THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED HIS MAID GATHER EVERY BROKEN PIECE OF A CHEAP MUSIC BOX—BUT WHEN HIS DAUGHTER EXPLAINED WHY IT WAS MORE PRECIOUS THAN DIAMONDS, TEARS FILLED HIS EYES.

By sunrise, Moretti House no longer felt like the place where I had spent fourteen months polishing silver and avoiding questions.

Three members of the security team stood near the side gate. A truck that had arrived to collect furniture turned around without entering the grounds. Mrs. Carter had personally locked Isabelle's bedroom and given the child the only spare key. Luca had slept on the sofa in the adjoining sitting room, according to the night attendant, although I suspected he had hardly slept at all.

I arrived at six-thirty with the broken music box in a padded cake tin. I'd spent the night thinking about the little ballerina's missing arm and wondering why I had never noticed how much responsibility rested on a housekeeping uniform.

Mrs. Carter met me in the kitchen.

"He wants you to take the morning off," she said.

My stomach dropped. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"He knows. He wants you to see a repair specialist for the box, if you're willing. He'll pay for the appointment."

She handed me an address written in her careful script: Mercer Street Instrument Restoration, owned by an elderly woman named Ruth Pereira.

"And the girl?" I asked.

"With her father. She's staying home from school today."

"Is that wise?" I said. "She'll think she's being punished."

Mrs. Carter looked at me. "Tell him."

It took five minutes before I found Luca in his breakfast room, wearing a sweater and reading documents instead of a newspaper. Isabelle sat at the table, stirring cereal until it had become an unappetizing paste.

"Good morning, Miss Charlotte," she said.

"Morning, sweetheart. I thought the two of you might be going to school together today."

Luca raised his eyes.

"I wanted to keep her safe here," he said.

"I understand. But she likes Wednesday art class. If she wants to go, taking away the ordinary parts of her day might make yesterday feel even bigger."

I prepared myself for a reprimand. He set down his documents instead.

"Isabelle?" he asked. "Would you prefer school or staying with me?"

She considered it. "Can you take me?"

"Yes."

"And can you pick me up? Not Vanessa?"

"Of course."

"Then school. We have clay today."

He nodded. "Then that's settled."

I felt absurdly relieved. After a moment Isabelle asked whether she could bring the pieces of her music box with her, and we gently explained they would be safer in my cake tin for the trip to the repair shop. She stroked the lid and told the ballerina to behave herself.

Luca made a sound that was almost laughter. It ended when Daniel entered carrying a fresh copy of the transfer form.

"Mr. Moretti," Daniel said, "the school and Briarwood House have both been contacted. Briarwood says it received a referral signed by you. We have told them you dispute it and that Isabelle is not to be collected."

"Who sent it?"

"A family liaison named Helen Mercer. She says she was hired by Miss Bellini and believed you had approved the arrangement."

"Where is Vanessa?"

"At the guesthouse. We asked her not to contact Isabelle. Her lawyer has been notified."

Isabelle stopped stirring her cereal. Luca noticed, dismissed Daniel gently, and asked me to walk with him into the corridor.

"Is Briarwood legitimate?" I asked.

"It's a private residential program outside the city. I'm having counsel check its licensing and whether it was given anything beyond a preliminary inquiry."

"Isabelle told me Helen called her grief an illness."

He rubbed one hand over his forehead. "The information in that referral says Isabelle is withdrawn, unresponsive, and prone to dangerous outbursts."

I stared at him. Isabelle could be quiet in unfamiliar company, but she had never been dangerous. She had her mother's hazel eyes and a stubborn fondness for mango ice cream. She had spent the previous Sunday making a welcome card for a new student.

"That's not her," I said.

"I know."

"Someone would have had to give Helen personal details to make the rest sound convincing."

"Yes."

"Then Isabelle's privacy has been violated as well as her trust."

He looked at me for a long moment. "I should have listened to her earlier. She has been saying she doesn't want a new room for weeks. I told myself she would adjust."

I couldn't comfort him out of that truth. "She needed you to ask why."

He nodded once.

I took the bus across town with the cake tin on my lap. Moretti House was filled with expensive things; the repair shop smelled like sawdust, brass polish, and burned coffee. Ruth Pereira wore a magnifying visor and a pencil tucked behind one ear.

"Music box?" she asked.

"A very important one."

"Every owner says that. Set it down."

She unpacked the porcelain with hands so careful they made mine look clumsy. She examined the spring, the cylinder, and the silver ballerina, turning the damaged figure in the light.

"I can mend most of the shell," she said. "I won't promise invisible joins. The arm can probably be reattached. The musical movement is a different question."

"Will it play?"

"Let me find out before we promise anything to a child."

She wound the key a fraction, stopped, and frowned. "Someone tried to force it when the spring was jammed. See the scrape here? That didn't happen when it fell."

"It was broken at dinner."

"Then someone interfered with it before dinner."

The words followed me around the shop. Vanessa had brought the box from Isabelle's room. She had held it in front of everyone. Had she broken its music deliberately, then blamed the rest on a servant?

Ruth pointed to the base. "There are initials here. C.M., and a date from eleven years ago. Homemade modification. Whoever did it knew instruments."

Caroline had taught music. I could picture her beside a piano, working out how to make a cheap porcelain box play her daughter's song with the same slow, unhurried rhythm every night.

"May I leave it with you?" I asked.

"Of course. You can watch when I open the movement if you'd like. I'm not hiding anything."

She handed me a handwritten inventory. I photographed it before leaving, not because I doubted her, but because I'd learned how much could disappear when no one kept a record.

On the bus back, my phone buzzed with a message from my father.

DON'T WORRY ABOUT MONDAY. I WILL FIND A WAY.

He'd had his second back surgery in March. He could barely climb the steps to his porch. I knew his idea of finding a way involved selling the old guitar he had bought when I was fourteen. It was the one thing he'd kept through every difficult year.

I called him.

"You are not selling the guitar," I said.

"Hello to you too, sweetheart."

"Dad."

"I've still got a little savings."

"No, you haven't."

He sighed. "I hate that you know my bank balance better than I do."

"I love you. I'm finding a way that doesn't involve stripping your house of the things that make it yours."

I thought of Isabelle's doorway and realized I meant that for more than one household.

When I returned, Mrs. Carter was in the pantry with Susan Palmer, who had come to explain what she'd been instructed to do. Susan looked relieved when I showed her the repair shop's inventory, as though evidence that something old could be cared for had become rare in this house.

"I've canceled all the orders," she said. "Miss Bellini's office told my assistant to bill a cancellation fee to Isabelle's family account. I refused."

"Family account?" I asked.

"The documents used that phrase. I assumed it was a standard household renovation account."

She opened her folder and pointed to a paragraph buried beneath the design sketches.

"Here. 'Transition support to be funded from the Caroline Moretti Child Enrichment Trust.' I didn't write that. It arrived in the revised instructions yesterday."

I read the words twice. Caroline had established a small fund for Isabelle's music education, separate from the enormous Moretti fortune. I'd heard Mrs. Carter mention it during planning for school lessons. The idea of using it to dismantle Caroline's own daughter's bedroom made my skin crawl.

"Did you tell Luca?" I asked.

"His lawyer has the documents. The account trustee will have to verify whether any money moved."

Susan sat on the pantry stool. "I design rooms. I don't investigate where children disappear to. But I should have asked."

"You asked last night," I said. "That mattered."

A door opened in the hall. Helen Mercer stood there with a purple folder under her arm and yellow-framed spectacles resting on her nose.

"Mrs. Carter?" she asked. "I need to speak to Mr. Moretti about the transfer before this becomes more unpleasant."

We all turned.

"I'm Charlotte Hayes," I said. "You spoke to Isabelle yesterday."

Helen's smile tightened. "And you are?"

"Someone she told the truth to."

"The placement is in her best interests. The paperwork has been completed."

Susan rose from the stool. "Mr. Moretti has canceled it."