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B e careful what you wish for.

It’s been a week since the Fabergé disappeared right from under our noses, and Gran’s refrain has repeated in my head the entire time. For a while there, I really thought Juan and I might be liberated from all financial constraints, free for the first time in our lives from worries about rent and soaring food prices and renoviction and the leaky kitchen sink. Maybe we could buy our apartment outright from Mr.Rosso and become owners of our own home. Maybe we could afford the wedding of our dreams, surrounded by family and friends who would always remember our special day. But just as I dared to dream, the reverie became a nightmare. First, the egg disappeared. Then came the threat: Find the egg and you die.

I will admit all of this has rattled me to the core, though no one else seems as concerned as I am. And Juan—bless his heart—has tried to convince me that the note in the vacuum canister was not a credible threat and I’m not in any real peril.

The day after the heist, I had a Zoom call with Mr.Snow and the Bees, who confirmed that the multimillion-dollar sale of the egg was nullified by our inability to produce the oeuvre for the buyer.

“What about insurance?” Mr.Snow shrewdly asked. “Certainly a reputable firm such as Brown I’ve interviewed all the guests who attended the auction. I’ve talked to the hotel staff and interrogated the entire Hidden Treasures crew.”

“What did you learn?” Angela asked.

“That people in reality TV are as dim as blown bulbs. Apart from that, not much,” she said.

“I’ve been racking my brains to figure out what happened,” said Angela. “I’ve rewatched every heist doc I’ve ever seen, and I still can’t crack it.”

“Now listen, Molly,” Detective Stark said. “Let’s not give up hope just yet. I want you and Angela to be vigilant at the hotel. If you see something suspicious, report it to me right away—understood?”

“Certainly,” I replied.

“Yes, ma’am!” said Angela with a concerning amount of zeal.

“And, Molly? For what it’s worth, I know it’s a blow that the egg was stolen, but I doubt you’re in real danger,” Stark reassured me. “Whoever wrote that note was just trying to scare us all into giving up the search. But we’re not going to let fear stop us, right?”

“Right,” Angela replied. “We’ll peer into every corner. We’ll leave no stone unturned. We’ll go over everything with a forensic fine-tooth comb!”

We left the precinct soon after Angela’s litany of investigational metaphors, making our way back to the hotel. I expected to simply resume work, but Angela had other ideas. She convinced Mr.Snow to put her in charge of a top-to-toe hotel search to uncover the egg or any clues to its whereabouts. To my surprise, Mr.Snow agreed, putting the headwaiter in charge of the Social while Angela played amateur sleuth.

Angela asked that I be even more thorough than usual as I cleaned guest rooms, searching corners, closets, and drawers for “hidden inculpatory evidence,” as she called it. I told her I would, then I headed upstairs to do my job as a maid, which, I can tell you, has given me great joy all week long. I worked alongside Cheryl, and remarkably, she tested my patience only once—when she used a guest’s freshly cleaned toilet for her personal urinary purposes.

“It won’t kill you to disinfect that toilet bowl again,” I said when she emerged from the bathroom.

“My death is not the one you should be worried about right now,” Cheryl shot back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Someone threatened your life, Molly. Watch your back. There’s no shortage of crazies out there, you know.”

“Thank you for your concern,” I said curtly.

For the rest of the afternoon, I tried to forget my fears—and Cheryl’s not-so-veiled threat—but every time I opened a guest’s closet or swept under a bed, I imagined a hidden culprit reaching out to grabme.

Now, my shift has finally come to an end, and I’m perfectly unharmed. I’m standing outside the gold revolving doors of the hotel, waiting for Juan so we can walk home together.

“There you are,” I hear behind me.

“Juan,” I say, “how was your day?”

“I’ve had better,” he replies. “A tornado hit this afternoon.”

“A tornado?”

Speedy bounds over and joins our conversation. “You mean Angela, right?”

“Exactly,” says Juan. “In her search for clues to the missing egg, which is now long gone, she made us clear out every cupboard, freezer, and drawer in the kitchen.”

“Did you find anything?” I ask.

“A long-lost carton of salt and pepper shakers, two spatulas, and your doorman’s cap, Speedy.”

“Sick! I’ve been looking for it all week,” Speedy replies. “For the record, Angela tornadoed me, too. She got up in my junk, searching my pockets and my podium. Didn’t find nothing, cuz I’m mean and I’m clean.”

“Speaking of clean, Molly, the kitchen is a mess. I’ve still got to put everything back in the cupboards,” says Juan. “It’ll take me another hour. Do you want to wait?” He watches me, knowing that since the death threat, I’ve been worried about walking alone.

“I can make my own way home, thank you very much,” I say, full of bravado I don’t actually feel.

“Are you sure?” Juan asks, staring at me with his kind brown eyes.

“One hundred percent. I’ll see you later,” I say.

“See you, mi amor, ” Juan says, squeezing my hand, then disappearing into the hotel.

I say goodbye to Speedy and make my way down the street, heading home to our apartment. It’s a lovely afternoon, and as I stroll I forget all about the death threat and find myself enjoying the walk. I leave the posh downtown core and cross into my own decidedly unposh neighborhood. As I turn onto a side street, a black car slows beside me.

I try not to panic. Only fools jump to conclusions.

The car is merely slowing to avoid potholes, I tell myself. But when it flanks me for a full minute, I hasten my pace. So does the car. My heart starts to race. I glance at the vehicle, but the windows are tinted. I can’t see inside. I break into a run, and instantly, the car picks up speed. There’s no doubt now—the vehicle is following me.

I spot a dead-end alley up ahead with a pedestrian walkway at the end. I run full tilt into it, but a dumpster is blocking the pedestrian path. The car pushes toward me until my back is up against the dumpster, my hands held high in the air. “Stop! Please!” I yell.

I close my eyes, expecting the car to hit me, but it doesn’t. I hear a car door open, and when I look, a woman is standing by the driver’s side.

“Don’t be scared. I’d never hurt you, Molly. I swear,” she says.

She’s about my height with straight black hair down to her shoulders, tinged with gray. Her face is porcelain pale. There’s something so familiar about her, but try as I might, I cannot place her.

“I don’t have much money on me, but whatever I have is yours,” I say in a tremulous voice.

“That’s not why I’m here,” the woman replies. “I need to tell you something. I know about the death threat. Molly, the danger is real,” she says.

I’m staring at the car, expecting someone to jump out and mob me, but that’s not what happens.

“I’m alone,” the woman says, as if reading my thoughts. “The car’s not even mine. I stole it so I could warn you.”

“Stole it?” I say. “Are you…the egg thief?”

“No,” she says instantly.

“But you know about it,” I reply.

“In more ways than you can imagine. I was watching Hidden Treasures when you found out the egg was worth millions. I couldn’t believe it—you were right there in front of me, and so was the Fabergé. I watched that episode over and over again. I held my hand to the screen, wishing I could reach in and touch you. But someone else was watching along with me—a man I used to work for, and not a good one. Without thinking, I told him things I shouldn’t have—about you, about Mom, and about the egg.”

Giant tears roll down the woman’s cheeks. “Molly, do you remember me? Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about you. Not a single day.”

A memory returns with such force, vertigo sends me reeling. I lean on the dumpster, not caring if it’s dirty, hoping beyond hope that I’ll remain upright. “The stranger at our door,” I say. “The rent money.”

When I was barely ten years old, Gran was doing laundry downstairs when a woman showed up at our apartment claiming to be Gran’s friend. I let her in. She sat with me at the kitchen table. The entire encounter was strange, and when giant tears rolled down the woman’s cheeks, just as they do now, I knew something was terribly wrong. She left abruptly, swiping Gran’s envelope with our rent money right off the table. It took me a long time to figure out who she was and why she’d come that day.

“You visited our apartment all those years ago. You came to see me,” I say now.

She nods, and more tears stream down her face.

“You’re Maggie, my mother.”

“I am,” she whispers.

“She told me you were dead,” I say, but the truth is I was never quite sure if Gran meant it literally or figuratively. I look at my mother—her shaky hands, the tears running down her cheeks, the way she’s leaning forward as if she wants to reach out and touch me. It’s definitely her, and she seems genuine, but her sudden appearance in my life is unsettling, and my stomach clenches with fear.

“You stole rent money from your own mother. And from your own child,” I say. “How could you?”

“I was sick, Molly,” she says. “I wasn’t clean.”

I remember the red marks up her arms, which in my innocence I thought were bedbug bites.

“Are you better?” I ask.

“Right now I am,” she says. “When I saw you on TV, I couldn’t believe it—my little girl, all grown up. And the Fabergé right there in front of you. It sat on the mantel in the Grimthorpe mansion when I worked there all those years ago.”

“So you really did work at the Grimthorpe mansion?” I ask.

“I did. Mom couldn’t make the rent on just her maid’s salary, so I dropped out of high school to help her. Things didn’t go as planned. Grimthorpe was an awful man, Molly. Do you understand?”

“He took advantage of Gran,” I say.

“Not only her,” she replies. Her arms reach around her middle as if she needs them there to remain steady.

Something in me breaks. My tears spill with alarming force. I’m powerless to stop them.

“Your gran never knew,” my mother says. “I never told her what happened. I just ran away. Then, in my stupidity, I shacked up with a man even worse than Grimthorpe. I came back, though.”

“To have me,” I say, putting the pieces together.

“Yeah. I stayed clean for a while, did my best to look after you. But I was so young, Molly, and so confused. I numbed myself any way I could.”

“A fly-by-night possessed you—that’s what Gran always said.”

“She had a way with words, didn’t she?” my mother replies. “Fly-by-nights might just be my worst habit. It’s like I can’t see the truth until it’s too late. The one who took your egg, Molly, he’s a dangerous man. His gang was paid a lot of money to pull off that heist. I used to work for him, but when I found out what he’d done, how he stole your egg, I quit. Then I ran away. I’ve been in a safe house ever since. I’ve been trying to get to you.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because I know those men, Molly. If you find that egg, they’ll kill you. They really will. And if they hear I squealed to you, they’ll kill me, too.”

“Why not tell the police?” I ask.

“The police? You think they’re gonna help?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I say. “Why should I believe what you’re telling me? You admit you’re a thief.”

“Anyone can become a thief under the wrong circumstances, even your gran,” she says.

“Impossible,” I reply.

“Is it?” says my mother. “It’s because of your gran that the Grimthorpes got their hands on that Fabergé in the first place,” she says. “My mother always said that egg represented her deepest regrets and that she ran away with it to start a new life.”

“But it was the Grimthorpes’ treasure, not hers,” I say.

“At some point, it was hers. She basically admitted to having stolen it. Don’t you see? All it takes is one moment of desperation to turn a good egg into a bad one. I’m not a bad egg, Molly. Neither was she.”

“If that’s true, why didn’t you come back for me? You should have returned to Gran and me long ago.”

“No,” she answers as she shakes her head. “Leaving you with her was the best thing I ever did. Just look at you now.”

She smiles then. The look on her face is such a medley, but if I’m reading it correctly, it’s sadness, tinged with pride. Something in me relents, and I suddenly feel the urge to reach out and hug her.

“Molly,” she says as she holds her trembling arms out toward me. “Did you get any money when the egg disappeared? You got insurance cash, right? That’s what I was hoping for—that you’d net out okay in the end.”

“No,” I say. “It’s not working out that way.”

“Oh,” she replies as her arms drop to her sides. “But you’re famous now. You must be raking it in from appearances, right? I hate to ask, but do you have a few hundred you can throw my way? I’m on the run here—for you. I can’t go back now. I’ve risked life and limb to make sure you know the danger is real. You gotta help me out.”

I stare at her in disbelief. I can’t believe my ears. Just when I was about to open myself to the possibility that my mother was actually doing something for me rather than for herself, she shows her true colors yet again.

“You want my money,” I say. “That’s why you’re here.”

“Molly, honey. I’m your mom. I want the best for you. Please,” she says.

“I have nothing for you,” I reply. “No money and certainly no feelings of warmth.”

Her face changes then, the softness mutating into cold, hard lines. “After what I just did for you, this is the thanks I get?”

She awaits a response, but I have none to give.

“Have it your way then,” she says as she kicks a crumpled pop can by her feet. “But watch your back. And beware of men in trench coats. You never know what they might do.”

She turns away from me then and gets back in her stolen car. A second later, the car squeals into reverse, and its driver, my long-lost mother, abandons me for the third time in my life.