The applause inside the Bellamy Theater sounded like thunder.
Hundreds of guests filled the restored concert hall beneath a ceiling painted with silver stars. Crystal lamps glowed along the balconies. Champagne moved from hand to hand. Cameras flashed whenever someone important turned toward the stage.
It was supposed to be the happiest night of Avery Sloane’s life.
At thirty-six, Avery had become one of the most recognizable pianists in the country. Her recordings had sold millions. Her face had appeared on concert posters from London to Tokyo. Before the accident, critics had written that she could make a piano sound as if it were breathing.
Now she sat beneath the stage lights in a black wheelchair.
An elegant midnight-blue dress covered her legs.
Her hands rested quietly in her lap.
Those hands were still famous.
Her legs were not.
Fourteen months earlier, Avery had fallen from an upper rehearsal balcony inside another theater. She survived a fractured spine, severe nerve damage, and a head injury that erased pieces of the months before the fall.
Doctors had warned her that walking again was unlikely.
Playing the piano had returned slowly.
Her memory had not.
There were entire weeks she could no longer remember.
People she recognized only from photographs.
Conversations everyone else insisted had happened.
Promises she apparently had made.
And one strange thing that bothered her more than anything else.
Whenever someone mentioned the night of the accident, Marcus Vale answered for her.
Marcus stood beside her now.
He was tall, immaculate, and perfectly comfortable beneath the attention of the room.
For twelve years, he had managed Avery’s career. During the last three, he had also become her business partner. After the accident, he had taken responsibility for almost everything—contracts, appointments, finances, interviews, even which visitors were allowed into her rehabilitation center.
Tonight’s gala had been his idea.
The Avery Sloane Foundation would announce a new scholarship program for disadvantaged young musicians.
Marcus leaned toward the microphone.
“Fourteen months ago,” he told the audience, “we nearly lost one of the greatest musical voices of our generation.”
The audience became silent.
Marcus placed a hand gently on Avery’s shoulder.
“But Avery taught all of us something. Music doesn’t disappear when life changes. It simply learns to speak differently.”
Applause filled the hall.
Avery smiled because hundreds of people were watching.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Smile a little more.”
She turned her head.
“What?”
“For the photographers.”
His smile never changed.
Avery looked toward the cameras and widened her own smile.
Another burst of applause rolled through the theater.
Then someone shouted from the back.
“Miss Sloane!”
The applause weakened.
Marcus stopped speaking.
Avery looked beyond the lights.
At first, she couldn’t see whoever had called her name.
Then a boy stepped into the center aisle.
He couldn’t have been older than twelve.
His jacket was too large for him. One sleeve had been repaired with dark thread, and his sneakers were wet from the rain outside.
An old wooden metronome was pressed against his chest.
A security guard hurried after him.
“Stop!”
The boy began running toward the stage.
Guests turned in their seats.
Several people lifted their phones.
Marcus’s expression changed immediately.
“Security.”
The boy reached the front row.
“Miss Sloane, please!”
A guard caught his shoulder.
The wooden metronome nearly slipped from his hands.
Avery raised one hand.
“Wait.”
The guard froze.
Marcus bent toward her.
“Avery, we don’t know who he is.”
“He’s a child.”
“That’s irrelevant.”
The boy struggled to catch his breath.
His eyes stayed on Avery.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Something about the question made the room seem colder.
Avery studied his face.
Brown hair.
Gray eyes.
A tiny scar beside his chin.
Nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
The boy’s expression collapsed.
Marcus stepped between them.
“There. You’ve heard her. Please escort him outside.”
“No!”
The boy lifted the wooden metronome.
“You gave me this.”
Avery’s fingers tightened around the wheelchair armrest.
Marcus stared at the object.
For the first time that evening, his confidence disappeared.
It lasted less than a second.
But Avery noticed.
The boy noticed too.
“What’s your name?” Avery asked.
“Theo Finch.”
Marcus interrupted.
“Avery—”
She ignored him.
“Theo, when did I give you that?”
“Two years ago.”
A murmur moved through the audience.
Theo opened the metronome’s wooden cover.
Inside, someone had written four words in black ink.
Avery couldn’t read them from the stage.