* * *

Henri accompanied her as she spoke to high school students at an Upper East Side music conservatory the next morning, while Thad visited a group of student athletes with Paisley. The conservatory teens were a dynamic mixture of scholarship kids and kids from wealthy families. Their enthusiasm for music, honest questions, and uncensored opinions reminded her of the way she’d been in that innocent time years earlier when she could never have imagined she’d let her voice be stolen.

Henri had insisted on a limo, although they could have made the trip faster on the subway. As he spoke on the phone, her thoughts took an unpleasant turn to Adam, the threats she’d been receiving, and her upcoming performance at the Muni. They stopped at a light on Fifth Avenue. She glanced over at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and what had been only the faintest notion grew in urgency. She checked the time on her Cavatina3. It was 9:56 a.m. on the dot. Perfect.

“Henri, the museum is opening in four minutes, and I’m going to make a quick stop. I’ll meet you at the hotel.”

“Non, non! Thad has insisted—”

“It’s the Metropolitan. I’ll be fine.” She jumped out of the car before he could stop her, crossed through a break in traffic to the curb, and waved him on. An impulsive visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art just as the doors were opening hardly counted as high risk.

“We will wait for you!” Henri shouted, sticking his head out the open window, his brown hair streaming straight back from his face. “Text me when you’re ready.”

She waved in acknowledgment and climbed the front steps.

It didn’t take long to clear security and pay her entrance fee. She knew exactly where she wanted to be—where she needed to be—and she took a quick turn to her right. She moved through the Tomb of Perneb without stopping. He was only a Fifth Dynasty court official, and she needed more power than he offered. She wove past the mummies and funerary equipment of the Ptolemies and the chapel reliefs of Ramses I until she reached the Temple of Dendur.

The hordes of visitors hadn’t yet descended, and the spacious light-filled gallery with its sweep of angled windows was quiet. This might be the Met’s most popular exhibit, but popularity hadn’t brought her here, nor had nostalgia for the times she’d performed in this same spot at cultural events and black-tie galas. She’d come here because the Temple of Dendur was dedicated to Isis, and Isis was one of the Egyptians’ most powerful gods of both healing and magic, two things she sorely needed.

The reflecting pool representing the waters of the Nile glistened in the morning light. She bypassed the temple’s gate and went directly into the temple itself, passing through its twin columns with their papyrus plant capitals. Two other visitors had beaten her here. Maybe they, too, felt the sacredness of this space because neither was speaking.

She’d once visited the temple with an Egyptologist who’d been able to read each of the ancient hieroglyphics covering the sandstone walls, but she’d been more interested in imagining the lives of the Nubian people who’d gathered here.

She touched the wall. Isis, if you have any mojo left, would you fix me? Would you ease my chest, open my throat? Give me back my confidence. Let me—

“Olivia?”

She spun around to see a small woman entering the temple. Her hope for solitude vanished.

“My dear.” The woman took Olivia’s hands. “I was just thinking about you!”

“Kathryn, how are you?”

“So busy! With the Aida gala only three weeks away, my head is spinning with ideas. We’re building a re-creation of Dendur at the front entrance for the guests to pass through.”

“I’m sure that’ll be amazing.”

Eugene Swift’s widow looked like the stereotype of a seventy-year-old art patron. Slim and trim, with a black velvet headband holding her gray bob away from her face, she wore what was surely vintage Chanel, along with the low, square-heeled black pumps—probably Ferragamo—that women of her age and social status favored. As her husband’s replacement on the board of the Chicago Municipal Opera, as well as one of its most generous donors, she was the last person Olivia wanted to know about her voice. “What are you doing in New York?” she asked.

Kathryn gave a dismissive wave. “We have a place here. Only myself and my son now that Eugene is gone.”

“He was a wonderful man,” Olivia said truthfully. “We all miss him.”

At Kathryn’s request, Olivia had sung at his funeral. Eugene Swift had been a true opera scholar with a deep appreciation of all its forms. He’d also been Olivia’s friend.

“He would have loved the Aida gala,” Kathryn said. “I’m suggesting costumes, but only for the women. Frankly, the idea of potbellied men draping themselves in white linen would put me off my dinner. I’m having a robe made for the event. I can give you the name of my dressmaker if you’d like.”

“I’m sure I can borrow something from the costume shop.”

“You’re a dear. Everyone will look forward to seeing what you wear.” Kathryn gazed up at the temple walls. Olivia knew her real passion lay with art museums, not opera, and Olivia appreciated her continued involvement with the Chicago Muni Opera to honor Eugene’s memory. “I adore this temple,” she said. “Since it’s not looted like the Elgin Marbles, one can admire it without feeling guilty.”

Olivia was well acquainted with the history of the temple, a gift from the Egyptian government for the part the United States had played in saving it, along with other artifacts, from the bottom of Lake Nasser when the Aswan Dam was constructed.

Unlike other socialites’ brows, Kathryn’s still had the ability to wrinkle. “It’s such a dilemma. One has to believe museums should return stolen artifacts to their rightful country, but what if it’s a country like Syria or Iraq where ISIS has destroyed so much? I don’t want to be accused of cultural insensitivity, but until those countries stabilize, our museums should hold on to what we have.” She set her hand on one of the temple’s oval cartouches. “I’ll never forgive LBJ for giving Dendur to the Metropolitan instead of to Chicago. It would have been such a magnificent addition to the Art Institute. Still, one has to admit that the Metropolitan’s done well by it.”

Olivia didn’t hear the rest of Kathryn’s monologue as a familiar, unwelcome figure made his way through the gate. He headed directly toward them, all athletic grace and frosty glare. As he stopped at Olivia’s side, she offered up her brightest smile. “Kathryn, this is Thad Owens. Thad, Mrs. Swift is our honorary hostess for the Muni gala.”