Vivian raised the strap a second time.

Clara was still in the chair when he returned.

She had found a glass of water somewhere — it sat on the table beside her, half-empty.

She looked up when he came in, and something in her face said she had spent the last twenty minutes preparing herself for bad news.

"You were gone a while," she said.

"I was talking to Vivian."

"Is she angry?"

"She's something," he said.

He sat down.

"I need to ask you some things and I need you to answer honestly, even if the answers seem strange."

"All right."

"Did anyone contact you before the agency called?

Anyone who knew your mother, or knew about the locket, or asked you questions about your family?"

Clara's brow pulled together.

"No.

Not recently." She paused.

"There was someone, about six months ago.

A man.

He came to my apartment building — said he was doing a genealogy survey, some kind of family history research project.

He asked about my parents.

I didn't think much of it.

I told him my mother had passed and I didn't know my father.

He thanked me and left."

"Did he give you a name?"

"He had a card." She thought.

"Ferrante.

Something Ferrante."

Vincent's jaw tightened.

"Marco Ferrante."

"You know him?"

"He's Vivian's cousin.

He runs the agency that placed you here tonight."

Clara sat with that for a moment.

"So she knew."

"She knew your mother's name.

She may have known more." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"Clara, I need to tell you some things about my family.

Things I haven't spoken about in a long time."

She waited.

"My mother was Lucia Moretti.

She was a quiet woman — private, careful.

She and my father had a difficult marriage.

Not violent.

Just cold.

The kind of cold that fills a house slowly until you stop noticing it." He paused.

"The summer of 2001, she went to Naples for three months.

She said it was for her health.

She came back different.

Quieter.

She never explained why."

"How old were you?"

"Eighteen.

Old enough to notice, too young to ask the right questions." He looked at his hands.

"There was a woman on staff that summer.

A housekeeper's assistant.

Young, from the south of the country.

My mother was fond of her — more than fond.

I remember thinking it was unusual, the way she spoke to her.

Like she was protecting her."

Clara's hands had gone still in her lap.

"Her name was Elena," he said.

The room was very quiet.

"My mother never spoke of her after that summer.

I asked once, a few years later.

She said Elena had gone home to her family.

She said it in a way that meant the subject was finished." He looked up.

"But she kept the locket.

She had it made that summer — I remember because she showed it to me when it arrived from the jeweler.

She said it was a gift for someone important."

"She gave it to my mother," Clara said.

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Yes."

"Why would she give something that valuable to a housekeeper's assistant?"

He looked at her steadily.

"I think you already know the answer to that."

Clara's eyes dropped to the locket on the table between them.

She picked it up.

Opened it.

Looked at the photograph for a long time — the young woman, the baby, the worn edges of the image.

"The baby in this photograph," she said.

"How old?"

"A few months, I'd say."

"My mother told me I was born in Naples.

She said we came to the US when I was six months old." She closed the locket.

"She never told me why she left Italy."

"I think she was asked to," Vincent said.

"I think my mother arranged it.

Gave her money, gave her the locket, gave her a way to start over.

And made her promise to find me if anything ever happened." He paused.

"The question is why.

Why would my mother need Elena to find me?

What was Elena to her that made her trust her with something that important?"

Clara looked up.

"Unless Elena wasn't just someone she trusted."

"No."

"Unless Elena was someone she was responsible for."

"Yes."

The word sat between them like a stone dropped into still water.

"My father," Clara said slowly.

"You think your father—"

"I think the summer of 2001 produced a child that no one in my family was permitted to acknowledge." He said it plainly, because there was no gentle way to say it.

"I think my mother knew.

I think she protected Elena the only way she could.

And I think she spent the rest of her life hoping that someday, if the right moment came, someone would open that locket and read what she wrote."

Clara's breath came out unsteady.

"Find him," she said.

"Yes."

"She meant you."

"I think so."

She pressed the locket against her sternum with one hand, and for a moment her composure cracked — just at the edges, just enough for him to see what was underneath.

Not grief.

Not anger.

Something rawer than either.

"I have been alone my entire life," she said.

"My mother worked herself to nothing for us.

She never complained.

She never explained.

She just — kept going." Her voice held.

"And all this time there was a family.

A name.

A reason."

"I don't know everything yet," Vincent said.