Chapter 8 - The Debt Arthur Left Behind
Claire was gone when police reached the facility.
No body.
No blood.
Only an overturned chair and a broken window.
Victor had taken her.
Elena stood in Room 214 staring at the radio still playing Arthur’s favorite nocturne.
She switched it off.
Dante entered.
“Ruiz found a vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned.”
“Claire?”
“No.”
Elena turned.
“I just got her back.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
The words came sharper than intended.
Dante accepted them.
Elena covered her face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I spent twenty-two years angry because I thought she left me. Then I learned she stayed away to keep me alive, and I wasted our first hour together shouting.”
“You also held her hand.”
Elena looked up.
“You noticed?”
“I notice you.”
The simplicity of it silenced her.
Dante stepped closer.
“I’m going to get her back.”
“We are.”
“Elena—”
“We.”
He knew better than to argue.
Ruiz analyzed the microfilm.
Arthur’s encoded records were devastating.
Payments from Calder companies to city inspectors, prosecutors, judges and contractors.
Enough for warrants.
Enough to destroy Victor financially.
But one document mattered most.
A payment made two days after Arthur’s death.
Recipient: Frank Mercer.
Description: cleanup.
Ruiz questioned Mercer from his hospital bed.
He confessed.
Victor ordered him to dispose of Arthur’s remaining possessions and keep Claire hidden.
Mercer had secretly preserved the locket and later helped Claire escape.
“Victor will know Mercer talked,” Ruiz said.
“Then he’s desperate,” Dante replied.
Desperate men made mistakes.
Victor made one.
He called Elena.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
His voice was warm.
Grandfatherly.
It made her skin crawl.
“Where’s my mother?”
“Safe.”
“I want to hear her.”
Claire came on.
“Elena, don’t—”
The phone shifted away.
Victor returned.
“Bring me Arthur’s microfilm.”
“You know police copied it.”
“I don’t care about copies.”
“Then what do you want?”
“The original.”
Elena understood.
There was something on it Victor believed only he could interpret.
“Where?”
“Vale Theater. Midnight.”
Dante shook his head.
Victor continued.
“And Elena?”
“Yes?”
“Bring the pianist.”
She frowned.
“What pianist?”
“The man who promised to marry you.”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
Victor laughed.
“I watched the ballroom video. Quite romantic.”
The line ended.
Midnight.
The theater.
Ruiz prepared a tactical operation.
Elena and Dante would enter carrying a duplicate canister.
Tracking devices were hidden in their clothes.
“You know,” Elena said while officers fitted her microphone, “most men take women to dinner before bringing them to hostage exchanges.”
Dante adjusted his cuff.
“I offered marriage first.”
“That was worse.”
“Yet memorable.”
She smiled despite herself.
Then his expression became serious.
“If anything happens—”
“No speeches.”
“Elena.”
“No.”
He touched her cheek.
The gesture was unexpectedly gentle.
“I was going to say stay behind me.”
“I definitely won’t.”
“I know.”
They reached the theater at 11:58.
The front doors stood open.
No guards.
No Victor.
A single lamp illuminated the piano onstage.
Claire sat beside it.
Alone.
“Elena!”
Elena ran forward.
Dante caught her arm.
“Wait.”
Claire’s hands were tied.
A wire ran beneath the bench.
Dante saw it.
So did Elena.
A pressure device.
Claire whispered, “Don’t come closer.”
Victor’s voice came through the theater speakers.
“Welcome.”
Elena looked toward the balcony.
“Show yourself!”
“First, play.”
She stared.
“What?”
“The concerto.”
Dante scanned the room.
Victor continued.
“Arthur hid more than names inside his music. I spent twenty-two years trying to understand the final sequence.”
Elena looked at Claire.
The pressure device.
The piano.
“Play correctly and your mother lives.”
Dante whispered, “He needs something from the music.”
Elena approached the piano.
She sat.
Her hands trembled.
Then she remembered Arthur.
Listen until the music tells you where it wants to go.
She began.
The melody filled the ruined theater.
Halfway through the final movement, Elena heard something beneath the notes.
A mechanical click.
Not from the piano.
From under the stage.
She kept playing.
Another click.
Then another.
The notes were activating something.
Dante heard it too.
Elena reached the final sequence.
She stopped one note before the ending.
Victor shouted through the speakers.
“Finish it!”
Elena looked beneath the piano.
A section of the stage had opened.
May you like
Inside was a steel compartment.
And someone was already climbing out.
