THE MAFIA BOSS SAW BLOOD SOAKING HIS MAID’S SLEEVE, BUT WHEN SHE REVEALED WHY HIS FIANCÉE WANTED HIS MOTHER’S VEIL BURNED, HIS EXPRESSION TURNED ICE-COLD.

The drive to Mercy General took twenty-two minutes. I counted every one of them.

Chicago blurred beyond the windows of Mara Quinn's SUV: damp sidewalks, stoplights reflected in puddles, the river black beneath its bridges. My bandage throbbed. My swollen eye made the lights look doubled. Across from me, Luca Moretti had his phone pressed to his ear.

"No threats," he said. "No private games. Give the detectives the information we have, including the names. I want a record of every call."

He ended the call and looked at me. "The hospital has contacted the police. Mara is speaking with administration."

"Noah doesn't have his medication," I said.

"We don't know that."

"He hates missing a dose. He sets alarms because he knows I worry." My voice cracked. "He jokes that he's the responsible one, even though he's only nineteen."

Luca didn't tell me to calm down. I was grateful for that.

"Tell me about him," he said instead.

I looked out at a bakery closing for the night. "He studies graphic design online. He makes posters for bands that don't exist. He loves terrible monster movies. He pretends the treatments don't exhaust him."

"And you?"

"I work."

"That's not what I asked."

I couldn't answer. I had been Evelyn-the-provider so long that my own dreams felt like someone else's belongings.

At the hospital, the lobby smelled of antiseptic and burnt coffee. A security officer guided us upstairs. The nurse who had called me waited near Noah's room, her eyes red with worry.

"I'm Claire Bennett," she said. "I should have insisted on speaking to you myself before the transfer."

"Where did they take him?"

"We're tracing it. The paperwork named a private rehabilitation wing, but that facility says it has no patient by his name. The signature was electronic. We have no proof you authorized it."

"I didn't."

Claire nodded. "I've told the detectives that."

Inside Noah's room, the bed had been neatly made. His sketchbook was missing, but his favorite blue hoodie hung from the chair. The sight of it nearly brought me to my knees. He never went anywhere without that hoodie if he had a choice.

I touched the sleeve. A folded piece of paper fell from the pocket.

It was a drawing: a small white rose inside a black circle. Beneath it, in Noah's looping handwriting, were three words.

SHE KNOWS ME.

"What does that mean?" Luca asked.

"I don't know."

Claire frowned. "One of the visitors was a woman. She told him she worked for a foundation that helped patients find specialist care. He seemed to recognize her."

"What did she look like?" I asked.

"Brown hair. Mid-fifties, maybe. She wore a scarf with white roses."

A memory flashed through me: Noah at our apartment window the week before, telling me a woman had asked him whether I still worked for the Morettis. I had thought she was a neighbor.

"He mentioned her," I whispered. "I should have asked more questions."

"You couldn't have known what she intended," Claire said.

I looked down at the drawing again. The white rose wasn't delicate or romantic. Noah had filled in the center with heavy black ink, as though he wanted me to notice it.

Mara entered with two detectives. They asked me to describe the calls, the threat, and my brother's medical needs. I told them everything, including what Alessia had done to me. One detective, a patient man named Ramirez, photographed Noah's drawing and requested the hospital's available security records.

I watched him work, afraid that every question was another minute Noah might be suffering.

"We found the receiving vehicle listed under a legitimate medical transportation contractor," Ramirez said. "The contractor says its crew was diverted after pickup. We're identifying who changed the destination."

"So he could be anywhere," I whispered.

"We have leads. We also have people looking for him right now."

Adrian arrived while Ramirez was still speaking. He had changed out of his dinner jacket and looked younger in an ordinary dark sweater. Luca straightened when he saw him, but neither man approached the other.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Because I might know the woman with the scarf," Adrian said.

He placed a photograph on the table. It showed Angelo Venturi at a charitable fundraiser beside a smiling woman wearing a silver-white scarf decorated with roses.

"Her name is Beatrice Hale. She used to manage private care arrangements for my father. Alessia calls her Aunt Bea, but they're not related."

Ramirez took the photo. "Can you identify when this was taken?"

"Last spring. The date is on the back."

I stared at the woman's face. "Noah said someone like her came to the apartment building."

Adrian looked miserable. "I should've said something when Alessia talked about teaching you a lesson. I thought she was being cruel, not planning this."

Luca's expression hardened. "You thought cruelty had limits because you grew up with it."

Adrian turned on him. "Don't pretend you understand what it was like."

"I'm not pretending."

"You had a mother for thirteen years. I had photographs of strangers and a story that they threw me away."

Luca took the blow without moving. "You're right."

That answer seemed to surprise Adrian more than an argument would have.

A nurse came in with news from the hospital's patient advocate. Noah had asked that someone call me before he left, but the request had been recorded and then marked as completed. Claire looked furious.

"He knew something was wrong," I said. "That's why he left the drawing."

Mara's phone rang. She stepped into the hall, listened, then returned. "The transportation company has supplied the last confirmed address in the route changes. It's an old private treatment center on the North Shore. Detectives are checking it now."

I stood so quickly my chair scraped the floor.

"I want to go."

"You can meet them at the public entrance if they confirm he's there," Ramirez said. "We won't have you walk into a situation we haven't assessed."

I hated the answer. I knew it was the sensible one.

Luca's phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen and went pale.

"What?" I asked.

He showed me a message from an unknown number. It contained a photograph of Noah sitting upright in a hospital bed. He was wearing his own T-shirt. Beside him stood Beatrice Hale.

Underneath were six words.

THE VEIL FOR THE BOY. MIDNIGHT.

I reached for the phone, then froze. "He's alive."

"At the moment of that photograph," Ramirez said carefully. "We're working to confirm when it was taken."

"They want the veil."

Adrian frowned. "Why? The certificate is already out."

"Maybe something else is hidden in it," I said.

Luca looked at me. "Did you search the whole thing?"

"Only the hem where I found the envelope."

Ramirez studied the message. "Don't respond on your own. We can use this as evidence."

The police took over communication. I sat beside the silent bed with Noah's hoodie in my lap while Mara arranged for the veil to be brought to the hospital and secured. As the minutes passed, my mind returned again and again to the words from Elena Moretti's letter: the man who carries white roses.

Angelo had sent white roses to dinner. White roses filled the mansion. White roses had decorated the scarf of the woman who'd taken Noah.

It had looked like luxury. Now it looked like a signature.

At eleven fifteen, Ramirez returned. "Officers have located your brother at the private treatment center. He's being evaluated by medical staff. The facility's administrator is cooperating."

My knees gave way. Claire caught me before I hit the floor.

"Is he hurt?"

"He's conscious and talking. We need to let the clinicians assess him, but he asked for you."

I began to cry so hard I couldn't speak. Luca moved toward me, then stopped an arm's length away, waiting. When I reached for his sleeve, he steadied me without a word.

We arrived at the center shortly after midnight. It was a low brick building behind bare trees, its windows yellow against the dark. A police car waited near the entrance. A doctor met us in a quiet consultation room and confirmed Noah was stable, although fatigued and frightened. He was being transferred back to his regular care team.

When I entered, Noah was sitting in bed, gripping his sketchbook. He tried to smile.

"Evie," he said. "I was going to leave you a much cooler clue, but I ran out of time."

I crossed the room and held him. He made a small pained sound, and I immediately loosened my arms.

"Sorry. Sorry."

"No," he whispered. "Stay."

So I did.

After a while, he told me what had happened. Beatrice had said a specialist was ready to see him. When he asked to call me, she claimed my phone had been damaged and I had approved the move. During the ride, he'd seen her texting a photograph of him to someone saved as A.V.

"I knew you hadn't sent her," he said. "You'd have texted me twelve warnings about not forgetting my charger."

"At least twelve," I managed.

He opened his sketchbook to a page he'd hidden beneath several drawings. There was the same white rose inside a black circle, copied carefully from a pin on Beatrice's coat. Beneath it he'd written something else.

ST. BRIGID'S — ARCHIVE ROOM.

"I heard her talking on the phone," he explained. "She said they had to get the veil before anybody checked the St. Brigid's archive. I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget."

Luca stood at the end of the bed, listening. He looked at Noah with a surprising tenderness.

"That was smart," he said.

Noah squinted at him. "You're the scary guy from the Christmas card at Evelyn's job."

"I've been called worse."

"You look tired."

Luca gave a humorless smile. "I am."

"Take care of my sister," Noah said suddenly.

I turned. "Noah."

"I mean it. She takes care of everyone. Somebody should notice when she's bleeding."

Luca looked at my bandaged arm. "I noticed too late."

Noah studied him. "Then don't do that again."

For the first time all night, Luca gave a real, startled laugh.

A detective appeared in the doorway and asked to speak with us. Beatrice had been detained for questioning, and officers had taken possession of the transfer documents. Their immediate priority, he said, was determining who instructed her and whether anyone else had been involved.

"Will it end?" I asked.

"Not by morning," he said honestly. "But your brother is safe tonight."

Noah squeezed my hand.

Then Adrian, who had stayed in the hallway, came in carrying two cups of terrible vending-machine coffee. He set one beside Luca, and neither brother spoke.

My phone lit up with an incoming message from an unfamiliar address. I opened it, expecting another threat.

Instead I found a photograph of a scorched ledger. On the cover, in a woman's handwriting, were the words ST. BRIGID'S, MATERNITY RECORDS.

Beneath the picture was one sentence.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY ELENA MORETTI DIED, FIND THE WOMAN WHO SAVED THE BOOK.

I looked up at Luca and Adrian.