Don had Emma taken to the library, not the basement.

She was not sure whether that was mercy or theater.

Marcus remained by the locked door while Don stood behind a walnut desk, the brass badge centered between them. Rain streaked the tall windows beyond the steel shutters.

“My brother did not kill Angela Romano,” Emma said.

Don removed his cuff links and placed them beside the badge. “You knew her name.”

“Everyone in New York knew her name after the explosion.”

“You knew what I accused him of before I finished the sentence.”

Emma’s jaw tightened.

Three years earlier, federal agents had searched her apartment at dawn. Reporters had waited outside her mother’s funeral. Ben’s photograph had appeared beneath the words MAFIA WIDOW’S MECHANIC VANISHES.

She had learned to hear the accusation before anyone spoke it.

“My brother maintained your vehicles,” she said. “Your wife died in one. Then he disappeared. It wasn’t difficult to guess what story your family told itself.”

“The brake line was cut.”

“Ben called me the night before. He said he had found something in a car that didn’t belong there.”

Don’s expression did not change, but Marcus shifted near the door.

“What did he find?” Don asked.

“He didn’t say.”

“Convenient.”

“Terrifying,” Emma corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Don picked up the badge. “This belonged to him.”

“Twelve years ago. He lost it before Angela died.”

“How do you know?”

“Because our father gave it to him when Ben finished his apprenticeship. He tore the house apart looking for it.”

Marcus took the badge and examined the edge. “The engraving is old. The leather loop isn’t.”

Someone had planted it in the jacket.

The realization did not clear Emma. It made her more useful as a suspect.

Marcus photographed the badge before sealing it in an evidence envelope. “There’s fresh machine oil in the engraving.”

Emma looked at him. “Ben used citrus solvent. He hated petroleum cleaner because our father said it held grit.”

Don’s gaze sharpened. “You remember what cleaning fluid your brother used twelve years ago?”

“I remember the smell of the garage where I spent half my childhood.”

Marcus rubbed a gloved thumb over the envelope. “Romano Fleet switched to this oil eighteen months ago.”

The badge might have belonged to Ben, but whoever planted it had handled it recently inside a Romano facility.

“How many people can access the fleet garages?” Emma asked.

“Forty-two employees,” Marcus said.

“And family?”

Don answered. “Six.”

Emma met his eyes. “Including Vincent.”

“Including me.”

He did not ask her to ignore the possibility. That honesty disturbed her more than denial would have.

Don walked around the desk. “Search her room.”

“You already searched it before hiring me.”

Silence landed hard.

Marcus looked at Don.

Emma felt the room narrow.

“My references were checked in six hours,” she continued. “The agency waived a placement fee it never waives. Rosa told me my application went directly to your office. You knew who I was.”

Don said nothing.

That was answer enough.

Emma stepped toward him. Marcus’s hand moved toward his holster, but Don did not retreat.

“Why did you bring me into this house?” she asked.

“Because you applied for the job.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one you’re getting tonight.”

Emma laughed once, without humor. “Then you’re not searching my room without me.”

Ten minutes later, she led them through the staff wing.

The mansion remained locked down. Guests had been separated into the ballroom, dining room, and gallery while security verified identities. Police had not been called. Don’s people handled danger internally until they could no longer contain it.

Emma hated that she understood the logic.

Her room was small but private, with a narrow bed, dresser, and one window overlooking the greenhouse. Marcus opened drawers while a female security officer checked the closet.

Don remained in the doorway.

“Enjoying the view?” Emma asked.

“No.”

“You look comfortable invading people’s lives.”

“Comfort has nothing to do with it.”

Marcus opened Emma’s work locker and found a folded staff map taped beneath the shelf. A red circle marked the west-wing staircase.

Don took it down. “Yours?”

“No.”

“It’s in your locker.”

Emma studied the map. “The circle was made with a wax pencil. Housekeeping uses blue grease pencils for linen counts. Security uses red.”

Marcus’s face hardened. “Not my current team. We switched to digital logs last year.”

Don held the paper toward the lamp. An old inventory date showed faintly beneath the mark.

Someone had taken it from storage and planted it after Emma began working.

“Your room was entered while you were downstairs,” Don said.

“Then your sealed house is not sealed.”

He looked toward Marcus. “Check every master key.”

“Already running the audit.”

Emma noticed something else. The blanket on her bed had been tucked beneath the mattress on the left. She always tucked it on the right because the frame had a splinter.

Whoever searched the room knew how to leave it looking untouched, but not how she lived in it.

That was not a hurried killer.

It was someone who expected to search again.

The security officer lifted Emma’s work shoes, checked the soles, and put them back precisely. Marcus inspected the bedframe.

Then he found the loose board beneath the dresser.

Emma moved too late.

Marcus removed a small envelope and emptied it into his palm.

A brass key fell beside a faded photograph of Emma and Ben at Coney Island.

Don picked up the key.

“What does it open?”

“I don’t know.”

“Try again.”

“Ben mailed it three days before Angela died. No return address. No note.”

Don turned the key beneath the light. A tiny number was stamped along the shaft: 317.

“A locker?” Marcus asked.

“Or a safe-deposit box,” Emma said. “I checked every bank Ben used. Nothing matched.”

Don studied the photograph. Ben had been laughing, one arm around his younger sister’s shoulders.

“He contacted you after the explosion.”

“No.”

“You expect me to believe he abandoned you with federal agents at your door?”

Emma took the photograph from him. “I expect nothing from you.”

A soft knock interrupted them.

Grace stood outside the room with her sketchbook.

Don’s voice gentled. “You should be with Rosa.”

Grace walked past him and offered the sketchbook to Emma.

The new drawing showed a black car in the mansion garage. A woman with long dark hair stood beside it. A tall man held a square object near the open hood.

Emma crouched to Grace’s level.

“Is this your mother?”

Grace nodded.

“Did you see this before she died?”

Another nod.

Don came closer. “Who is the man?”

Grace’s pencil hovered. Her hand began to shake.

Emma did not touch her.

“You don’t have to draw his face,” she said. “Draw something you remember about him.”

Grace looked at her father, then bent over the page.

She drew a ring.

A heavy signet ring with a split crown.

Marcus’s gaze went to Don’s bare hands. Don wore no ring.

Vincent did.

Grace wrote four words beneath the picture.

HE CHANGED THE BOX.

Don took the sketchbook.

His face became unreadable.

“Where is Vincent?” he asked.

Marcus touched his earpiece, waited, then looked up.

“He’s gone.”

“The house is sealed.”

“His security credential opened the east garage forty-six seconds before Emma triggered lockdown.”

Emma rose slowly.

Vincent had known the doors were about to close.

Before anyone else knew there was a threat.