISTED.

At eleven forty-five the next morning, I stood in front of a mirror and practiced not looking afraid.

It wasn't working.

My cheek had faded from purple to sickly yellow around the edges, and the doctor had replaced the thick bandage with a narrow strip. The cut still pulled when I spoke. Under my coat, I wore the same blue blouse I had worn to work a week earlier. I wanted my mother to recognize me if I was lucky enough to see her.

Detective Alvarez had been blunt. "You are not going to hand over evidence, and you are not meeting these people alone. We may be able to use their proposed exchange to find who is holding Nora, but only if we control the risk."

"What if they won't bring her unless they see me?" I asked.

"Then we will make our next move using what they reveal. You won't be used as bait without your agreement."

I looked at Luca. He hadn't said a word during the discussion, although his jaw was tight.

"I want to help," I told them both. "I also want to come home alive."

Mae nodded. "Those two things belong in the same sentence."

The plan was simple enough to understand and complicated enough to terrify me. The person demanding the register had named a public parking structure downtown. Investigators would observe from multiple positions. I would arrive with a folder containing harmless copies of unrelated paperwork. If anyone approached me, I would ask to see my mother alive and leave if I felt unsafe.

Luca wanted to come. Mae refused. His appearance would make the situation harder to control, and the kidnappers might recognize his security detail. He agreed only after she promised that the investigators would keep him informed through the official liaison.

Before I left, Ethan found me near the stairs.

"Are you going to find your mommy?" he asked.

I crouched carefully. "I'm going to talk to people who might know where she is."

He held out Captain Fox.

"You can take him. He's good at scary things."

I was certain I would dissolve into tears. "What if you need him?"

Ethan considered this difficult question. Then he unwrapped a blue ribbon from the fox's neck and tied it around my wrist.

"This part will help," he decided.

I hugged him when he asked. It was the first time he had done that without looking over his shoulder to see who was watching.

The parking structure was a concrete maze smelling of exhaust and wet cement. Around noon, a man in a dark baseball cap emerged from the stairwell. He walked toward me slowly, eyes moving from car to car.

"Olivia Hayes?"

"Where is my mother?"

"Show me the register."

"Show me my mother."

He glanced over his shoulder. "I can't do that here."

"Then we have nothing to discuss."

I turned, forcing my legs to keep a normal pace.

"Wait."

His voice cracked. I looked back. He was younger than I had thought, perhaps twenty-two, with a bruise along his jaw and a torn thumbnail.

"They told me you'd have it," he said. "My brother owes money. They said if I didn't pick up the papers, they'd make him pay."

"Who told you?"

He swallowed. "A woman named Vanessa."

I felt the blood rush to my face. "Did you see an older lady in a wheelchair?"

"No. But I picked up a van yesterday. It had a medical company name painted on it. Northbridge Patient Transport. I drove it to a garage."

A car engine started somewhere behind us. The young man looked past my shoulder and went white.

"I shouldn't have said anything."

He ran.

Officers moved to follow him, but a black SUV suddenly accelerated down the ramp, scattering pedestrians at the exit. Tires squealed. Someone shouted. Mae grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a concrete column as the vehicle roared past.

The SUV disappeared into traffic. No shots were fired. A minute later, Mae returned with a grim expression.

"The driver of the SUV tried to run the young man off the access road," she said. "He's alive. Our people got him safely out of the structure."

"He knew about the transport van."

"I heard. That may be our best lead."

My knees shook so badly that I leaned against the wall. The ribbon around my wrist was damp with sweat.

"He was just a kid," I whispered.

"That's what people like this count on," Mae said. "They recruit someone frightened, then discard him when he becomes inconvenient."

Back at the mansion, Luca listened to the account without interrupting. When I finished, he poured me water and asked whether I wanted a lawyer present for my next statement. I said yes.

"You've changed your mind about something," I observed.

"About what?"

"You used to give orders. Now you keep asking what everyone wants."

His expression was complicated. "I gave orders for years and assumed the right things happened afterward. My son spent four birthdays without me while I congratulated myself on running an orderly house. I'm trying a different approach."

In the dining room, the roses from the engagement dinner had begun to wilt. Mrs. Carter was removing them one vase at a time. She stopped when she saw my wrist.

"Ethan gave you his ribbon," she said.

"He said it would help."

"Then I suspect it will."

At three, Mae arrived with a search warrant return and a cautious expression of hope. Northbridge Patient Transport had billed a foundation-controlled clinic for a transfer on the night my mother disappeared. The listed destination was a rehabilitation center by the lake that had closed months earlier.

"It's probably a shell address," she said, "but the transport vehicle's fuel records show stops along a different route. We can investigate those."

"Can you find her today?" I asked.

"I can't promise today. But we know more than we did this morning."

Isabella joined us carrying the notebook with the swan pin. Mae showed her photographs from the Bellini Foundation's public events. On the sixth image, Isabella pressed a finger to the screen.

"There. Her."

The woman was identified as Evelyn Shaw, a senior grants administrator. She had dark red hair swept into a tight bun and wore a gold swan pin on the lapel of her jacket. Her smile looked strained in every photograph.

"Evelyn signed several transfers to Northbridge," Mae said. "We need to talk to her before Dominic does."

"She brought the fake recording to my apartment," Isabella said. "She knew what it would do to us."

"That doesn't mean she knows the whole operation," Mae cautioned. "We'll find out."

The next hour passed in a blur of telephone calls. Evelyn had not been seen at work since Monday. Her apartment was empty. A neighbor said she'd left carrying two suitcases, accompanied by a man in a dark coat. Nobody knew where she had gone.

Meanwhile, Vanessa appeared on an afternoon television interview, her face carefully arranged into wounded dignity. I watched a brief clip before shutting it off. She claimed the Moretti household was unsafe and suggested Luca had become obsessed with a mysterious child.

The interviewer pressed for details. Vanessa smiled sadly.

"I can only say that people in that house have been deceived," she replied.

"She's trying to make this a public spectacle," Isabella said.

Luca walked into the room and turned off the television. "Then we won't give her one."

I expected him to threaten a lawsuit on the spot. Instead he asked Mae whether the broadcast revealed any information investigators could use. It did not, at least not yet.

That evening, the sun came through the nursery windows in long amber stripes. Ethan was drawing a picture of three people standing beside a blue train. One wore a green coat. Another held Captain. The third had very long legs.

"Who's that?" I asked, pointing to the tall figure.

"Dad," he said. "I made him too big."

"Maybe a little."

"Mommy says I can draw people how I see them."

Isabella was sitting nearby, sorting crayons. Luca stood behind Ethan's chair, smiling at the ridiculous figure that was supposed to be him. For a moment the threats outside the mansion seemed far away.

For the first time since Ethan arrived, I heard Luca and Isabella talk about something other than evidence or fear. They discussed whether Ethan should start school when the danger passed. Isabella wanted a quiet classroom with patient teachers. Luca admitted he didn't know the difference between preschool enrollment and kindergarten registration. Ethan solemnly explained that kindergarten was for bigger kids and that he wasn't ready because he still couldn't whistle. Luca attempted a whistle, failed spectacularly, and made him laugh so hard his crayons rolled onto the floor.

I watched the three of them and understood why Dominic had kept them apart. Their reunion threatened his schemes, yes. But it also gave Luca something worth changing for.

Then Daniel appeared in the doorway, holding a large envelope.

"This was delivered by a courier," he said. "It says it's an emergency custody order."

Isabella went still.

Luca opened the envelope and read. His face drained of color.

The papers claimed Isabella was wanted for unlawful concealment of Ethan and that the child had to be transferred immediately to a court-appointed guardian pending a hearing.

"Who's the guardian?" I asked.