“Where did your father meet Samuel Weiss?”
Falk’s question came so quickly that I barely processed it.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
He released my arm.
Behind us, applause was still fading.
Phones remained pointed in my direction. Guests who had ignored me all evening were suddenly trying to get closer.
“Elena,” Falk said, “Samuel Weiss disappeared from public performance nearly thirty years ago.”
“I know who he was.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
Cassian approached.
People moved aside without being asked.
“What does her father have to do with Weiss?” he asked.
Falk glanced at him.
Something unspoken passed between them.
I noticed.
“So you know too,” I said.
Cassian’s eyes shifted to mine.
“I know the name.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
For the first time, something resembling approval touched his expression.
Falk looked uncomfortable.
“Thomas Marlow wasn’t simply a piano repairman.”
My throat tightened.
“You knew my father?”
“Not personally.”
“Then how do you know what he was?”
Falk looked toward the piano.
“Because I heard something tonight I haven’t heard since I was a young man.”
“The pause?”
He nodded.
“That phrasing belonged to Weiss.”
“My father learned it from him.”
“No,” Falk said softly. “People studied with Weiss. They imitated Weiss. Thomas Marlow understood him.”
Vivian appeared behind us.
“This is ridiculous.”
Nobody answered her.
Her humiliation had made her reckless.
“She’s a maid who memorized a difficult composition. Congratulations. Must we pretend she’s some lost musical princess now?”
I turned.
Earlier, her words would have hurt.
Now they sounded small.
Falk looked directly at her.
“Ms. Ashcroft, what you heard tonight was not memorization.”
Vivian’s cheeks reddened.
“Then what was it?”
“Musicianship.”
The word hit her harder than an insult.
Cassian looked at me.
“Come with me.”
“No.”
Several people nearby went still.
Cassian raised an eyebrow.
“I wasn’t aware that was a request people refused.”
“Then tonight is educational for both of us.”
Falk almost smiled.
Cassian did not.
But he also didn’t threaten me.
Instead, he said, “There are three hundred people recording this conversation. I’m offering somewhere private.”
That made sense.
I hated that it made sense.
“Mr. Hayes comes too.”
Hayes stiffened.
Cassian followed my gaze.
“Fine.”
We entered Blackthorn Manor’s library.
The moment the doors closed, I faced Hayes.
“What do you know?”
“Elena—”
“No.”
He looked older suddenly.
“You knew Dad.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Hayes swallowed.
“I knew him before you were born.”
My heart began pounding.
“Doing what?”
“Restoring instruments.”
“That’s not all.”
“No.”
Cassian remained near the fireplace.
Falk stood by a shelf of leather-bound books.
Neither interrupted.
Hayes looked at me.
“Your father worked at the Bellweather Theater.”
The name hit me unexpectedly.
I knew Bellweather.
Everybody in Boston over thirty did.
Once, it had been one of the city’s great independent performance halls.
Then came debt.
Lawsuits.
A suspicious fire in part of the building.
Bankruptcy.
Eventually demolition.
A luxury development occupied the property now.
“What did Dad do there?”
“He was chief piano technician.”
“That’s not a secret.”
“He was also involved in its restoration project.”
“What restoration?”
Hayes looked toward Cassian.
Cassian’s jaw tightened.
I caught it.
“Why did you look at him?”
Hayes said nothing.
I turned to Cassian.
“What was your connection to Bellweather?”
“My family invested in properties around it.”
“Around it?”
“Yes.”
“Not in it?”
“No.”
I stared at him.
“Are you lying to me?”
“No.”
Something about the simplicity of his answer unsettled me more than defensiveness would have.
Hayes finally spoke.
“Thomas believed Bellweather could be saved.”
“Saved from what?”
“People who wanted the land.”
My skin went cold.
Falk stepped forward.
“There were rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“That Bellweather’s debts had been engineered.”
I stared at him.
“Engineered how?”
“Predatory contracts. Artificial defaults. Suppliers pressured. Sponsors withdrawing simultaneously.”
“And my father?”
Hayes answered.
“He found something.”
“What?”
“A contract.”
There it was.
The word that changed the temperature in the room.
“What contract?”
“I never saw it.”
“But you knew about it.”
“Thomas told me.”
“When?”
“A few months before Bellweather collapsed.”
My anger rose.
“You knew this for years?”
“Yes.”
“You knew while Dad was dying?”
Hayes closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
I stepped away from him.
“You came to the hospital.”
“I did.”
“You brought him books.”
“Yes.”
“You stood beside his bed and told me he was a good man.”
“He was.”
“But you never told me any of this.”
“Because he asked me not to.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
Hayes absorbed that.
Then he said, “He was afraid.”
“My father wasn’t afraid.”
“Yes, Elena. He was.”
That stopped me.
Hayes’s voice softened.
“Not for himself.”
I touched the brass tuning key beneath my uniform.
For you.
The meaning of Dad’s final gift suddenly felt different.
“What happened to the contract?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who profited?”
Nobody answered.
I looked around.
Falk avoided my eyes.
Hayes looked miserable.
Cassian remained unreadable.
Then I understood.
“You all know.”
Cassian spoke first.
“We know possibilities.”
“Give me one.”
He studied me.
“Gideon Ashcroft.”
My stomach dropped.
“Ashcroft?”
Vivian.
Cassian nodded.
“Her father.”
I looked toward the closed library doors.
On the other side stood Vivian, surrounded by champagne and diamonds, probably explaining to her friends why none of this mattered.
“What did Gideon do?”
“He acquired several distressed properties connected to Bellweather’s collapse.”
“Including the theater?”
“Through intermediaries.”
“And then?”
“The property was eventually redeveloped.”
“Who owns it now?”
Cassian said nothing.
I already knew.
“Ashcroft.”
“Partly.”
I felt sick.
Falk said, “Elena, none of this proves criminal wrongdoing.”
“Then why did my father hide a contract?”
No answer.
I reached beneath my collar and pulled out the brass tuning key.
Hayes stared at it.
His face lost color.
“What?” I demanded.
“Where did you get that?”
“Dad.”
“When?”
“Before he died.”
Hayes approached slowly.
“May I?”
I hesitated, then handed it to him.
He turned it beneath the library light.
Near the base was a tiny engraving I had never noticed.
B-17.
Hayes inhaled sharply.
“What does that mean?”
He looked at me.
“The Bellweather concert grand.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Instrument seventeen.”
I glanced toward the ballroom.
Toward Blackthorn Manor’s grand piano.
“That isn’t Bellweather’s piano.”
“No.”
“Then where is it?”
Hayes looked at Cassian.
Cassian answered.
“In storage.”
“Whose storage?”
“Mine.”
Of course.
I laughed once.
“You own my father’s piano.”
“I acquired it with a warehouse inventory years ago. I didn’t know its significance.”
“Where?”
“South Boston.”
I held out my hand.
Hayes returned the tuning key.
“I want to see it.”
Cassian glanced toward the clock.
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“It’s almost midnight.”
“My father has been dead for two years.”
My voice broke despite my effort.
“I think I’ve waited long enough.”
Cassian studied me for several seconds.
Then he reached for his coat.
“All right.”
Behind us, someone knocked hard on the library door.
“Cassian?”
Vivian.
He opened it.
She stood there furious.
“What is happening?”
I stepped past her.
For once, she moved out of my way.
As I crossed the ballroom, people tried to stop me.
A producer wanted my number.
A philanthropist wanted to sponsor lessons.
A journalist wanted an interview.
Someone offered me money to play another piece.
An hour earlier, none of them would have remembered my name.
Now they wanted pieces of me.
I ignored them.
Outside, sleet struck the stone steps.
Cassian’s Escalade waited.
Before I climbed inside, Vivian followed us out.
“Elena.”
I turned.
Her face had changed.
The arrogance was still there.
But beneath it was something new.
Fear.
“What?”
She looked at the tuning key in my hand.
“Where did you get that?”
I froze.
Cassian froze too.
Vivian realized her mistake.
Too late.
I walked toward her.
“You recognize it.”
“No.”
“You just asked where I got it.”
“I was curious.”
“About a piano tool?”
She backed away.
And suddenly I knew something far more important than the fact that my father had hidden a secret.
Vivian knew about it.
Which meant the secret was still dangerous.