Chapter 3

My mother had never liked the Carter family’s business.

Before she married my father, she had been a pianist.

She kept performing after the wedding and put most of her earnings into a foundation that provided music education for children who had lost their parents.

My father never let the family’s affairs touch it.

He said it was the one place where she could feel at peace.

For the fifth anniversary of her death, the foundation had arranged a memorial dinner.

It wasn’t being held on Moretti territory, but at an independently owned private art gallery.

The guests included my mother’s students, old friends, and families who had supported the foundation for years.

Originally, all I had planned to do was play a short piece she had composed and give a speech thanking everyone.

Now I wanted something else from the evening.

I wanted the people who had known her to remember that I was still a Carter.

The next morning, I gave my dress and sheet music to the driver, ready to head to the gallery for rehearsal.

But the jewelry box was empty.

I stood at the dressing table, lifted out the velvet insert, then put it back.

Nothing.

The necklace wasn’t in the drawers. It wasn’t in the safe.

Hearing me search, the maid outside the door went pale.

“Mr. Moretti came by this morning.”

I looked up.

“He said you knew.” Her voice grew quieter. “He asked me to get Miss Sienna a necklace to go with her dress.”

I called Julian.

He didn’t answer the first time.

The second time, Sienna picked up.

“Looking for Julian? He’s talking to someone from the foundation.”

In the background, someone was tuning a piano.

I gripped the edge of the dressing table.

“Give me back my necklace.”

“I’m only borrowing it for one evening.” She sighed softly. “Claire, you have so much jewelry. Why are you always so obsessed with this one?”

“It isn’t yours.”

“Julian said he’d handle it.”

She passed him the phone.

A moment later, his familiar voice came on the line.

“Whatever it is, we’ll talk tonight.”

“You took the only thing I have left of my mother without even telling me?”

“I had someone tell you.”

“Telling me isn’t the same as asking permission!”

He fell silent for a moment, as though struggling to tolerate my unreasonable behavior.

“Sienna made a donation on the family’s behalf today. This is her first formal appearance at an event like this. I’m not letting people look down on her.”

I closed my eyes briefly.

“This is my mother’s memorial dinner.”

“Then you, of all people, should think about the bigger picture.”

He hung up.

I left for the gallery immediately.

Martha, the foundation’s director, called me three times on the way.

The signal kept cutting out during the first two calls. When the third finally connected, her voice shook with urgency.

“Claire, did you approve changes to tonight’s program?”

“No.”

“Mr. Moretti’s people said you’d agreed on them together. They replaced the speech and brought a new partnership agreement.”

“What partnership?”

Martha gave me a name.

A chill ran down my back.

The Volkov Arts Foundation.

My mother had spent some of the hardest years of her life fighting Anton Volkov in court.

He had put his name on her unpublished compositions. After losing the case, he accused her of using her husband’s influence to intimidate witnesses.

He had never publicly apologized. Not even after she died.

“Don’t let them sign anything,” I said. “I’m almost there.”

The car had barely stopped when I heard applause from inside.

On the screen in the center of the hall was a photograph of my mother as a young woman, seated at a piano.

Below it stood Sienna, wearing the emerald necklace, with Julian beside her.

Smiling into the microphone, she said,

“Letting go of the past is the best way to honor those we’ve lost.”