Chapter 10 - The Music BoxAyla remembered the tune.
She hummed it during breakfast.
Grant recognized it immediately.
“Your mother used to play that.”
The cedar music box had belonged to Serena’s grandmother.
Ayla remembered the lid.
Tiny carved flowers.
A brass hinge.
A velvet interior.
But she remembered something else.
“When it stopped working, Mom shook it.”
Grant looked at her.
“Shook it?”
“Yes.”
“She was trying to fix it?”
Ayla shook her head.
“She smiled.”
Kiara stopped pouring juice.
“What kind of smile?”
Ayla considered.
“Like when she hid my birthday present.”
Grant stood.
The missing music box had contained something.
The question was what.
Detective Bell checked pawn databases, local cameras, and license-plate readers.
A vehicle had entered Hawthorne Ridge twenty minutes before the break-in.
A gray service van with a stolen plate.
Professional enough to avoid obvious identification.
Not professional enough to avoid every camera.
A traffic camera captured the driver’s profile.
Bell showed Grant.
“Recognize him?”
“No.”
Kiara did.
“I’ve seen him.”
“Where?”
“At the house.”
“When?”
“Maybe eight months ago.”
“Doing what?”
“Melanie said he was repairing the wine refrigeration.”
Grant frowned.
“There was no repair.”
Kiara remembered the man’s name from the invoice.
“Derek.”
Bell ran the description.
Derek Sloan.
Forty-three.
Private security contractor.
Former commercial locksmith.
Several civil complaints.
No major convictions.
His current phone records required legal process, but Bell had enough to begin pulling the thread.
Grant’s forensic accountants meanwhile uncovered another problem.
Spencer had not simply transferred money.
He had been manipulating property valuations.
Mercer Urban owned partial interests in redevelopment projects across Connecticut and New York.
Several had been undervalued internally before pieces were sold to shell companies.
Those shell companies later resold interests at enormous profits.
Rachel estimated the company may have lost another $7 million.
Grant stared at the spreadsheet.
“This was happening while Serena was sick.”
“Yes.”
“And after.”
“Yes.”
“And I signed year-end reports.”
Rachel did not protect him.
“Yes.”
Grant pushed away from the table.
“I was the CEO.”
“You still are.”
“I should have caught this.”
“Yes.”
He looked at her.
Most employees would have rushed to tell him it wasn’t his fault.
Rachel refused.
“You didn’t steal,” she said. “But governance failed under you.”
Grant nodded slowly.
That was different from guilt.
It was responsibility.
He could live with responsibility because responsibility demanded action.
That afternoon, Ayla had her first session with a trauma therapist.
Grant waited outside.
He hated every minute.
Not because he disliked therapy.
Because he knew Ayla was describing things he had failed to see.
When she emerged, she looked exhausted.
Grant stood.
“Want to go home?”
Ayla hesitated.
“Can we not call it home yet?”
Grant’s throat tightened.
“What should we call it?”
“The house.”
“Okay.”
They drove back to the house.
That evening Bell called.
“We found Derek Sloan.”
Grant stood.
“Where?”
“Hotel outside Stamford.”
“Did he have the music box?”
“No.”
Grant’s hope dropped.
“But he had twelve thousand dollars in cash.”
“For breaking into my house?”
“Possibly.”
“Who paid him?”
“He wants a lawyer.”
Grant cursed.
Bell continued.
“We also found a burner phone.”
“Anything on it?”
“Not yet.”
Later, digital analysis recovered partial deleted messages.
One was sent the night before the break-in.
Find the box. Nothing else matters.
The sender was stored as SV.
Spencer.
A second message followed.
If Mercer has the contents, we have a bigger problem.
Grant stared at the words.
The music box was not sentimental.
It was evidence.
Bell asked Ayla if she remembered anyone ever opening it.
Ayla shook her head.
Then she suddenly looked toward Kiara.
“You did.”
Kiara blinked.
“What?”
“When Mom was sick. You helped her pack.”
Kiara went still.
A memory surfaced.
Serena sitting on the bed.
Thin.
Tired.
Opening the cedar music box.
Removing jewelry.
Then pressing something beneath the velvet lining.
Kiara whispered, “There was a second bottom.”
Grant leaned forward.
“What was inside?”
“I never saw.”
But Kiara remembered what Serena had said while closing it.
Some truths need to survive the people who want them buried.
Bell asked the next obvious question.
“If Spencer has the box, can he destroy whatever was inside?”
Kiara shook her head slowly.
“Serena wouldn’t have trusted only one copy.”
Grant looked toward her.
The same lesson.
Never keep the only copy.
The memory card had been one backup.
Evelyn had been another.
The music box might contain a third.
Then Grant’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man spoke.
“Grant Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Noah Vance.”
Grant frowned.
“I was your father’s accountant.”
Grant stood.
“What do you want?”
The man’s next sentence turned the case again.
“I heard someone is asking questions about North Channel.”
Grant gripped the phone.
Noah continued.
“If that’s true, you need to know something before Spencer Voss finds me.”
“What?”
“Your father didn’t create North Channel to steal from Mercer Urban.”
Grant closed his eyes.
“Then why did he create it?”
“To pay people.”
“What people?”
May you like
Noah’s voice dropped.
“People who agreed never to tell you what your father did.”
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