THE MAFIA BOSS HAD NEVER STOPPED GRIEVING FOR HIS LOST DAUGHTER, BUT WHEN A BLEEDING MAID SHOWED HIM A LITTLE GIRL STANDING BESIDE A PINK BICYCLE, HIS HANDS BEGAN TO TREMBLE.

The voice belonged to Luca's grandmother.

Evelyn Moretti had been living in the mansion's east wing since a fall the previous winter. At eighty-two, she moved slowly with a silver-topped cane, but her pale eyes missed very little. She had never attended Vanessa's engagement dinners, claiming that diamonds and lies both gave her headaches.

Tonight she stood beneath the doorframe in a cream cardigan, staring at Lily as if the little girl had stepped out of a photograph she had buried.

"Nonna?" Luca said.

Evelyn ignored him. "Sing it again, sweetheart."

Lily retreated behind Mara. "I don't sing for people I don't know."

"And you shouldn't." Evelyn's voice softened. "My name is Evelyn. I knew your mother when she was young. I'm sorry to have frightened you."

I saw Luca's jaw tighten. "You knew she might be alive?"

"I knew there were things I wasn't being told." Evelyn sat heavily on a sofa. "And I knew your grandfather had arranged for your wedding photographs to be removed after the baby died. But knowing something is wrong and knowing what it is aren't the same."

Luca was still holding Lily's hand. He looked at Daniel. "Call the family attorney. Not Adrian. Call Rachel Mercer. We need custody records, medical records, and an independent advocate for Lily."

"Already on it," Daniel said.

I felt my knees soften. The adrenaline keeping me upright was finally losing its argument with pain. Luca saw me sway and reached out, but I steadied myself against the door.

"Emma," he said quietly, "the car is here."

"I don't want to miss anything."

"You're not evidence," he said. "You're a person who needs medical care. We'll make sure you get every update you're entitled to, and no one is taking away your job while you're recovering."

For once, I couldn't answer with my usual yes, sir. My throat was too tight.

Dr. Patel had already arranged the appointment. Daniel sent a driver and, with my permission, gave the hospital my account of how I'd been hurt. I did not want to file a report that night, but the doctor explained that I could decide after treatment and could preserve photographs of the injuries now. I agreed to the photographs. The back cut required six stitches. My eye needed monitoring, and the forearm bandage had to be changed twice.

At two in the morning, I was lying in an exam room listening to a vending machine hum in the hallway when a nurse brought me a note. It was written on thick cream stationery, the sort used for place cards at the mansion.

Emma, Lily is safe in the house tonight. Mara is staying with her. Thank you for telling the truth. — Luca.

I read it three times.

The next morning I woke in my narrow apartment above a laundromat, dizzy from pain medicine and the memory of Lily's voice. My father, Frank Reed, had left six missed calls. He lived across town in a rehabilitation apartment and was waiting for a prescription refill I normally paid for every Thursday.

I called him before breakfast.

"Honey, you sound tired," he said.

"Long shift."

"That's not a real answer."

My father had spent thirty years fixing other people's heating systems. He could diagnose a broken boiler by its sound and a lie by the way I paused before speaking.

"I got hurt at work," I admitted. "I'm okay. The doctor treated me."

"What kind of hurt?"

I told him. Not all of it, not yet, but enough.

He was silent for a long time.

"Your mother used to say," he finally replied, "that no paycheck is worth letting someone decide what happens to your body."

"We need that paycheck."

"We'll figure something out. We always have."

I looked at the unpaid electricity bill on my kitchen counter. I wanted to believe him.

At ten, a woman named Rachel Mercer called. She introduced herself as Luca's outside counsel and asked whether I was comfortable providing a statement. Her voice was calm, businesslike, and astonishingly normal considering the circumstances.

"You're not required to speak with me," she said. "I represent Mr. Moretti, not you. I can put you in touch with independent legal assistance if you'd like."

It was the first time anybody connected to the mansion had explained where their loyalty ended.

"I'd like that," I said.

She gave me a number and asked if I remembered anything about the hidden room beyond the photograph and receipts. I described the small bed, the pink bicycle helmet, the coloring books that seemed too new for a child who supposedly lived elsewhere. Then I remembered a row of pencil marks on the doorframe.

"Someone was measuring her height," I said. "There were dates beside the lines."

"Could you remember a specific one?"

"March twenty-second. And a note that said, 'No visitors after review.'"

Rachel went silent for a beat. "That's important. Thank you."

At noon, Daniel arrived at my apartment carrying a sealed envelope of medical reimbursement forms and a bouquet of yellow daisies. I stared at the flowers.

"Mr. Moretti sent them," he explained, looking faintly uncomfortable. "Lily picked the color. She said yellow makes rooms less nervous."

I laughed, then winced as the stitches pulled.

"How is she?"

"She had pancakes. She insisted the chef cut them into stars."

"And Luca?"

"He tried to cut one himself. It looked like a map of Wisconsin."

I pictured him in a kitchen with a spatula, trying to impress a child who had every reason not to trust him. Something tender and painful moved inside my chest.

Daniel's expression grew serious. "We found out who came to see Lily two weeks ago. The woman left a bracelet with her. It belonged to Abigail Price."

"The former wife?"

"Yes. But there's a problem. Abigail insists she never went."

I frowned. "Could someone have impersonated her?"

"Maybe. She agreed to meet Rachel at a neutral office this afternoon. Luca will be there."

"Does Lily know?"

"Only that we're figuring out who visited. We won't put her through a lineup of adults and demand answers."

That sounded unlike the Daniel who usually checked locks and schedules with the impatience of a man who expected betrayal. But he seemed to understand something now: guarding a child meant more than surrounding her with people carrying guns.

Before leaving, he hesitated beside my door.

"I owe you an apology," he said. "Vanessa used to send staff to me with complaints. I accepted her explanations too easily. The cellar camera showed what she did, and I should have noticed before it got that far."

"Did the cellar have cameras?"

"At the entrance. Not inside the hidden room."

"Then someone wanted privacy."

"Exactly."

After he left, I tried to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the little bed behind the wine racks. A child had existed in the walls of a house built by her father, and somehow the people who kept those walls polished had never asked why.

At four, an unfamiliar number flashed on my phone.

"Emma Reed?" a woman asked.

"Speaking."

"My name is Abigail Price. I was told you found Lily."

I sat upright too fast and the room spun.

"Ms. Price, I think you should call your attorney."

"I have. They won't let me speak to Luca without discussing custody first. I understand why." Her voice sounded raw. "I need to ask one thing. Did Lily look healthy?"

"She looked frightened. But she was standing, talking. She had a rabbit."

Abigail began crying quietly.

"They told me she was stillborn," she whispered. "Then Adrian told me Luca had signed papers before the delivery. He said my husband knew the baby might not survive and wanted no contact afterward."

I closed my eyes. Two parents, each told a story designed to make the other disappear.

"Who is Adrian?" I asked, though I knew the name.

"My older brother. He was in the delivery room because Luca had been called away. My father trusted him. I trusted him." Her voice hardened. "I shouldn't have."

"Did you visit Lily two weeks ago?"

"No. I only learned she might be alive yesterday, when Adrian left a voicemail by mistake. I can send it to the police."

I heard a door open at her end. A man said something indistinct. Abigail lowered her voice.

"I can't stay on the phone," she said. "There's one thing I remember. The doctor who signed the death certificate never worked at that hospital."

"How do you know?"

"I went looking for him after my divorce. The licensing board had no record of his name. And when I asked Adrian, he threatened to have me committed."

A loud sound broke across the connection. Abigail gasped.

"Who is there?" she shouted.

The phone went dead.

I called Daniel immediately. He answered on the first ring.

"Emma?"

"Abigail just called me. Someone came into the room while we were talking. I think she's in trouble."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

He swore under his breath. "Rachel is trying to reach her now. Stay inside."

Ten minutes later another message appeared on my screen, from Abigail's number. It contained no words, just a photograph of a hospital wristband. The name printed on it was not Lily Moretti.

It was ELIZABETH PRICE.

Under the name was a handwritten note: SECOND INFANT — DO NOT REGISTER.

I stared at the image until my vision blurred.