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“She made me practice it. Misha sang over the mistakes until I got them right.”

Cassie smiles. “I wish I could have met them.”

“Misha would have liked you. He had a habit of asking questions he knew I didn’t want to answer.”

“And your mother?”

“She would have invited you into the kitchen and found out more about you in an hour than I did in a week.”

“I would have liked her.”

“I think so.” I look at the keys. “She waited a long time for me to come home.”

Cassie rests her hand beside mine on the bench. “You did come home.”

“Not before Misha died. I can’t know what would have happened if I’d tried to leave with him.”

“How long have you been asking that question?”

“I dwell on it every September.”

She doesn’t tell me to stop playing. I appreciate that.

“What did Misha’s mother know?” she asks.

“More than mine. She knew who threatened their family, and she knew Misha and I had gone to work for those men. I still visit her.” I glance at Cassie. “I called her on the anniversary of his death last week.”

I turn my hand and hold hers. She looks toward the dark window, where the reflection shows us side by side at the piano.

“The coin,” she says. “I don’t want to pretend I’ve forgotten it because we’re sitting here.”

“I don’t expect you to.” I turn toward her on the piano bench.

“Have you seen one since you left?”

“Once, years ago. It was left for a man who had refused to pay a debt. By the time he found it, the men collecting knew the names of his family and where they worked.”

“So this coin means they know where you live?”

“They know my property well enough to reach the rear of the stable. The coin tells me they want me to understand the fire as a message.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” I rub my thumb across her knuckles. “Before today, I thought the false invoices and Connor’s disappearance could be the center of this. They still matter. But the date in the envelope and that coin were chosen for me. Someone has brought an old grievance into what’s happening here.”

“Revenge?”

“That’s what I suspect.”

“Do you know whose?”

I see the date again. I see Ilya Gulkin turning when I entered the room twelve years ago. A son. David would have been a boy then. I have no proof that the son knows what happened to his father, or that he’s the person sending these warnings. Giving Cassie a name based on fear would make her examine every stranger against a possibility I can’t yet support.

“I have a reason to suspect an event from my past,” I say. “I don’t know who left the coin or whether the person involved has a connection to Connor.”

“Will you tell Drew?”

“I’ve already asked him to look into it. Tomorrow I’ll tell him what I remember about the coin.”