Chapter 2 - A MESSAGE FROM THE MISSING
The message from Isabella stayed on Luca's phone while the doctor helped me into the car.
DON'T COME TO THE MUSIC HOUSE. THEY'RE USING ME TO GET YOU THERE.
I had read it only once, but the words followed me through the rain-slick streets of Chicago. Every time the car stopped at a red light, I imagined a young woman alone in a locked room, trying to warn her brother with a phone someone might snatch away at any moment.
Dr. Patel had arranged for me to be examined at a nearby urgent care center. An X-ray showed no fracture, but the swelling around my ankle was serious. The physician called it a severe sprain, fitted a supportive boot, and told me to stay off the leg as much as possible until the swelling settled. My heel required a few adhesive strips. I was given written instructions and told to return if the pain or swelling worsened.
None of it made me feel better about Isabella.
Mrs. Alvarez was waiting when I came out. She had brought a warm coat and a paper bag containing a sandwich, two apples, and a small bottle of juice.
“You haven't eaten since lunch,” she said.
“Neither have you.”
“I'm older. We're built out of stubbornness.”
She almost smiled, then lowered her voice. “Luca has contacted an investigator he trusts outside the family. He asked me to tell you that you can go home tonight, with full pay for whatever time you need to recover.”
“Is he really looking for Isabella?”
“Yes. He has half the city looking without frightening the other half.”
I thought about the guests who had seen me swing a baseball bat at a treasured heirloom. By morning, videos would probably be on every gossip account in Chicago. They would call me unstable. They would never mention the seventh key.
Mrs. Alvarez seemed to read my face. “You did a frightening thing for a reason. Let the reason be heard.”
At my apartment, my mother was awake at the kitchen table, mending a hem by the yellow light of an old lamp. Her hands moved slowly. Arthritis had made the delicate work painful, but she refused to stop sewing entirely.
“Emma, what happened to your foot?”
I set down my bag and told her everything. I expected horror when I reached the part about the baseball bat. Instead, she asked me to describe the blue flower engraved on the locket.
“Five petals?” she asked.
“Yes. A small blue flower with a gold center.”
Her needle paused in midair.
“Your grandmother used to sew for Elena Moretti,” she said. “Before I took over a few of her customers. Elena commissioned a blue flower on the lining of every music portfolio for the children's school she supported.”
“The Moretti Music House?”
Mother nodded. “It was a school. Lessons for children whose parents couldn't afford them. Mrs. Moretti held concerts to pay the bills. She believed music was a place to belong, not a privilege to buy.”
“Then why did it close?”
“The papers said it ran out of money.” My mother lowered the needle. “But I remember Elena arguing with a man in our shop. She said the children hadn't lost their money. Someone had taken it.”
“Who was the man?”
“I never saw his face. He wore silver cuff links.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
“That could have been anyone,” I said, not wanting to turn a vague childhood memory into proof.
“It could,” Mother agreed. “Which is why you don't build a case out of a memory. You find the paper.”
She got up and opened a battered sewing chest. From beneath old patterns she lifted an envelope bearing a faded blue flower. Inside was a thank-you card Elena had sent when my grandmother repaired the velvet on the piano bench.
I unfolded it. The handwriting was graceful and precise.
Rosa will have the second copy. The children's accounts must never depend on one person's honesty.
Under that sentence was a date: November 18, seventeen years earlier, four weeks before Elena Moretti died.
“Who is Rosa?” I asked.
“She was the music house's librarian,” Mother answered. “Rosa Marin. Everyone called her Miss Rosa.”
I remembered the note Luca had read from the locket. Ask Rosa why the ledger was divided.
I took a picture of the card and called Mrs. Alvarez. She listened, then said she would pass the image directly to Luca and the investigator. I did not go hunting through the night with a swollen ankle. For the first time that day, doing nothing reckless felt like the sensible way to help.
By nine the next morning, I had received eleven missed calls from unfamiliar numbers. The first voicemail was from a woman claiming to be a television producer who wanted to interview the maid who destroyed a priceless piano. The next was a man asking how much money Luca had offered me. Another was only heavy breathing.
I turned off the sound.
At ten, Luca called.
“Emma? Are you with your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Don't open the door for anyone you don't know. Someone posted the name of your building online. I've already reported the threats to the police. Mrs. Alvarez can arrange somewhere else for you to stay if you wish, but it will be your choice.”
“Why would anyone threaten me? I only found a note.”
“You broke a device someone was using to conceal another crime.”
“A piano isn't a device.”
“No. But it made the person concealing the crime panic.” His voice softened. “How is your ankle?”
“Painful. My mother says I'm terrible at obeying doctors.”
“Your mother sounds observant.”
I laughed in spite of myself. The sound startled me.
Then Luca went quiet. “The photo you sent helped us locate Rosa Marin. She's alive. Eighty-two and living with her niece near Oak Park.”
“Did she speak to you?”
“She'll only speak to Isabella.”
“Why?”
“She says she made a promise to Elena.”
I thought about the old thank-you card. “Would she speak to my mother? She knows our family.”
“She might. Would you ask your mother if she's willing?”
I appreciated that he did not simply issue an order. I covered the phone and explained. Mother stared out the window for a long moment before nodding.
“I'll speak to Rosa,” she said. “But I want her niece there, and I want a lawyer to make sure nobody can pressure an old woman.”
Luca agreed without hesitation.
That afternoon, a woman named Detective Mara Chen came to our apartment. She wore a navy raincoat and carried no visible weapon. She introduced herself as a Chicago police detective assisting with a missing-person investigation, not a private employee of the Morettis.
“We're looking for Isabella,” she explained. “Mr. Moretti's family connections make this sensitive, but nobody gets to bypass the rules. I also want you to know we are recording a report about the threats you've received.”
She asked me to describe Vanessa's attempt to buy my silence, the movers, the injury, and the older scrape on the seventh key. She took copies of the photographs but didn't ask for my phone. When she finished, she read my statement aloud so I could correct two details.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Witnesses are more useful when they're safe and heard,” she replied. “And for the record, I'm glad you're not trying to investigate a possible abduction by yourself.”
After she left, I sat at the kitchen table beside my mother. The afternoon light turned the wet windows silver. My ankle ached inside the boot. Somewhere downtown, people were searching hotel cameras, bank records, and traffic feeds while I tried not to imagine the worst.
Then another message arrived from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph of Isabella Moretti.
I knew her face from the portrait outside Luca's study. She was older now, her dark hair shorter, but the shape of her mouth was unmistakable. She sat in a bare room beside a window covered with wire mesh. Her eyes were open. A paper sign had been placed on the table in front of her.
TELL YOUR EMPLOYER TO STOP LOOKING.
Below it, in handwriting different from the sign, someone had written three words.
NOT IN BOSTON.
I forwarded the image to Detective Chen and Luca without replying.
A minute later, Luca called.
“Emma, listen carefully. The message has been preserved. Don't respond to that number.”
“Do you think she's alive?”
“I can see her breathing in the three-second clip sent with it.” His voice broke slightly. “I know she's alive.”
“What can I do?”
“Keep the original message. And stay safe.”
Before he could hang up, my mother took my free hand.
“Ask him,” she whispered, “whether his family ever found the missing ledger.”
I repeated the question.
“No,” Luca said. “Not until yesterday. A man called my office claiming to have it.”
“Who?”
“An old lawyer named Anton Bellini.”
I went cold.
May you like
Vanessa's grandfather had been dead for years. His name couldn't belong to the caller, not unless someone was using the identity of a dead man.
And if the person watching Isabella had the ledger, the secrets inside that piano were only the beginning.
