She spent the night in a cheap flop on the Lido, resolute but feeling naked without her violin.

Remembering to use the Joanna Phelps passport Faust had given her, she swapped the ticket at the Alitalia courtesy desk in terminal B, sharing a conspiratorial smile with the young woman behind the counter when she explained that she didn’t want to fly with the vecchio sporcaccione—dirty old man—who’d bought it in her name. Incredibly, the woman directed her to retrieve her luggage that had been pulled from yesterday’s flight.

Her excuse played with security in baggage claim too, and she returned upstairs to a Lufthansa desk to turn over nearly 1,400 euros for a new ticket. She converted the remaining euros to dollars, paying an exchange rate worthy of a loan shark.

Three hours later, the ample jet was soaring above the Dolomiti on its way to its stopover in Germany. And miracle of miracles, as it departed Frankfurt, the two seats next to her in row 41 remained empty. She slipped off her shoes, grabbed a blanket from an overhead bin and stretched out, her last thoughts a prayer that Middleton would explain everything and a sense that she was about to discover that her uncle had died in defense of art and culture in the form of an unknown composition by Mozart.

She was in a deep sleep, dreaming of music, of a violin with quicksilver strings, of returning to the States—a glimpse of her father, who hadn’t appeared to her in years, and the broad-shouldered buildings of Chicago’s State Street—when she felt a tug on her toe. She awoke slowly, her mind unable to recall where she was. Opening her eyes, she scrambled to uncoil her body.

“Looking for this?”

Faust held up the oversized envelope that she had seen in Signor Abe’s shop. No doubt it contained the Mozart manuscript.

She rose up on her elbows and, to her surprise, spoke in Italian. “Che cosa avete fatto con l’anziano?”

He nudged into the seat on the aisle, and placed a forefinger on his chin. “Old man Nowakowski is fine,” he replied in English. “He may continue to be fine.”

She stared at him. In a blue-striped business suit, white shirt and a blue tie that matched the sky over the Atlantic, he was utterly composed as he stroked back his long black hair.

“You are very lucky you were not killed last night,” he told her.

“It wasn’t luck.” Her senses had begun to return.

“Well, you were hiding from me, I suppose, which is as good as hiding from them.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Faust looked around the rear of the jet. Stewardesses were in the back cabin, preparing the beverage service.