My mother’s red Venetian wineglasses, which she had wrapped in her underwear and carried in her one small suitcase when she fled Italy, were piled on the floor. I picked them up, my hands shaking so badly I was afraid I would break them, and held each up to the light. I had lost two over the years and cracked a third. Now a fourth had a chip in the base.

I held on to the fourth glass, unable to keep from crying. When Bobby and Eileen Mallory had their first baby, Gabriella had brought these glasses out to drink a toast after the christening. That was the first time I remembered seeing them, and my mother had told me their history. The wineglasses had been a present to her grandmother in 1894 on her wedding day. They had been carried by Gabriella into hiding as a memento, even though they were an unwieldy and fragile burden. She had managed to carry them from Pitigliano to Siena, where she hid in her music teacher’s attic, and then, hours before the Fascists arrived, smuggled them to the hills, where she hid with her father until bribes and luck got her passage on a ship to Cuba. Not one glass had broken. But me? I’d now damaged half of them. Victoria Iphigenia, the ox.

I don’t know how long I sat there, while Mr. Contreras tiptoed around sympathetically putting away books and papers. Peppy came to lay her head in my lap. I put the glass down to stroke her, then finally got to my knees on my way to return the glasses to my breakfront.

I was getting to my feet when I saw that my photo album had been flung under the table. I got down on my knees again and crawled between the legs after it.

My eyes were aching from overuse and my hands were throbbing, but I turned the pages, trying to figure out if any of the pictures were missing. A number had come loose from their little corner mounts. I doggedly went through the album, slipping in the loose ones, including one of my parents toasting each other with the Venetian wineglasses. I winced and turned the page. The picture of my father with his slow-pitch team was missing.

I looked under the table, then sifted through the album a second time, but the picture had disappeared.

32

WE FINISHED A LITTLE AFTER ONE. MR. CONTRERAS LEFT the dogs with me for protection, and I made sure all my door and window bolts were shot home on the inside, but, even so, I slept badly. Every time Mitch scratched or a car honked too loudly, I jumped awake, heart pounding, sure the next minute would bring a home invasion or a Molotov cocktail through a window. Finally, around five, the lightening sky made me feel safe enough that I dropped off.

The dogs woke me at nine, whining to get down to the back garden. I slumped out after them, sitting on the back porch with my head on my knees, until the hot sun burning my neck reminded me that I couldn’t be outside without protection.

Back inside, I tried my cousin again. She answered just as I thought the call was going to roll over again to her voice mail.

“Uh, Vic, uh, I can’t do that thing for you that you asked me.”

“Petra! I can barely hear you. What’s going on?”

“I can’t talk to you now.”

She was still speaking in almost a whisper. I answered sharply that I needed some answers from her at once about what she’d been doing in my apartment.

“I wasn’t there,” she said. “Except when I went to make your bed and stuff.”

“You didn’t look around for that baseball you wanted?”

“I did look in the trunk, but I put everything back again. So don’t get too mad at me, please, Vic. I can’t talk right now, I’ve got to go. And I can’t find those guys for you.”

She whispered so fast before hanging up that I couldn’t squeeze in another word. I walked to the front window and frowned down at the street. I’d told my cousin the other night that I was an expert at detecting line spinners, but I’m not sure how true that boast was. Someone very skillful was spinning me around, but whether they were using Petra or she was a willing participant or even just a bystander I couldn’t make up my mind.

I flicked the cord on the blinds and realized I was standing in such a way that anyone on the street could see me if they wanted to aim a gun or a bottle at me. Whatever Petra might or mightn’t have done, it was impossible to picture her throwing a Molotov cocktail at anyone. Or even the smoke bomb that had driven the family out of my childhood home last weekend. Mr. Contreras was right. She was exuberant and careless, not mean-spirited or cruel. That was how I would write her up at her performance review.

I heard the dogs whining and scratching at the back door and went to let them in. I knelt to talk to them. “I’ll take you guys for a good walk tonight after the sun goes down, but this is it for now.”

I dressed carefully, in a high-necked T-shirt and loose-fitting linen trousers and jacket that covered my arms and chest. I put on the white cotton gloves I needed to protect my hands and found a wide-brimmed straw hat that I sometimes wore at the beach. When I was finished, I looked like Scarlett O’Hara protecting her fragile skin, but it couldn’t be helped.

To complete my protective gear, I went to the safe in the back of my bedroom closet. My intruders had shaken out my wardrobe, but they’d missed the safe, which is built in behind my shoe bag. Occasionally, I have a document so sensitive, I don’t want to leave it in my office overnight. Otherwise, all that I keep in it is my mother’s diamond drop earrings and pendant and my Smith & Wesson.

I made sure the gun was still clean-I hadn’t been to the range for several months-and checked the clip. I didn’t know for sure that I was in someone else’s sights, but it made me feel a little better when I snapped my tuck holster over my belt loops.

I went door-to-door, in the best detective tradition, to find out if anyone had seen the person who’d gone into my apartment. And how they’d made it past all my locks without forcing them. Of course, some people were out at work, but the older Norwegian woman, who’s lived on the second floor for a decade, had been home, as had the grandmother of the Korean family. Neither of them had seen or heard anything unusual.

Jake Thibaut came blear-eyed to the door in a T-shirt and shorts. I’d woken him, but I couldn’t help it. And how was I to know what time he got in at night? He didn’t recognize me at first.

“It’s the hair,” he finally decided. “You cut off all your curls.”

I ran my fingers through the buzz cut and winced as I touched the bruises. I kept forgetting about my hair when I don’t look in the mirror.

“Did you hear anything in my apartment two nights ago? Someone came through with something like a forklift and knocked the place apart.”

“Two nights ago?” He rubbed his eyes. “I was playing out in Elgin. I didn’t get home until two or so, but maybe I saw your forklifters leaving. I was getting my bass out of the back of my car when I saw two strange men coming down the walk.”

I sucked in a breath. “Black? White? Young?”

He shook his head. “I thought maybe they were clients of yours, paying a secret visit, so I didn’t get close.They had that kind of Edward G. Robinson look that makes you think that you should keep your distance.”

“Were they driving or on foot?”

“I’m pretty sure they got into a big dark SUV up the street, but I’m not good with cars. I can’t tell you what the make was.”

“You didn’t see a tall woman with spiky hair lurking about, did you?”

He laughed. “You mean that girl who comes to visit you-what, your cousin, is she? No, she came around a few times while you were away, visiting the old guy, but she wasn’t part of that team. These guys were bulky, not skinny and spiky.”