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Colette held his gaze. “One of them disappeared with my sister. I believe the man who murdered her must have it.”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Is that so? And the other half?”

Colette resisted the urge to look away. “It’s gone.”

He narrowed his eyes and didn’t say anything.

“Who was talking about her?” Colette asked after a moment. “You said someone was talking about my mother before her arrest.”

“First, show me what you have for me.”

Colette glanced at the couple at the next table and then at the trio of officers nearby. They were all fully absorbed in their own conversations.

“This is no time to be coy,” Verdier hissed, leaning forward. “You want me to talk, you show me what I’m talking to you for.”

Colette took a deep breath and pulled the choker from her pocket, clenched in her palm.

She glanced once more at the couple beside them, and then she quickly opened her fist, revealing the diamonds, before closing her fingers around the piece again and slipping it back into her pocket.

When she looked back at Verdier, his flat, uninteresting face had transformed; he looked suddenly like a wolf who’d just caught a whiff of his prey.

“The diamonds are real?” he asked.

“Of course.”

He stared at her, considering. “Fine, I had a captain by the name of Seguy. He was there the night your mother stole the bracelets. He tried to follow her, but he lost her.”

“It was this Seguy who betrayed her? Who took my sister?”

“No. But rumor has it that he was desperate to identify her, to curry favor with the Germans, and one of his officers recognized her from a sketch. I believe it was that man who betrayed her. Find him, and you’ll find the man who took your sister, too. I’m certain of it.”

“Who is he?” Colette asked, leaning forward and feeling a surge of desperation. “What is the policeman’s name?”

Verdier gave a slow, dramatic shrug. “That’s all I know.”

She stared at him. “But that’s nothing.”

He shrugged again. “I gave you Seguy. And I’ve told you that it was indeed a policeman who betrayed your family, as far as I know. It’s all I have.” He paused and gestured to her pocket. “Pay up.”

“No,” she said, crossing her arms. “My father had a student who is a police officer. Perhaps I’ll ask him what he knows about this Seguy.” She searched her memory for the man’s name. “Charpentier,” she said a moment later. “Guillaume Charpentier.”

Something flashed in his eyes, a spark of interest, of curiosity. “You know Charpentier?”

“Yes.” Colette tried to sound confident. Perhaps Verdier didn’t know that Monsieur Charpentier was long gone from Paris. “I know him well.” That was an exaggeration, but it wasn’t as if Verdier would realize that. “He’ll tell me the truth. Perhaps I’ll give these diamonds to him.”

Verdier snorted. “That weasel? You clearly don’t know him as well as you’d have me believe, mademoiselle. He left Paris years ago. You won’t find him anywhere.”

Colette’s heart sank. So Verdier knew. “Perhaps he’s back.”

“He isn’t. Something about his wife’s poor health, needing the country air. He’s not around to answer your questions. And I have told you what I know. I gave you Seguy. Now, my payment?”

Colette exhaled. “You’re sure you know nothing more?”

“Have I not said that already?”

She hesitated. “And you had nothing to do with it?”

His nostrils flared. “If I had stolen one of the most beautiful pieces in Paris, you really think I’d still be here, talking to you? No, I would have gotten the hell out of this place long ago. I bet that’s just what the man who took the bracelet did, too.”

She could see the truth of it in his eyes, and as much as it disgusted her to pay the man, a deal was a deal.

At least he had given her a name. Seguy .

It was a place to start, and maybe Le Paon would be able to find out more.

“Fine,” she said, pulling the choker from her pocket and depositing it into his upturned palm.

He smiled for the first time since she’d met him, and the way his teeth glinted further enhanced his resemblance to a wolf. She shuddered, and before he could say another word, she rose from the table and walked quickly away.

He didn’t even look up at her departure. She glanced back once before she turned the corner at the end of the street, and he was still sitting there, staring at the piece in his palm, his eyes alight with greed and desire.

Seguy turned out to be a dead end. Such a man existed, Le Paon was able to tell her, but he was in jail, and his wife was destitute.

There was no way they secretly had possession of an exquisite diamond bracelet, or they would have used it by now to better their circumstances.

Le Paon also sent someone to check the apartment of Guillaume Charpentier, in case Verdier had lied about the man’s continued absence from Paris, but the news was confirmed; the only other police officer who might have been able to help her was long gone.

“It is time to move on, Colette,” Le Paon said the day before she left Paris. “You have your whole future in front of you. Don’t let the tragedy of the past consume all that lies ahead.”

It was good advice, but how could she take it? She was the only one left to carry the torch forward for her murdered mother and sister. If she turned her back on that, she would be dishonoring their memory. “Very well,” she told Le Paon, who looked relieved.

“I hope you find peace, Colette.”

But she vowed then and there that she wouldn’t rest until she had answers. Justice delayed was still justice, and she was determined to find out the truth, no matter how long it took.

A day later, Frédéric and Marie accompanied Colette and Uncle Leo north to board a boat across the English Channel to her new life. Colette had with her all her worldly belongings, which fit into a single suitcase.

“Your mother will always be with you, wherever you go,” Uncle Frédéric said as he hugged her goodbye, holding her for an extra moment, as if he didn’t want to let go. “She would want you to remember that.”

“Thank you, Uncle Frédéric,” Colette said into his shoulder, her voice muffled. “For everything.”

“It is time,” Uncle Leo said a few moments later as they stood on deck and waved to Frédéric and Marie, “for a new start.”

“A new start,” Colette repeated, but she knew, even as they pulled away, and as Frédéric and Marie and then all of France became tiny dots in the distance, that she didn’t want to start over, not really.

She wanted to find the man who had taken her sister, and she wanted her father to come to his senses and realize that although they’d been through a great tragedy, he still had a daughter who needed him.

In the meantime, she would settle for listening to what her uncle Leo was willing to impart.

She had been stealing for years now, but she knew she still had much to learn—all the things her mother hadn’t had the chance to teach her.

She could feel in her bones the pull to the same shiny gemstones her mother had lost her life for, and she had no choice but to follow the call, to become the person she was always destined to be.