Chapter 1
“He said you buried the wrong man.”
I became completely still.
Ten years disappeared.
The conservatory around me blurred into flowers, crystal, and faces I no longer cared about.
My brother Lucien had been thirty-five when I buried him.
His coffin had been closed.
His body had been burned badly enough that I identified him through three things.
His coat.
His watch.
Our father’s signet ring.
I had placed that ring on Lucien’s finger myself six months before his death.
Sabine’s voice cut through the silence.
“She’s lying.”
Too fast.
Again.
I looked at my sister.
Faye did too.
The housemaid’s cheek remained red where Sabine had struck her, but something in her expression changed when she realized I believed enough to keep listening.
“When did you see him?”
“Three weeks ago.”
The room moved beneath me.
“Where?”
“St. Alden.”
A small lakeside town two hours north.
“Name he used?”
Faye swallowed.
“Luke Mercer.”
Not very creative.
Lucien had always hated false names.
Then Sabine grabbed the edge of the piano.
“You expect us to believe this?”
I turned toward her.
“No.”
Her face relaxed too soon.
“I expect you to explain why you recognized his song.”
Silence.
Faye’s eyes widened.
She had not considered that.
The melody was not famous.
Our mother created it when we were children.
Four notes rising.
Three falling.
Lucien played it whenever he wanted me to know he was nearby without speaking.
Nobody outside our immediate family knew it.
Not staff.
Not capos.
Not guests.
Sabine knew.
I knew.
Lucien knew.
Our parents were dead.
I looked at Faye.
“What exactly did he tell you?”
She tightened the napkin in her hand.
“That if Sabine ever heard me sing it, she would try to stop me.”
My sister went pale.
Then Faye added:
“He said if she did, I should find you.”
I stepped closer.
“And tell me?”
Her voice trembled.
“Ask whose body is in Lucien Montclair’s grave.”
Behind me, one of the older guests whispered a name.
“Owen.”
I turned.
The man who spoke immediately regretted it.
“Owen who?”
He lowered his eyes.
“Owen Pike.”
My brother’s driver.
A man who disappeared the same night Lucien supposedly died.
May you like
For ten years, nobody had connected those two absences.
Until now.
