THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE OFFERED HIS MAID FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS TO KEEP QUIET ABOUT THE DAMAGED PIANO—BUT WHEN THE GIRL REFUSED AND INTERRUPTED DINNER, EVERYTHING UNRAVELED.

For the first time since I had entered the ballroom pushing Elena Moretti's damaged grand piano, Luca's anger looked like fear.

He was staring at Vanessa, but his next words were for the security director standing by the doors.

"Daniel, call Isabella. Not the number on our household list. Her personal number."

Daniel Russo took out his phone. He had worked for Luca for fourteen years and had the composed expression of a man who knew exactly how much could go wrong in a mansion full of powerful people. Even he looked shaken.

"She told you she was in Boston?" Vanessa asked.

Luca did not answer her. Instead, he turned to me. "Emma, when did you last see my sister?"

"Monday, sir. She came to collect music from the library."

"Did she seem upset?"

I remembered the way Isabella had stood beneath her mother's portrait, turning a folded page in her hands while someone spoke to her on the phone. I had offered tea. She had declined, which was unusual. Isabella normally thanked the staff by name and asked how our families were doing.

"She seemed worried," I said. "She asked whether anybody had been inside the west sitting room without permission."

Vanessa gave a small, irritated laugh. "Isabella worries about everything."

"You can leave," Luca told her.

Her smile vanished. "This is our engagement dinner."

"There is no engagement dinner anymore."

Thirty-four guests had begun to look toward the exits. Luca's attorney, Miriam Shaw, rose from a table near the windows. She was a woman in her fifties with a severe gray bob and an expression that suggested she disliked surprises even more than Vanessa disliked being contradicted.

"Luca," Miriam said carefully, "before anybody touches the piano again, photograph it. The comb, the locket, and the bench too."

"Because she stole from my family?" Luca asked.

"Because somebody may have done considerably more than that."

I looked at the hair comb lying in Luca's hand. Six white curves surrounded the gold frame. The tiny blue stain on one piece was still visible. I could remember standing beside the piano as a child, listening to my own mother explain how old instruments held marks that told their histories. She had never imagined her daughter would use that knowledge in a room like this.

A recorded voice answered Daniel's call. He tried again. Then he called a number he found in his notebook.

"Dr. Naomi Park? This is Daniel Russo at the Moretti residence. I'm trying to reach Isabella."

He turned away for a moment, listening. When he faced Luca again, the confidence had left his eyes.

"Her friend in Boston says Isabella cancelled a rehearsal five days ago. She hasn't answered any messages since."

Luca's face went still.

"Five days?" he asked.

"Yes. Naomi thought she was taking time away from work because of a family emergency."

Vanessa opened her mouth, then closed it.

I wondered whether there was a person anywhere in the mansion who hadn't noticed that pattern: Vanessa always had an explanation prepared until somebody asked a question she hadn't expected.

"Show me the letter," Miriam said.

Luca handed over the paper he had removed from his mother's locket. It was small enough to fit inside a folded postage stamp. Elena's handwriting was delicate, the ink brown with age.

Miriam read aloud, slowly.

"'My dearest Isabella, the music belongs to those who are willing to hear it. If someone tells you the seventh note is missing, look beneath the place where you first learned to count. Do not sign what you have not read. Love, Mama.'"

There was a second line, written almost against the fold.

"'Ask Luca to stand beside you, not in front of you.'"

Luca turned away.

For a moment I thought he was angry with his mother for leaving behind a puzzle. Then I saw that his eyes were wet.

"She wrote that for Isabella," he said. "Why did Vanessa have it?"

"I found the locket in a jewelry drawer," Vanessa said. "There isn't anything sinister about that."

"You tried to get rid of the bench," I reminded her.

Her gaze snapped toward me. "You are a housemaid. You don't get to interrogate me."

"She's not interrogating you," Miriam said. "She's describing what she witnessed."

Luca looked at the movers standing near the piano. "Nobody here is being detained," he told the guests. "But if anybody saw someone remove something from that instrument, I ask you to give your name to Daniel before you leave."

That mattered to me. I had spent the afternoon afraid Luca would order the doors locked and let his security men decide what was true. Instead he let the guests go. The truth, apparently, had to survive without being trapped in the ballroom.

A woman in a cream evening dress stepped forward. I recognized her as a retired music professor who had known Elena.

"I saw Miss Bellini carry a blue velvet pouch out of the west sitting room," she said. "She told me it held earrings."

Vanessa laughed. "This is absurd. Are we holding a trial over an old purse?"

"No," Miriam said. "We are preserving observations."

Daniel asked Vanessa if she would voluntarily place her handbag on the table. She hesitated, then shook her head.

"No. If you want to search my belongings, get a warrant."

"That's your right," Miriam said.

The look Vanessa gave her was openly furious.

I felt a strange, unexpected flicker of relief. In the houses where people like me worked, rights often felt like luxuries reserved for people with lawyers. Hearing a lawyer defend Vanessa's rights, even now, helped me believe the rules might apply to everyone.

Mrs. Carver, our head housekeeper, approached. She was carrying my coat.

"Emma," she said quietly, "your mother called earlier. You haven't answered."

My stomach dropped. My mother was sixty-two and recovering from a hip operation. She lived in a second-floor apartment and relied on me for groceries, transportation, and the part of her rent she couldn't manage from her pension.

"Is she all right?"

"She only wanted to remind you about her appointment tomorrow. I told her you were working."

I took my phone out. Three missed calls. No emergency messages.

Luca noticed my expression. "Go call her."

"Sir, I ought to explain the piano first."

"You've explained enough for one evening."

He looked at my hands. I hadn't noticed how badly they were shaking.

"And your job is not in danger," he added. "Not for bringing the piano here."

Vanessa made a sharp noise. "She defied a direct order."

"An order to destroy something she knew belonged to my family," Luca answered. "We can discuss household procedures later."

Miriam interrupted before the argument could begin again. "Daniel, have somebody call the art conservator who has the piano's maintenance records. And alert the police that we have concerns about a missing adult. We don't yet know what happened to Isabella. We should not pretend we do."

It was the most reassuring sentence I had heard that evening. Nobody knew. Not yet.

I stepped into the service corridor and called my mother. When she answered, I heard the familiar sounds of her small kitchen: a kettle whistling, the radio playing softly, a spoon touching a mug.

"Emma? Honey, you sound upset."

"There was a problem at work."

"Did somebody hurt you?"

"No. I'm safe."

She didn't believe me immediately. Mothers rarely do.

I told her about the piano. The missing ivory. The blue fountain-pen mark.

She went silent.

"What?" I asked.

"I remember that instrument," she said.

I leaned against the wall. "You've never worked here."

"No, but I knew the man who restored it. His name was Peter Wren. I was his apprentice before you were born."

"What would he know?"

"He kept detailed diagrams under the bench lid after every restoration. Elena insisted on it. She wanted Isabella to understand how the piano worked."

I looked toward the ballroom doors.

"There was a hidden compartment under the bench."

"Then perhaps the diagrams are still there. Peter was particular about protecting the original keytops. He marked each one on paper."

"Seven are missing," I whispered.

My mother inhaled sharply. "Seven?"

"Yes."

"Emma, somebody knew what they were looking for. Those aren't ordinary souvenirs."

I promised to visit her in the morning, then went back inside.

Most guests were gone. Vanessa stood by the staircase beside her father, Silvio Bellini, who had just arrived. Luca was speaking to the police dispatcher on Daniel's phone. Miriam had spread clean paper beneath the objects recovered from the bench.

I told her what my mother remembered. Miriam wrote the name Peter Wren in her notebook.

Then Daniel's phone vibrated.

He read the message twice.

"Boss," he said, "the household tracker still lists Isabella's car at her Boston address. But a parking attendant there says a different woman drove it away on Tuesday."

Luca looked up. "Who?"

"He couldn't identify her. He remembers a red scarf."

Vanessa was wearing one now, tied to her handbag.

Before Luca could speak, another message appeared on Daniel's screen. This one was from Isabella's phone.

I'm fine. Stop calling. I'll be back when I'm ready.

Luca stared at the words.

"That's not how my sister writes," he said.

"How can you be sure?" Vanessa asked.

"Because Isabella never says 'I'm fine' when she isn't."

He looked at the damaged piano, the seven exposed wooden keys, and the tiny letter his mother had written so many years before.