Four armed men came for the terrified Cane Corso hiding behind me, but when his billionaire owner arrived, the dog planted himself on my foot and refused to move.

I followed with Bishop, while Colin and his men hurried behind us. In the gallery above the foyer, framed portraits looked down on us from the walls. The house was so large that our footsteps seemed to come from several directions at once.

At the end of the hall, Elias pushed open a white bedroom door.

A lamp glowed beside a narrow bed. A stuffed rabbit lay under the covers, arranged so that its ears made a shape beneath the blanket.

Maisie wasn’t there.

Elias crossed the room and pulled the blanket away. For a moment, he remained still, staring at the rabbit.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Colin touched the radio at his shoulder. “Check every exit.”

One of the guards turned back toward the stairs.

“No,” Elias said. “You stay here.”

The man stopped.

Mrs. Bell, Maisie’s governess, sat in an armchair near the window. Her head had fallen against one shoulder.

I knelt beside her. She was breathing steadily but didn’t respond when I called her name. A half-finished cup of tea stood on the table beside her.

“Call an ambulance,” I said.

“I already called the police,” Elias told me. His phone was in his hand. “They’re sending someone.”

Colin approached the chair. “She must have fallen asleep.”

“She doesn’t wake up when you shake her shoulder,” I said. “That needs a doctor.”

Bishop crossed the room, sniffed Mrs. Bell’s shoes, then went to Maisie’s desk. He nosed at a drawer and glanced back at us.

Elias looked at the yellow ribbon still protruding from Colin’s fist.

“Explain that.”

“I found it by the garden door,” Colin said. “I was going to bring it upstairs.”

“When?”

“Just before the dog got loose.”

I remembered the ribbon on Maisie’s wrist at six twenty. Colin could have found it later. He could also have taken it from her. I couldn’t tell which was true, and Elias needed more than my suspicion.

“Give it to him,” I said.

Colin placed it on the desk.

The silver star was bent. A few strands of dark hair were caught in the knot.

Elias saw them, too.

He turned to the guard nearest the door. “Open the gates for the police. Then wait there. Nobody leaves.”

“Sir, if someone took Maisie—”

“Do it.”

The guard glanced at Colin before obeying.

I watched that glance. Elias did, too.

Mrs. Bell stirred when the paramedics arrived. She could tell us only that she had accepted tea from a member of the household staff and gone to check on Maisie. She remembered seeing the girl in bed. After that, nothing.

The detective who arrived with the officers introduced herself as Ada Moreno. She listened without interrupting while Elias explained what we had found. Then she had an officer take Mrs. Bell’s cup and another begin checking the doors.

“Where’s the nearest camera feed?” she asked Colin.

“In the security office.”

Moreno asked Elias and me to come with her. Bishop followed us down the hall, staying so close that his shoulder brushed my leg.

The security office held a wall of monitors. Colin brought up Maisie’s bedroom door. The image showed a little girl entering at 8:05, followed by Mrs. Bell. A few minutes later, Mrs. Bell came out.

“There,” Colin said. “She was upstairs.”

“Play it again,” I asked.

Colin didn’t touch the controls.

Moreno did.

Maisie walked into her room again. Mrs. Bell followed. At the edge of the frame, a housemaid pushed a cart past the hall clock.

“Stop there,” I said.

The clock read 6:14.

Elias leaned toward the monitor. “The time stamp says eight.”

Moreno checked another camera. On the live feed, the clock read 9:37.

“It’s an older recording,” she said.

Colin folded his arms. “The system must have a fault.”

“A fault that chose an earlier recording of this hallway?” Elias asked.

Colin said nothing.

Moreno directed an officer to secure the recording equipment. She asked Colin for the names of everyone with access. He named himself and two technicians. Elias ordered him to surrender his security credentials.

“I’ve worked for you for twelve years,” Colin said.

“Then you know exactly why I’m asking.”

Colin took a key card from his pocket and laid it on the desk. The small black device came out with it.

Bishop backed away so quickly he struck the wall.

“What is that?” Moreno asked.

“A training deterrent,” Colin said. “It emits a sound dogs dislike. Bishop’s been aggressive.”

“He was shaking before anyone approached him,” I said. “You used it in the foyer.”

Moreno picked the device up by its edges. Colin’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue.

Bishop came back to me after she put it in an evidence bag. He leaned against my knee, breathing hard.

A technician arrived to preserve the camera feeds. Moreno continued questioning Colin. Elias returned to Maisie’s room, and I went with him.

On the floor beside her bed lay a book from our rescue’s reading shelf. Maisie had borrowed it on Tuesday. I picked it up, meaning to keep it safe for her.

A photograph slipped from between the pages.

It showed Maisie smiling in the garden that afternoon, one hand resting on Bishop’s head. His broad harness carried a little action camera. She’d spent weeks making short videos from his point of view and had named the series Bishop’s Big Adventures.

There was writing on the back in purple marker.

Dad, I found out how to save the videos myself!

Elias looked at Bishop.

The camera was gone.

I ran my fingers along the harness and felt a small hard shape beneath a stitched flap near the buckle. Maisie had shown me that pocket once. She used it to carry spare memory cards.

Inside was a card no bigger than my fingernail.

“She hid this,” I said.

From the hall, Colin’s voice rose. An officer answered him sharply. We stayed in the bedroom while Moreno came to us and took the card.

She had a laptop brought upstairs so we could see it before anyone tried to explain it away.

The first clips were ordinary: Bishop racing across the lawn, Bishop drinking from a fountain, Bishop staring hopefully at Maisie’s lunch.

Then came a shaky view of the greenhouse door.

A man stood outside it, directing workers who were moving sealed containers into a delivery truck. Maisie spoke softly from behind the camera.

“Why is Uncle Julian here?”

Elias gripped the edge of the desk.