Chapter 3 - THE NAME ON THE PHOTOGRAPH
Lucas had not entered the sunroom in three years.
The piano still stood beneath the tall windows. Isabella’s sheet music remained stacked beside it, yellowing at the edges. A small wooden horse sat on the mantel, one of Daniel’s toys. Lucas had ordered the room left untouched, as if preserving it could keep the people inside it from disappearing completely.
Lily stood at the doorway, holding Elena’s hand.
“That’s the picture,” she said.
Lucas lifted the framed photograph from the piano. Isabella’s smile looked painfully alive. Daniel was missing one front tooth. On the back, in Isabella’s handwriting, were four words:
For Lucas. Come home soon.
He closed his eyes.
“Did you touch anything else in this room?” he asked.
“No,” Elena answered. “She knows not to.”
Lily pointed to the piano bench. “There’s a little box under there.”
Lucas knelt. He had never noticed the loose panel beneath the bench. A narrow wooden box was tucked behind it, wrapped in a faded blue scarf. Inside lay a brass key, a photograph of the Moretti family, and a folded note.
Lucas recognized Isabella’s handwriting at once.
If you are reading this, something has happened. Trust no one who says the fire was an accident. Daniel is alive. I had to move him. I am sorry. Follow the music.
Lucas read the note twice. The room seemed to tilt.
“Daniel is alive,” he whispered.
Elena covered her mouth.
Marco arrived moments later. Lucas handed him the note. “No one leaves this house until we know who planted the device in my inhaler.”
Marco read the words, then looked at Lucas. “Boss, if Isabella was alive after the fire, why didn’t she come back?”
“Because someone kept her away.”
“Victor?”
Lucas folded the note carefully. “I want the security footage from the night of the fire. Every copy. Every backup. And find the doctor who signed the death certificates.”
Marco nodded and left.
Lily wandered to the piano. She pressed one key, then another. The notes were soft and uncertain.
“That’s the song my mother hums,” she said.
Elena shook her head. “I don’t hum.”
“You do when you think I’m asleep.”
Lucas looked at her. “What song?”
Elena hesitated. “A lullaby. My husband used to play it on an old keyboard. I don’t remember where he learned it.”
“Can you sing it?”
Elena’s voice was barely audible as she began. Four notes, a pause, then a falling melody. Lucas knew it. Isabella had written it for Daniel when he was a baby. She called it “The Little Harbor.”
“Where did your husband learn that song?” Lucas asked.
“He never told me. He said it was something he heard while working security years ago.”
“What was his name?”
“Thomas Carter. He died in a car accident two years ago.”
Lucas looked at the note again. Follow the music.
He turned toward the piano. Beneath the keyboard, a small brass plate had been screwed into the wood. The key from the box fit a hidden lock. A drawer slid open, revealing a compact digital recorder and a flash drive.
Before Lucas could touch them, the mansion’s alarm began to howl.
Marco’s voice crackled through the intercom. “Boss, we have an intruder in the east wing.”
Lucas took the pistol from the security cabinet.
“Get Elena and Lily downstairs,” he ordered.
Lily clutched her mother’s hand. “Is the bad man coming?”
“No,” Lucas said. “You’re going to a safe room.”
A gunshot echoed from the upper floor.
Then the lights went out.
In the darkness, Lucas heard footsteps running toward the sunroom. He pushed Elena and Lily behind the piano and raised his weapon.
A shape appeared in the doorway.
“Lucas,” a woman whispered.
He knew that voice.
He had heard it in dreams, in memories, and in the silence after waking.
“Bella?”
The emergency lights flickered on.
A woman stood in the doorway, pale and thin, her brown curls cut short. She held one hand against the wall as if the room itself were moving beneath her.
Lucas’s gun slipped from his fingers.
Isabella looked at him with tears shining in her eyes.
May you like
“Don’t let Victor find Daniel,” she said.
Then she collapsed.
