“No,” he said gently. “She shouldn’t have. And I should have brought you into the fold, instead of resorting to business as usual, like we were . . . I don’t know, roommates. I didn’t want you to worry about me. I thought it would help you, but—I should have told you more.”

“About your health?”

“That, yes.”

I squirmed, frustration rising now. “I heard you arguing with Nora and Bill at Amberley. Before . . .”

I motioned to his chest and my anger retreated.

“Right. Well, I couldn’t have told you about that one. Not until I knew for sure.”

I opened my mouth to ask a question, but he cleared his throat the way he always did before a Meet the Conductor talk, so I tucked my legs under me.

“I’d been . . . vaguely suspicious for a while,” Dad started, eyes fixed on a blank spot on the far wall. “Everything in the open?” He spread his hands like a book. I nodded, yes—open, open, open.

“Those two were my lifeline when your mother left. They got me through. They and Amberley gave me purpose. They are also . . . in the midst of a long-term affair.” He sighed. “I’d thought that’s all it was, that nagging feeling I got in the back of my mind—the way it feels when somebody’s out of tune. But then I saw the way they latched on to Oscar. And what they were doing with his premiere—major donors, thousand-dollar seats, making him sign away publishing . . .”

“You were there,” I said, a flat accusation.

His heart rate picked up. The monitor beeped and quickly resettled.

“I didn’t stop them,” Dad said, his voice cracking. “I encouraged him to sign the damn thing. I had no idea what he was capable of, that what he would turn out would be this. I thought it would be a minor work, practice, some juvenilia we could frame in the library—not something so . . . monumental. Amberley doesn’t deserve the Summer Symphony. We don’t deserve students like Oscar Bell.”

Bill’s words sprang to mind . . . would you rather have Oscars or Rubys? My stomach twisted with resentment.

“I felt guilty after that, I’m not gonna lie,” he went on. “I’ve been distracted, and I got carried away by Oscar’s promise, but I should have protected him. So I got smart. Suspicious. I didn’t like the way Nora pulled you in, either. It bugged me from the start, and I couldn’t pinpoint why. She’s your godmother, why shouldn’t she take an interest? But there was something about it I couldn’t shake. So I faced it, I started digging into the school’s financials—and there’s money missing. A lot of money.”

“How much?”

“Amberley operates on a paper-thin margin.”

I leaned forward. “How much?”

“Enough to shutter the school.”

“And you’re sure they stole it?”