Chapter 7 - Four Notes

At home that evening, Ivy insisted on showing Owen how the toy worked, even though the toy was gone. She sat cross-legged on his bedroom rug with a cereal box and drew its shape.

"Daddy said the song always had four notes," she explained. "But the last one sounds wrong unless you hold the little door. He said that meant a secret was waiting."

Owen pressed a finger to his forehead. The night Adam gave her the house, he'd thought it was a sweet, odd lesson from a tired father trying to sound cheerful through visiting-room glass.

"Do you remember who came to your room yesterday?"

Ivy frowned. "A lady with silver shoes. Aunt Natalie said she was fixing the flowers."

"Did she touch your dresser?"

"She said my room smelled dusty. Then she told me to get lemonade." Ivy's lips tightened. "I didn't want lemonade."

Owen called the officer who had documented the missing toy. Then he called Mina at the hotel and asked her to check the rehearsal footage. An hour later she sent a still image: Natalie standing in the corridor outside Ivy's bedroom with a woman in silver heels carrying a rectangular florist's box.

The woman's face was partly hidden. Her right wrist bore a distinctive green tattoo: a line of small mountain peaks.

"Recognize her?" Mina asked.

"No. But someone will."

Margaret recognized the woman as soon as Owen forwarded the image. "Dani Rusk. Martin's private courier. She's delivered things nobody wanted entered in the company log."

"How do I find her?"

"You don't," Margaret said. "Not alone. Tell the police."

Owen was tired of being patient while other people moved faster. Yet Ivy sat six feet away in borrowed pajamas, trusting him to make sensible choices. He forwarded the photograph and Margaret's identification to Priya and the detective assigned to the break-in. Then he arranged for Ben to keep Ivy out of the townhouse for a few days.

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At ten forty-five, an unknown number sent Owen a photo. The wooden music-box house sat on the hood of a black car beside a riverfront warehouse.

Under it, one sentence: COME ALONE AND THE GIRL GETS HER TOY BACK.