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“He’s not,” Aviva insisted. “Colette, this isn’t like the Robin Hood stuff you told me about.

You don’t know why his family has the bracelet or where it came from.

You can’t take it without knowing those things.

Besides, didn’t we already tip our hand when we went to see Hubert Verdier? And stealing from Lucas would be—”

They were interrupted by the center’s director, Chana, poking her head into the copy room. “Call for you, Aviva,” she said.

“Call for me?” Aviva shot Colette a puzzled look. “But I don’t work here. Who would call me here?”

“It’s one of the volunteers at the New York center,” Chana said with a shrug. “He read your article in the newsletter and assumed you were on staff. I told him he was lucky you were around this evening.”

“I told you people read the newsletter,” Colette singsonged.

Aviva ignored her. “What does he want?”

“He said he wanted to talk to you about the bracelet you mentioned in the article,” Chana said. “Says he knows who it belonged to before the war.”

Aviva turned to Colette with wide eyes.

Colette cleared her throat. “Can we take the call at your desk, Chana?” Colette asked. “On speakerphone?”

“Anything for our center’s longest-serving volunteer.

” Chana turned away and headed back for her desk, while Colette and Aviva followed.

“Sir, you’re on with Aviva Haskell and Colette Marceau, both of whom are volunteers here at the center,” Chana said after pushing a few buttons on her phone. “Can you hear us?”

“Clear as day, ma’am,” boomed a man’s French-accented deep voice. “Ms. Haskell, Ms. Marceau, thanks for taking my call. I realize this is a bit unusual.”

Chana picked up her water bottle, gestured for Colette to take her seat, and walked away.

“Chana said you were interested in the bracelet in the newsletter?” Aviva said, cutting to the chase.

“Very much so,” the man said. “The bracelet in the newsletter, you see, belonged to my mother.” He spoke slowly, his voice trembling.

“To your mother?” Colette asked dubiously, exchanging looks with Aviva.

“Yes.” He hesitated. “You may not know this, but the bracelet was one of a pair.”

Colette went completely still as he continued.

“They fit together, you see. My father commissioned them for her when my sister and I were born. My mother wore them each day, two halves of the same whole, just like us. Apart, the bracelets appear to be lilies. Together, they form a butterfly.”

“How could he know that?” Colette asked in a whisper.

“May I ask your name, sir?” Aviva asked.

“Of course. Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. It’s Daniel Rosman.”

“Daniel Rosman ?” Colette gasped and gripped the desk. “Mr. Rosman, what was your mother’s name?”

“My mother?” He sounded startled. “Hélène. Hélène Rosman. Why?”

“And your father was Salomon, if I’m not mistaken,” Colette said.

There was a long stretch of silence. The man sounded choked up when he answered. “How on earth did you know that?”

“My—my mother knew your family. She was a friend of your mother’s. Her name was Annabel Marceau.”

More silence. “My mother knew a Madame Marceau who lived in our neighborhood. The wife of a schoolteacher, I think. I met her once or twice in our apartment.”

Colette closed her eyes. “Yes. Those were my parents, Mr. Rosman. My mother was heartbroken when you and your family were arrested. I thought you had all died.”

“My parents did, I’m afraid.” His voice sounded hollow.

“My father was fifty-two when he was executed by firing squad, and my mother just forty-two when she died in Auschwitz. My twin sister and I both survived, though Ruth has been gone for nearly twenty years now. I never had children, nor did she, and it has haunted me for many years to think that there would be no one to carry on the search for the bracelets after I was gone. Did—did your family survive the war, Ms. Marceau?”

“My father did,” Colette replied. “My mother and sister—both gone.”

Rosman exhaled. “I’m very sorry to hear that. My mother was very fond of your mother; that would have broken her heart.”

“My mother’s heart would have broken to know what happened to your parents, too. Forgive me for asking, Mr. Rosman, but can you tell me about the clasp of the missing bracelets? Just so that I’m certain you are who you say you are?”

Daniel was silent for a second, and Aviva and Colette exchanged looks. Had Colette asked a question that had tripped him up? But then they could hear him exhale, and when he spoke again, his tone was both sad and firm.

“Of course,” he said. “The clasps of the bracelets are different. The one in the museum exhibit Ms. Haskell wrote about, I believe, is the butterfly’s left wing, and the clasp of that one has four tiny diamonds on it, and the letter R etched into the metal.

The stones are for the four of us in my family—my parents, my sister, and me—and the R is for Ruth, my sister’s name.

The other, the one that is still missing, is the butterfly’s right wing.

That one has four tiny diamonds for the same reason—to represent my family—and the letter etched into the metal is a D , for Daniel, my own name. ”

“A D for Daniel,” Colette said softly. “I always believed it was a half-moon, and that the diamonds were stars.”

“You’ve seen the other bracelet, Ms. Marceau?”

Colette blinked a few times. “I have.”

For a moment, Aviva thought that Colette was going to admit to having the other half. Instead, she said, “My mother took them back, you see. She hoped to return them to your mother at the end of the war.”

“She—took them?” He sounded confused. “From whom?”

“The German officer who stole them from you.”

“Mockel?” Rosman said slowly.

“Mockel.” Colette drew a shaky breath. “He was the one who came to take my family, too, Mr. Rosman.”

When Aviva reached over to squeeze Colette’s hand, she noticed for the first time that Colette was crying. “Mr. Rosman,” Aviva cut in. “Do you think you could come to Boston? This feels like a conversation we should be having in person—and I imagine you’d like to see the bracelet in the museum.”

“I’m very eager to see it, Ms. Haskell,” Rosman said. “I can be on the first train out of Penn Station tomorrow morning. I think that puts me in Boston by nine.”

“We’ll meet you at the offices of the Boston Center for Holocaust Education,” Aviva said. After agreeing to the details and exchanging numbers, she ended the call and turned to Colette, whose face was in her hands. “You knew who he was?”

Colette nodded slowly. “I never knew Daniel Rosman or his sister, but I saw his mother once—only for a few seconds—as she was being led away from the Vélodrome d’Hiver in Paris—on her way to being deported to Auschwitz.

My mother knew her well, though—so well that she risked her own life to take back the things that belonged to her.

I—I can’t believe that her son is still alive.

And that he’s here . In the United States. Just a few hours away.”

“You’re certain he is who he says he is?” Aviva asked. “It’s hard not to be skeptical when it comes to something so valuable.”

“But how else would he know about the clasp? And the fact that the bracelet was one of a pair? Plus the fact that he knew the name Mockel…” Colette shuddered. “There’s no doubt in my mind, Aviva.”

“It’s extraordinary, isn’t it?” Aviva asked after a pause. “The way that these diamonds have resurfaced like this and set everything into motion?”

“It is,” Colette agreed. “But this means that it’s more important than ever to get the bracelet back. It’s time to finish what my mother started so many years ago.”