Chapter 4 - THE SECOND PIANO
The second piano was not grand or beautiful. It stood beneath a faded tapestry in a narrow music room that smelled of beeswax and old paper. Its ivory keys had yellowed. A dark stain ran down one leg, and a brass candleholder leaned sideways above the sheet rest.
“Mother played this when nobody was visiting,” Luca said. “The large piano was for parties. This one was for us.”
I touched the lid. It was warm from the fire in the grate, which meant someone had recently prepared the room. “Who tried to destroy it?”
“Vincent ordered it sent to the incinerator. Marco found the work order before anyone touched it.”
“Why would he risk that now?”
“Because he knows we'll start looking.”
Luca brought over a chair and helped me sit. The room's lamps cast gold circles on the worn rug. Beyond the windows, rain rattled the branches of bare chestnut trees. For a moment we were simply two exhausted people beside a piano, carrying the losses of our mothers into a room that might finally explain them.
I spread the sheet music across the stand. “Two voices,” I said. “Perhaps they must be played together.”
Luca sat beside me. His shoulder brushed mine. “I can manage the bass line.”
“Do you remember it?”
“I remember the first half. My mother taught me when I was six.”
He pressed the lower keys carefully, creating a soft, uncertain melody. I followed the higher line with one finger, missing several notes. The piano sounded like two strangers introducing themselves.
“You're laughing,” he said.
“Because Boston's most intimidating man can't play a simple lullaby.”
“I'm certain that's not the least frightening thing you've seen me do.”
I looked at him. The faint amusement in his eyes vanished when he saw my expression.
“Sorry,” I said. “I've been frightened almost every hour since yesterday.”
“Then laugh at me whenever you like.”
We tried again. This time the notes aligned. At the final chord, a soft click sounded beneath the keyboard.
Neither of us moved.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered.
Luca reached under the instrument. A wooden drawer, almost invisible against the case, had shifted outward an inch. But a second lock still held it shut.
“The brass disk,” I said.
We sent for Marco, who brought the disk from the secure evidence bag after Reed approved a supervised inspection. The tiny grooves fit a circular opening beneath the piano. Luca twisted gently. The drawer slid out.
Inside lay three cassette tapes, a packet of photographs, and a blue metal case no larger than a hardcover novel.
I couldn't breathe. “The ledger.”
Luca set the objects on the table. The case required a four-digit code. We tried Sofia's birthday, Luca's birthday, and the year of the house's construction. None worked. When Luca lifted the first tape, a handwritten label caught my eye: MARIA — FIRST ACCOUNT.
“My mother recorded something,” I said.
The room contained an old cassette player among the shelves. Luca found batteries in a drawer, tested the mechanism, and pressed PLAY. Static hissed. Then a woman's voice filled the room.
I had not heard my mother's voice in nine years.
“Today is September twenty-first,” she said, quietly and clearly. “Sofia believes we can still stop them without hurting the children. I don't think Vincent understands what he's involved in. Gabriel promised him the money would come from businesses that were already failing, but I have seen the documents. The people they are taking from have families. Some have disappeared. If this recording survives, I want Claire to know I did not leave because I was ashamed of her. I left because Sofia asked me to keep her safe.”
My hands covered my mouth. Tears spilled between my fingers.
Luca reached for the player, then hesitated. “Should I stop it?”
“No.” I could barely form the word. “Please.”
My mother's voice continued. “The money is passing through the Bellini construction companies and into accounts bearing the names of dead men. Sofia has written down the transfers. We have found signatures Vincent copied from his father's papers. We cannot go to the old police captain. He warned Gabriel when a witness came forward last year. Sofia says there is one detective she trusts. Her name is Helen Reed.”
Luca looked toward me sharply. “Reed?”
“Hannah's mother,” I said, remembering the detective had once mentioned her mother's career.
The recording crackled. “If I don't have the courage to testify, I hope Claire will forgive me. I want to be the kind of mother who does the difficult thing. I haven't always been. Sofia says fear does not erase love. But it must not be allowed to choose for us.”
The tape clicked off.
I bent forward, overcome by grief that felt both fresh and ancient. Luca knelt beside my chair, close enough to offer comfort but not forcing it. I reached for his hand. He held it until I could look up again.
“She loved you,” he said.
“I know. I just never understood what she was running from.”
“She was trying to protect you.”
“And Sofia was trying to protect everyone.”
We listened to the second tape. Sofia's voice was softer, with a faint accent. She described a meeting with Vincent and Gabriel, evidence of stolen relief funds meant to rebuild neighborhoods after a flood, and threats against workers who questioned the accounts. The recording ended before she named the people who had received the payments.
On the third tape, we heard two men arguing. One voice belonged unmistakably to a younger Vincent. The other was unfamiliar.
“You said no one would get hurt,” Vincent protested.
“People get hurt when they refuse to cooperate,” the other man answered. “That's how business works.”
“My mother knows.”
“Then your mother needs to remember which family she belongs to.”
The tape ended with a sharp click and footsteps moving away from the recorder.
Luca replayed the exchange twice. His face showed no anger now, only a horrible recognition.
“Gabriel,” he said. “That's Gabriel Bellini.”
Marco entered with the portable evidence scanner. “Detective Reed is on her way. She says nobody should handle the contents again.”
I nodded. “What about the code?”
“Maybe a date,” Luca said. “Something important to them.”
I looked again at my mother's letter. The music has two voices. One tells you where to look. The other tells you whom to trust. Sofia had trusted Maria. Perhaps that was the answer. I turned the photograph of both women over and studied the date: SUMMER, 2004. Four digits.
I entered 2004.
The blue case unlocked with a soft metallic snap.
Inside were several microfilm sleeves and a single handwritten page. At the top, in bold letters, Sofia had written: IF VINCENT IS READING THIS, HE HAS ALREADY MADE HIS CHOICE.
Luca stared at the page. His throat moved. “Read it,” he said, voice rough. “I can't.”
I read aloud. Sofia explained that she had tried for months to persuade Vincent to return the money and give evidence against Gabriel. Vincent had promised, cried, begged his mother to believe him. Then a young accountant was found dead beside the river. Sofia no longer trusted her son's promises. She had arranged to send copies of the records to a federal investigator under a protected disclosure. The delivery was scheduled for the morning after her fatal car accident.
“Your mother wasn't killed because of business rivalry,” I whispered. “She was killed because she wanted to stop it.”
Luca rested his palms against the edge of the piano. “And Vincent was there when her car went off the bridge.”
We had both heard the official version: Vincent had followed Sofia's car in his own vehicle, arrived moments after the crash, and called emergency services. He had been praised for trying to save her.
The door opened. Detective Reed arrived, followed by a forensic technician wearing gloves. She listened to the first recording with her eyes closed.
“My mother spent eleven years looking for this evidence,” she said quietly. “She retired believing she'd failed.”
“Can you use it?” I asked.
“We'll authenticate everything. It gives us somewhere to start, not a verdict.”
Luca nodded. “Do whatever you need.”
Reed examined the microfilm sleeves beneath the portable light. Suddenly her expression changed. She slid one strip into the scanner and enlarged a sequence of bank transfers on the screen. Among the names was an account labeled E. MORETTI ESTATE.
“Elena?” Luca asked.
Reed's mouth tightened. “Maybe. But look at the date.”
The transfer was recorded two weeks after Elena Moretti's funeral.
Luca gripped the table. “Someone used my dead wife's estate.”
Another line appeared beneath it: BENEFICIARY — SOPHIA MORETTI TRUST.
Sophie had been three years old when her mother died. Someone had been laying a financial trail toward her inheritance for four years.
“Why?” I asked.
Reed zoomed in on a coded notation beside the transfer. “That's what I intend to find out.”
Just then Marco's radio burst into static. A guard reported seeing a figure inside the upstairs nursery.
May you like
“Sophie is with Mrs. Alvarez,” Luca said.
Marco's voice hardened. “Not anymore. Mrs. Alvarez is unconscious, and Sophie is gone.”
