Detective Rule: Always keep the element of surprise within your control.

“YOU ARE NOT,” I WHISPERED. “BOTH OF MY grandfathers are dead.”

Will had gone stone-still beside me. This man was lying. He had to be. But he’d said his name was Leighton. My middle name was Leighton.

“You … you somehow found out what my middle name is and you’re tricking me,” I said.

“Why would I wish to do that?” he asked earnestly.

I searched for an answer, the sound of carriages pulling away from the cemetery and the chirps of birds in the branches above the only noises to be heard.

“So that I won’t be afraid of you.” It ended up sounding like a question.

He smiled again. “Unless you are a rare work of art hanging neglected on a wall somewhere, you have no reason at all to be afraid of me.”

He took a step closer and shoved up the brim of his hat so I could see his eyes more clearly. They pulled me in. When I let myself stare into them, I saw something I didn’t want to see.

My mother.

“Cecilia and Benjamin haven’t told you about me, and I’m not surprised. I’m the reason they were forced out of Boston,” he said. “The reason they’ve stayed away all this time.”

I shook my head because it was all I could manage. This man, this self-proclaimed thief, was my grandfather? My parents had lied to me?

“When I heard you were coming to visit with Benjamin’s mother, I …” He sighed and twirled the end of his walking cane into the air. “I couldn’t stay away. I had to see the granddaughter I’d never had the chance to meet.”

It was all too much to take in. I didn’t want to believe it. And who had told him I was coming?

“So you’re the one who’s been stealing the art from the Horne warehouses,” Will said when I couldn’t open my mouth.

Matthew Leighton grimaced. “I can see how it might appear that way. I am a thief after all, and an art thief at that. But arson is not my modus operandi — it’s simply not the way I work. I am not the one stealing the Horne collection.”

His chin. The pointed, bottom-of-a-heart shape to it … my mother had the same chin. The same genuine smile and dark gray eyes. But I wanted more proof than just a similar geography of the face.

“Why should we believe anything you say?” I asked. He twirled his cane around once again. He looked dashing and intellectual, and the sharp edge to his words, the perfect enunciation, told me he had a quick mind.

“I don’t have any proof to hand you at the moment,” he said. “And if I presented you with anything less than solid evidence, you would surely dismiss it. If you want answers you can trust, don’t go to your grandmother. She’s too stubborn. Bruce is more likely to tell you everything if you push him far enough.”

I found myself nodding obediently and stopped. As if I was going to take advice from him!

“I’ll find the answers my own way, thank you,” I said.

Leighton tugged the brim of his hat down and bit back an amused grin.

“Of course you will,” he replied, and turned to walk deeper into the cemetery. He looked over his shoulder as he walked away. “Take care, Suzanna. And try not to get into too much trouble, will you?”

He slipped behind another grand headstone and promptly disappeared.

We found Adele at her house. Apparently, following Dr. Philbrick hadn’t proved dangerous — or valuable. It didn’t matter. By the time Will and I reached June Street, my anxiety had found a new topic on which to dwell: Matthew Leighton.

Adele refused to come with us to the funeral reception. Will and I sat in her father’s library for a good ten minutes trying to convince her, but she detested the customary reception after a funeral almost as much as the funeral itself, she said. At her mother’s, she had endured countless sympathetic hugs and pats on the cheek, and promises of “life going on” and “all that rubbish,” as Adele had called it.

I’d considered telling Adele about my encounter with Matthew Leighton, but every time I almost opened my mouth to do it, I stopped. He was an art thief. How could I admit I might have found the person stealing her father’s collection, and that he claimed to be my grandfather? So Will and I eventually left for Grandmother’s without a word of it. Carriages, buggies, and even a few motorcars lined each side of the street. Grandmother’s brownstone seemed to be sucking in and belching out mourners clad in black and brown.

“Thanks for not telling Adele about what happened in the cemetery,” I said to Will. We’d hardly spoken the whole way back to Knight Street. Will had seemed to know to stay mum about the grandfather/art thief topic, at least while my head was still spinning with the news.

“Are you going to ask your uncle about Matthew Leighton?” Will asked.

I knew I needed to, and as soon as possible. But what was I thinking? Uncle Bruce wasn’t going to speak to me unless … well, unless I did as Leighton had said and pushed him to.

I needed to use the element of surprise.