Chapter 1 - Four Notes
A young waitress pressed four piano keys and whispered,
“My mother taught me this.”
Billionaire Everett Vale turned toward her and grabbed the silver watch hanging from his vest.
A tiny engraving on its back read: 2:17.
Everett stopped breathing.
This was not another therapy session.
For seven years, twenty psychologists had tried almost everything.
Hypnosis.
Exposure therapy.
Sleep studies.
Medication.
Memory reconstruction.
Dream journals.
Neurological scans.
Three specialists had flown in from Switzerland. Two had come from London. One had written a bestselling book about traumatic memory and charged more for a weekend consultation than most families earned in a year.
None of them had managed to do what Nora Bennett had just done by accident.
Four notes.
That was all.
Everett sat frozen in the ivory armchair beside the white grand piano while the last vibration disappeared into the enormous room.
Behind him, twenty doctors and psychologists stared.
Dr. Malcolm Reed, Everett's primary psychiatrist, slowly lowered the yellow legal pad he had been holding.
“Nora,” he said carefully, “could you play that again?”
The young woman at the piano did not move.
She was twenty-five, with blonde hair twisted into a loose bun and a few strands falling against her cheek. She wore plain white work clothes because she had not come to the Vale estate as a musician.
She had come carrying breakfast trays.
Thirty minutes earlier, she had been pouring coffee.
Now every person in the room was staring at her as though she had opened a grave.
“I don't think I should,” Nora said.
Everett lifted his face.
“Why?”
His voice sounded older than it had five minutes earlier.
Nora swallowed.
“Because of what happened when I played it.”
Everett looked at his trembling right hand.
He hated trembling.
He had built an empire partly because he hated anything his body could do without his permission.
Vale Maritime.
Vale Hotels.
Vale Biomedicine.
Vale Financial.
His photograph had appeared on magazine covers beneath phrases like SELF-MADE TITAN and THE MAN WHO NEVER BLINKS.
But Everett Vale had blinked every night at exactly 2:17 a.m.
Usually while screaming.
Sometimes he screamed a name.
Sometimes he called for a child.
Sometimes he woke with both hands stretched toward the ceiling, begging someone to run.
The problem was that he could never remember who he was begging.
“Play it,” Everett said.
Dr. Reed stepped forward.
“Everett, perhaps we should slow down.”
“No.”
“Your pulse is elevated.”
“My pulse has been elevated for fifty years.”
Dr. Reed stopped.
Everyone in the room knew what Everett meant.
The nightmares had not begun seven years ago.
They had begun when he was twenty-two.
What had changed seven years ago was that Everett had collapsed during a board meeting after hearing a music box in a television commercial.
He woke on the floor saying the same sentence repeatedly.
I left him there.
He remembered nothing afterward.
That was when the specialists began arriving.
Nora looked toward Dr. Reed.
Then back at Everett.
“Mr. Vale, I really don't know what this is.”
“I do.”
Every psychologist leaned forward.
Everett stared at the keys.
“No,” he corrected himself. “Something inside me does.”
Nora's fingers hovered above the piano.
She played the first note.
Everett's jaw tightened.
The second.
His eyes closed.
The third.
His fingers dug into the armrest.
Then the fourth.
A memory exploded behind his eyes.
Not a full scene.
A flash.
A red sweater.
Small fingers.
A wooden floor.
Firelight.
A boy laughing.
Then darkness.
Everett gasped.
Someone behind him said his name.
He didn't hear who.
The image was already gone.
Everett opened his eyes.
“A boy.”
Dr. Reed moved closer.
“What boy?”
“I saw a boy.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don't know.”
“Age?”
Everett shook his head.
“Six. Maybe seven.”
Nora's face changed.
It was tiny.
So tiny nobody else noticed.
Everett did.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I didn't.”
Everett turned toward her fully.
“I built my first company by knowing when people lied to me.”
Nora stood from the piano bench.
“I should go.”
“You're not in trouble.”
“I didn't say I was.”
“Then stay.”
Nora glanced toward the doorway.
Everett followed her eyes.
Two members of his security staff stood outside.
He immediately raised one hand.
“Leave the doorway.”
Both guards stepped away.
Nora looked surprised.
Everett softened his voice.
“You can walk out whenever you want.”
She remained standing.
Dr. Reed cleared his throat.
“Nora, where exactly did you learn those notes?”
“My mother.”
“What was her name?”
Nora hesitated.
“Claire Bennett.”
Everett felt nothing.
No recognition.
Dr. Reed wrote it down.
“Is she living?”
Nora looked at the floor.
“No.”
“When did she die?”
“Eleven months ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Nora nodded.
“She was sick a long time.”
Everett watched her.
“What did she tell you about the song?”
“It isn't really a song.”
“What is it?”
“She called it the beginning.”
“The beginning of what?”
“She never said.”
Silence.
Everett slowly stood.
At seventy-two, he still carried himself like a man who expected rooms to make space for him. He was tall, silver-haired, immaculate even after nights with almost no sleep.
But when he approached Nora, he did not look powerful.
He looked frightened.
“Did your mother know me?”
Nora shook her head.
“She never said she did.”
“Did she ever mention Everett Vale?”
“No.”
“Vale?”
“No.”
“Harbor Ridge?”
That one hit.
Nora's eyes widened.
Dr. Reed noticed too.
“What is Harbor Ridge?” he asked.
Everett did not answer him.
He kept looking at Nora.
“How do you know that name?”
Nora's fingers curled against her white trousers.
“I don't.”
“You just reacted.”
“My mother used to say it.”
Everett felt cold.
“What did she say?”
“Mostly when she was sick.”
“What exactly?”
Nora closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“She'd wake up confused sometimes. She'd say, 'Harbor Ridge is burning.'”
Everett gripped the back of the piano bench.
Several psychologists began murmuring.
Dr. Reed raised a hand for quiet.
“Everett, do you recognize Harbor Ridge?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Dr. Reed stared at him.
Everett's eyes hardened.
“I said no.”
But his body said otherwise.
A pressure had started behind his ribs.
A sensation without memory.
The smell of smoke.
Bare feet running.
A child's scream.
2:17.
Everett moved away from the piano.
Nora watched him.
“There was one other thing.”
He turned.
“What?”
“My mother had a box.”
Dr. Reed stopped writing.
“What kind of box?”
“Just an old wooden box.”
“What's in it?”
“I don't know everything. She wouldn't let me open it when she was alive.”
Everett stepped closer.
“Where is it?”
Nora shook her head.
“No.”
“Nora.”
“Mr. Vale, I work double shifts because I owe eleven thousand dollars in hospital bills. I came here today because the catering agency told me this job paid eighteen dollars an hour plus tips. I didn't come here to get pulled into whatever this is.”
Everett absorbed that.
“What if I pay your bills?”
Her expression hardened immediately.
“No.”
Everett blinked.
Most people did not say no to him that quickly.
“I wasn't trying to buy you.”
“Yes, you were.”
A few of the doctors looked uncomfortable.
Nora picked up the small serving apron she had left beside the piano.
“My mother told me never to trust powerful men who offer solutions before they understand the problem.”
Everett almost smiled.
Almost.
“She sounds difficult.”
“She was.”
“So am I.”
“That part was obvious.”
Dr. Reed coughed into his fist.
Nora turned toward the door.
Everett let her take three steps.
Then he said, “Every morning at 2:17, I wake screaming for a child.”
Nora stopped.
The room became still.
Everett continued.
“I don't know his name. I don't know his face. I don't know if he's alive or dead. I only know I've been calling for him for half a century.”
Nora slowly looked back.
Everett removed the antique silver watch from his vest pocket.
“My father gave me this when I was twenty-two.”
He turned it over.
The engraving caught the sunlight.
2:17.
Nora stared.
Her face drained of color.
“What?” Everett asked.
She did not answer.
“Nora.”
“My mother had one too.”
Everett went completely still.
“What?”
“A watch.”
“Like this?”
“I don't remember exactly.”
“Where is it?”
“In the box.”
Everett looked toward Dr. Reed.
For the first time in seven years of treatment, Dr. Reed looked genuinely shaken.
“Nora,” he said, “would you be willing to bring us the box?”
She looked between them.
“No.”
Everett's shoulders fell slightly.
Then Nora added, “But you can come see it.”
Everett stared.
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
Dr. Reed immediately objected.
“Everett, given your condition—”
“I’m going.”
“Then I am going with you.”
“No.”
“Everett.”
“I said no.”
Dr. Reed's expression sharpened.
“I am your physician.”
“And you have spent seven years asking me how that makes me feel.”
Several doctors suddenly became very interested in the floor.
Everett looked at Nora.
“When?”
“My shift ends at four.”
“I'll have a car waiting.”
“I take the bus.”
“You don't have to.”
“I know.”
He studied her.
“Fine.”
Nora walked away.
At the doorway she stopped.
“One thing.”
Everett waited.
“My mother made me promise something before she died.”
“What?”
“If I ever met a man who reacted to the four notes…”
Everett's heart began hammering.
Nora's voice dropped.
“…I was supposed to ask him one question.”
No one moved.
“What question?”
She looked directly at Everett.
“Did Thomas make it out?”
Everett's knees nearly buckled.
The name struck him like a bullet.
Thomas.
A red sweater.
Small fingers.
Smoke.
A boy crying.
Everett grabbed the piano for support.
Dr. Reed rushed toward him.
“Everett!”
But Everett could hear another voice now.
Not Dr. Reed.
A child's voice buried somewhere deep inside him.
Ev.
Ev, don't leave me.
Nora took one frightened step backward.
Everett whispered the name.
“Thomas.”
The memory vanished again.
Four hours later, Everett stood in the narrow hallway outside Nora Bennett's third-floor apartment while his driver waited downstairs.
Nora unlocked the door.
“It's inside my mother's closet.”
Everett followed her into the tiny apartment.
It was the opposite of his mansion.
Old sofa.
Secondhand table.
A refrigerator humming too loudly.
Family photographs clipped to a string near the kitchen.
Everett stopped when he saw one.
Claire Bennett.
Nora's mother.
Sixty-ish.
Thin.
Gray-blonde hair.
Smiling beside Nora at a hospital fundraiser.
Everett walked toward the photograph.
His chest tightened.
“I've seen her.”
Nora froze.
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
She stared at him.
Everett touched the edge of the photograph.
Another flash.
A teenage girl.
Smoke.
Blood on her sleeve.
Her hands pushing him toward a door.
Run, Everett.
He stumbled back.
Nora caught his arm.
“Mr. Vale?”
Everett stared at Claire's photograph.
“She was there.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Nora hurried toward the bedroom.
“Wait here.”
She disappeared.
Everett could hear closet doors opening.
A drawer sliding.
Then silence.
“Nora?”
No answer.
He crossed the apartment.
“Nora?”
He reached the bedroom.
She was standing in front of the open closet.
The wooden box was on the floor.
Its lid was open.
Nora's face was white.
“What happened?” Everett asked.
She slowly lifted a folded piece of paper.
“This wasn't here before.”
Everett took it.
His name was written across the front.
EVERETT VALE.
Underneath were six words.
HE MUST NEVER REMEMBER THE FIRE.
Everett looked toward the open apartment door.
It had been locked when they entered.
Now it stood slightly open.
May you like
Someone had been inside.
And whoever it was had known they were coming.
