THE MAFIA BOSS HAD SPENT YEARS WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS MOTHER—UNTIL A POOR MAID FOUND SOMETHING BEHIND AN OLD SPICE CABINET...

For a moment, the only sound in Gabriel Hayes's library was rain ticking against the glass.

Camille Bellini stood beside the fireplace, one jeweled hand braced against the mantel. The golden fabric of her gown gleamed in the firelight. She looked like a woman posing for a magazine cover, except her mouth had gone slack at the mention of St. Agnes Nursing Residence.

Gabriel noticed. Of course he did. The man noticed the smallest disturbance in a room: a crooked picture frame, a pause before an answer, the way my hand instinctively covered a cut.

“Tell me why that address frightens you,” he said.

Camille recovered enough to lift her chin. “It doesn't frighten me. I'm surprised your maid is feeding you a story when you're already under so much stress.”

“My maid has a name.”

I stared at the carpet. Hearing him defend me should have felt comforting. Instead it made the air more dangerous. In this house, kindness from the wrong person could make you a target.

“Emma,” he said, softer now. “How did Rosa give you the address?”

“She wrote it on the back of a grocery receipt. Three weeks ago, before she stopped answering her phone.”

Camille turned toward the windows.

“Three weeks,” Gabriel repeated. “You've been carrying it that long?”

“I didn't know what it meant. Rosa told me to wait until you recognized the soup and the locket. She said if I came to you too soon, somebody would make sure you never heard me.”

“Rosa always enjoyed melodrama,” Camille said.

I looked at her. “She was shaking when she told me. She wasn't enjoying anything.”

Gabriel placed the locket on his desk. The photograph inside showed a small boy in a striped sweater, grinning with the unguarded joy children lose when adults teach them what to fear. He looked so different from the man standing before me that I almost couldn't connect the two.

“Is Rosa related to you?” he asked Camille.

“My father's older sister,” she admitted.

“And you didn't think to mention that when Emma said her name?”

“I haven't spoken to my aunt in years.”

“That's not what I asked.”

A floorboard creaked outside. Gabriel crossed to the door and opened it. His head of security, Theo Mercer, was already approaching, his gray jacket damp from the courtyard.

“Bring the car around,” Gabriel told him. “And have Dr. Sloane meet us at the east entrance.”

“Sir?”

“Emma needs medical attention. Then we're going to St. Agnes.”

Camille moved in front of the doorway. “At this hour? That facility won't let you wander through its wards because of an old necklace.”

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. “I don't recall asking your permission.”

A flash of anger broke through her practiced calm. “You have no idea who you're challenging.”

He went absolutely still. “Then enlighten me.”

Her expression closed. “I meant the administrators. They're strict about privacy.”

It was an excuse delivered too late.

Ten minutes later, a physician named Margaret Sloane examined me in a small sitting room while rain hammered the roof. She had silver hair and the unflappable manner of someone who had seen wealthy people make all the mistakes ordinary people made, only in more expensive surroundings. After cleaning my cuts, she assured me none appeared deep, but she dressed them carefully and asked whether I needed help reporting the assault.

I nearly said no. Then I remembered the rack crashing against me, the sharp edge tearing cloth, Camille's perfume close enough to make me gag.

“Yes,” I said. “I think I do.”

Gabriel stood on the other side of the open doorway. “I'll make sure you can give a statement safely.”

“Don't make promises you can't keep,” I said before I could stop myself.

He looked at me for a long moment. “Fair.”

The honesty surprised me more than an elaborate reassurance would have.

By midnight we were driving through the wet streets of Briarport, a coastal city where old industrial fortunes had been replaced by glass towers and boutique hotels. The wipers beat a steady rhythm. Gabriel sat beside me in the back seat rather than ordering me into a separate car. Theo drove. Behind us, an unmarked security vehicle kept its distance.

“What exactly did Rosa say?” Gabriel asked.

“She said that your mother made the broth whenever a storm frightened you. The cinnamon was her secret. She said you wouldn't trust a stranger who claimed to know your mother, but you'd recognize a taste.”

Gabriel watched rainwater stream down the window. “I was eleven when she disappeared. My father said she drowned after taking a boat out alone.”

“Did they find her?”

“A coat. A purse. Never a body.”

I thought of the note in the locket: I WAS NOT ALONE WHEN THEY TOOK ME.

“Did you believe your father?”

“I needed to.” His jaw tightened. “He told me she had been ill. That she wasn't herself. Every time I asked a question, I was told that grief was confusing me.”

“I'm sorry.”

He shook his head. “If she's alive, being sorry won't help her.”

St. Agnes stood beyond the city limits on a wooded rise overlooking the estuary. Its original brick building had a chapel tower, stained-glass windows and ivy creeping up the walls. A new medical wing jutted from its side like a block of polished concrete. The parking lot was almost empty. Yet a black transport van idled near a service gate with its lights off.

Theo slowed. “That vehicle isn't listed on the visitor schedule.”

“How do you have their visitor schedule?” I asked.

“I called ahead,” he said. He didn't sound pleased by what he'd learned.

Inside, a night receptionist in a pale-blue cardigan told us the administrator was unavailable. Gabriel introduced himself, and the woman's gaze flickered to a security camera above the desk.

“We have no residents by the name Helena Hayes,” she said before he had asked.

Gabriel placed both hands on the counter. “Interesting. I hadn't told you whom we were looking for.”

Her cheeks reddened. “I assumed, because of your family's history.”

“Then you understand why I'd like to see your admission records.”

“That requires authorization.”

“We'll obtain it. Tonight I'd like you to confirm whether a woman named Evelyn Gray is here.”

I turned toward him. He hadn't mentioned that name in the car.

The receptionist's composure cracked for half a second. “Where did you hear that?”

Gabriel glanced at me. “My mother used that name when she played hide-and-seek with me. It was the name she made up for herself when we pretended to be detectives.”

A door opened at the far end of the lobby. An older man in a white coat approached, smiling too broadly.

“Mr. Hayes. I'm Dr. Edwin Rusk, medical director. I wish you'd called before arriving.”

“We did,” Gabriel replied. “Apparently somebody informed your staff whom we were coming to see.”

Rusk's smile tightened. “A private facility cannot confirm patients to unapproved relatives.”

“Then help me become approved.”

Rusk folded his hands. “I suggest returning with legal documents during business hours.”

From the corridor behind him came a thin, wavering voice. A woman was humming. Four ascending notes, then three falling ones.

Gabriel's hand closed around the locket in his pocket. His face changed with such naked disbelief that I knew he recognized the tune.

“The song,” he whispered. “My mother used to hum that when she cooked.”

Rusk turned his head sharply. “Please stay in the lobby.”

Gabriel had already taken one step forward when the humming stopped. A metallic clatter echoed somewhere deeper in the building, followed by hurried footsteps.

A young nurse emerged from an adjoining hallway. She stopped when she saw us, then looked at Rusk.

“Doctor,” she said, “Room 317 is ready for transfer.”

Rusk's smile vanished.

Gabriel's voice was quiet enough to make my skin prickle. “Who's in Room 317?”

“Nobody you have permission to visit,” Rusk answered.

The nurse looked down, but not before I caught the terror in her eyes.

Outside, an engine started. Through the lobby windows, I saw the black transport van pulling away from the loading bay.

Gabriel shoved past the doctor toward the corridor. Theo spoke into his radio. I hurried after them, my side aching beneath its fresh bandage.

At the back door, a guard blocked Gabriel's way. Theo caught the man's wrist before the guard could draw the heavy security baton from his belt.

“Move,” Theo said.

The man moved.

We reached the loading ramp just as the van turned toward the estate road. Its rear windows were tinted. A woman's palm appeared against the glass for one terrible second.

Then it vanished.

Gabriel stood in the rain, staring as the taillights disappeared among the trees.

“Call the police,” he said.

Theo was already dialing.

The young nurse stepped into the doorway behind me. She was breathing hard, her badge turned backward against her scrubs.

“Mr. Hayes,” she whispered. “If you want your mother alive, don't let them take her to the harbor.”

Gabriel turned.

The nurse reached into her pocket and pressed a folded slip of paper into my hand. Written across it were three words and a time.

BLACKWATER FERRY. 2:15 A.M.