CHAPTER SEVEN — THE CASE THAT CAME BACK WRONG

Lily Barnes arrived at the community arts center carrying a borrowed viola with two pieces of tape on its worn case.
Her teacher, Ms. Freeman, introduced her to Daniel and Mateo in an empty rehearsal room.
Lily had expected a police interview, not a meeting with a homeowner whose pool had been sabotaged.
She looked suspiciously at the adults until Mateo showed her the old photograph.
Her face changed at once.
“That’s mine,” she said.
“It was mine before it went missing.”
Mateo asked her to describe the instrument without looking at the photograph.
Lily pointed to a small dent below the right sound hole and a pale line beneath the varnish near the upper edge.
Both marks were visible in workshop images saved before the theft.
“How long have you been playing on the borrowed viola?” Daniel asked.
“Six weeks.”
“Does it feel different?”
Lily laughed without humor.
“It feels like trying to write with somebody else’s hand.”
Ms. Freeman explained that Lily could still perform, but the different neck width made difficult passages unreliable.
Lily had declined a solo audition because she feared failing in front of the panel.
“I don’t want them to give me a free pass,” she said.
“I just want the instrument I worked for.”
Mateo promised he would continue looking, but he did not promise a reunion he could not guarantee.

The meeting grew tense when another family entered the rehearsal room.
Mr. and Mrs. Hsu had lost a pair of antique clarinets belonging to their son, a professional musician touring overseas.
They had learned that investigators might recover the instruments and wanted an immediate inspection.
Mrs. Hsu spread photographs across the piano bench.
One showed an unusual silver key added during a repair in Prague.
Another showed the case’s worn red lining.
She insisted that the theft could not have been random because only the maintenance company knew they were overseas.
Mr. Hsu asked whether they could sue every worker who had visited the property.
Isabel, who had come to help identify service dates, visibly stiffened.
“Most of us didn’t know anything,” she said.
“Then why didn’t you notice equipment leaving your vans?” Mr. Hsu demanded.
“Because the instruments were hidden among legitimate shipments.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
Daniel stepped between them before the argument escalated.
“You deserve answers,” he told the couple.
“But Isabel is the reason investigators have a chance of finding anything.”
Mrs. Hsu looked at Isabel for a long moment.
“Did you touch our son’s instruments?” she asked.
“No,” Isabel replied.
“I would tell you if I had.”
The woman’s shoulders sank.
“Then I am sorry for asking as though you stole them.”
Isabel nodded, but the apology did not make the strain disappear.
Every victim wanted certainty, and investigators could offer very little of it.