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.

Moreno rode with an officer behind us. Elias drove, gripping the wheel so tightly that his knuckles showed white beneath the streetlights. Bishop filled the back seat, his muzzle resting between the front seats.

“Does Julian know your rescue?” Elias asked.

“He knows Maisie visits.”

“Would she have gone there with him?”

“She would have asked why you weren’t coming.”

He nodded, though the answer offered little comfort.

North End Paws occupied a former auto shop between a bakery and a tire store. When we arrived, the front window was broken. A patrol car blocked the alley, and Trina stood outside with two carriers at her feet.

“She’s fine,” I said before Elias could ask about Maisie. “Trina, are you hurt?”

“No. I heard glass and got the dogs into the back room.” She pointed to a black SUV turning the corner at the end of the street. “One man came inside. He went straight for the kennels.”

The patrol officer had reached the building seconds too late to catch him. Moreno sent the SUV’s description over the radio.

Inside, every dog barked as we entered. Bishop answered with a single deep sound, then followed me through the broken glass.

The intruder had opened three empty kennels. He had gone through our cabinet of donated leashes and torn apart the basket where Maisie sometimes left her books. A framed photograph of her and Bishop lay facedown on the floor.

“He was looking for the card,” Elias said.

“Maybe he thought she brought it here,” I replied.

I checked our records. Nothing appeared missing. The dogs were frightened, but all safe.

Moreno inspected the alarm panel. “He cut power from the alley and came through the window. He knew where to go.”

Bishop nosed the photograph on the floor. I set it upright. Maisie was grinning, one arm wrapped around his neck. Her mother’s eyes looked out from her face.

Elias picked up the picture.

“Celia brought her here first,” I said. “It was just after you started the reading program. Maisie didn’t want to speak in front of the other children, so Celia asked whether she could read to a dog.”

“She never told me that.”

“Maisie wanted it to be a surprise. She practiced every week so she could read you a whole book on your birthday.”

He looked at the photo for a long time.

The shelter’s office door was closed. I pushed it open to check the computer, and Bishop slipped in ahead of me. He sniffed at my desk, then nudged a cardboard box beneath it.

It held applications from an adoption event. A corner of pale blue paper stuck out under the bottom flap.

I pulled it free.

Maisie’s handwriting covered one side.

Mom’s blue book. Ask Dad about the boat.

There was no date.

I turned the paper over. She had drawn a whale with a square eye and a row of doors beneath it.

“Have you seen this before?” Elias asked.

“No.”

“Why would she leave it here?”

Trina joined us in the doorway. “She didn’t. That box came from the supply closet this morning. I saw the paper and thought it was one of her drawings.”

I remembered Maisie sitting at my desk on Tuesday while I repaired a torn dog bed. She had borrowed a blue notebook from the lost-and-found shelf and filled half a page with careful questions about boats. When I asked what she was writing, she had said it was a mystery for Bishop to solve.

I had smiled and gone back to sewing.

Now I wished I had listened.

“Did she take the notebook?” Moreno asked.

“I think so. She called it a mystery book.”

Elias held the drawing toward the desk lamp. “Celia kept a blue notebook on the boat. I’ve searched for it since she died. The police never found it.”

On the drawing, under the whale, Maisie had printed three words so lightly I almost missed them.

The doors open.

Bishop pressed his head against my leg.

I knew the whale. A bright blue sculpture stood outside the old Meridian Aquarium on the waterfront. Maisie and I had taken the reading group there before it closed. Under the sculpture was a row of maintenance doors painted to match the wall.

I told Moreno.

She studied the drawing. “This could be somewhere Maisie thought to hide a book. It doesn’t tell us where Julian took her.”

“No,” I said. “But it may tell us what he wants.”

Moreno sent officers to the aquarium and asked a harbor unit to check the doors. Elias wanted to go with them. She asked him to wait until the site was secure.

We remained at the rescue while a glazier boarded the window. Elias helped Trina carry blankets to the dogs. No one had asked him to. He seemed unable to stand still.

At midnight, Moreno returned with a report. The doors under the whale led to storage rooms. Officers had found old exhibits, cleaning equipment, and a damp cardboard box full of discarded guidebooks. No blue notebook.

“They’re checking the rest of the building,” she said. “I also have a location for the truck. Traffic cameras caught it heading toward the South Harbor freight lots at eight twelve.”

“That’s Julian’s property,” Elias said.

“Yes. We’re working on access.”

Elias gave a short, bitter laugh. “I own half of it.”

“Then give me everything that shows which half.”

He called his attorney.

I took Bishop into the small yard behind the rescue. He stood beneath the weak porch light, sniffing rain in the air. For the first time all evening, he let me touch the buckle of his harness without trembling.

“I wish you could tell us,” I whispered.

My phone buzzed again.

An unknown number had sent a video. It showed Maisie seated on a concrete floor, hugging her knees. Her ribbon was gone. She looked at the camera and said, “Dad, please listen to Uncle Julian.”

A man’s hand appeared at the edge of the frame.

Maisie flinched.

The video ended.

A message followed.

Bring me Celia’s blue book. Come alone. She goes home when I have it.