Gemma didn’t know much about her mother’s oldest sister. The photo albums included snapshots of all three girls. She could always identify her mother, the youngest. But her two aunts looked alike: long-limbed preteens with shoulder-length bobs, dressed in the preppy fashion of Manhattan’s upper class circa the 1970s: pleated skirts, pearls, and penny loafers. The one difference she was certain of was that the oldest had never worked for Pavlin & Co. Out of all the Pavlin relations that haunted her dreams and fantasies, Gemma had always given Celeste the least amount of thought.

Why would Celeste know the whereabouts of the Electric Rose, and not Elodie?

“Does she have it?” Gemma said quickly. She felt like someone on the phone with a kidnapper waiting to hear the ransom, like the caller might end the call at any moment and leave her hanging.

“I think you should go and talk to her yourself. In person,” Elodie said.

Gemma didn’t know why Elodie suddenly had a change of heart, but she couldn’t worry about that now. After the discouraging conversation with Sloan Pierce, she was willing to follow any lead.

“Okay,” Gemma said. “Where can I find her?”

“Provincetown,” said Elodie. “Provincetown, Cape Cod.”

15

Celeste clicked open the email account for Queen Anne’s Revenge, continuously amazed at how many antiques hunters reached out to her.

It was late afternoon and the back office was sticky with heat. The old ceiling fan whirred with valiant effort. When they’d first moved into the house, there hadn’t been air-conditioning or even so much as a table fan. The four-bedroom Queen Anne cottage, built in the early 1900s by Jack’s great-grandfather Silverio, had been in a state of disrepair when Jack inherited it in 1998. When he brought her to look at it three years into their relationship and with the invitation to move in together and make it their home, she immediately envisioned using the first floor as an antiques shop. Jack, to his eternal credit, supported her dream. No, more than supported—he helped make it happen. Was still making it happen.

“Celeste, are you in here?”

The office door opened to reveal their one employee, Alvita Thompson, who went by the nickname Alvie. Alvie arrived in town three summers ago from Boston’s Hyde Park. Like so many young people, she was searching for a place to live a life without judgment. Her parents, Haitian immigrants who made their career and their community in the local church, struggled to accept that she was gay.

“Hey, Alvie. Do you know where those brass candlesticks went? I’m going through this inventory and it says they haven’t sold but . . .”