CHAPTER 2
NOLAN
The cut is shallow.
I identify that before anything else because identifying damage is better than feeling it.
The blade entered at an angle across the base of Elise’s thumb. She can flex every finger. No immediate sign of tendon damage. Blood loss is moderate and slowing under pressure.
None of those facts reduces the urge to remove every person with access to the piano from the building and question them until one gives me a useful answer.
Elise stands beside the instrument in a wine-red blouse, blood spreading across one cuff. Her dark hair has come loose from the knot at the back of her head. Gray-green eyes remain fixed on me as if the threat may be wearing my face. That is reasonable. The message instructed her not to trust me.
Jonah secures the service entrance while I photograph the mechanism without touching it.
A narrow metal strip was inserted beneath the key and anchored to the frame.
Manual installation. Simple enough to avoid electronic detection.
Precise enough to target hand placement.
Someone knew which instrument she would use and which measure she would begin with.
“Who inspected the piano?” I ask.
“Martin Vale. He has serviced it for eleven years.”
“Who knew your rehearsal time?”
“The artistic office. Simon. Malcolm. The hall manager. My assistant. Any member of staff who can read a calendar.”
“Public?”
“No.”
Her voice remains controlled. The color has not returned to her face.
“Sit down.”
Her eyes sharpen. The command was automatic. I correct it.
“Would you sit? The clinic team is two minutes away.”
“I prefer standing.”
“All right.”
She appears almost disappointed that I do not argue. Police arrive before the clinic car. I brief the lead officer on the immediate scene and keep my own team on the building because police will document what happened, not necessarily what will happen next. Mae calls through my earpiece.
“I have the service feeds. Exterior camera lost four minutes at six fifty-one. Door contact registered open for nine seconds.”
“Internal access?”
“Cloned staff credential. Still tracing.”
Elise hears enough to understand.
“Someone entered this morning.”
“Yes.”
“You knew there was a threat before you arrived.”
The correct answer creates the next conflict.
“Yes.”
Her left hand tightens around the cloth.
“From Theo?”
“Partly.”
“You were at his memorial.”
The fact reaches me before I can ask how she knows. My name. The company. Memory connecting a man at the back of a church to the one standing in front of her.
“Yes.”
“Did my brother hire you?”
Jonah returns before I answer. “Apartment team found access activity in the garage. Someone entered the building using a resident code.” Elise turns toward him. “My apartment?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“We do,” Mae says in my ear. “Her floor camera went dark twelve minutes ago.”
I look at Jonah. He reads the answer. Elise does too.
“I’m going home.”
“No.”
The refusal leaves too quickly. She steps toward the aisle. I place myself between her and the door without touching her.
“You are not trapping me in my own building.”
“Someone sabotaged the instrument and entered your residence within the same hour.”
“Then move.”
“I will take you to a private clinic while Jonah clears the apartment.”
“You do not decide that.”
The words strike the exact weakness in the system I have built around her. I move aside.
“If you leave alone, I will follow. If you enter the apartment before it is cleared, I will physically stop you because the threat will be immediate. Before that point, the choice is yours.”
She looks at me for several seconds.
“Clinic first,” she says. “Then the apartment.”
“Yes.”
“Do not sound victorious.”
“I’m not.”
The clinic physician confirms four stitches and intact tendons. No prolonged playing for at least forty-eight hours. Elise accepts the instructions with the expression of someone receiving a personal insult from biology. While the wound is closed, I wait outside and call Mae.
“The apartment?”
“Entered. Nothing obvious stolen. Bedroom disturbed. A score is open on the bed. One framed photo removed.”
“Which photo?”
“Elise and Theo.”
My grip tightens on the phone.
“Anything left?”
“A black fountain pen on the score.”
Theo’s pen. He carried it to every meeting and complained it leaked because replacing it would mean admitting sentimentality.
“Photograph and isolate everything. No police entry until our team records the room.”
“You do remember they are the police.”
“Yes.”
Mae is silent for half a second.
“You sound worse than usual.”
“Continue.”
Elise emerges with a white dressing around her right hand. She has heard enough of the call.
“What pen?”
I look at her. There is no safe version of the answer.
“Theo’s.”
Her face empties.
“Why would you recognize my brother’s pen?”
“Because he used it when he hired me.”
The clinic corridor narrows around the sentence.
“When?”
“Three months before he died.”
“For what?”
“Security consultation. He believed money was being moved through conservatory accounts.”
“By whom?”
“He suspected Malcolm. Simon. Possibly others.”
“You never told me.”
“Theo instructed me not to.”
“He died.”
“Yes.”
“And you continued following his instruction.”
“Yes.”
The word makes something in her colder.
“Why are you here now?”
“Because the threat has changed.”
“That is not the whole answer.”
No. The whole answer began the first time Theo played a recording of Elise at my office and asked what it would cost to keep her alive without her knowing she was in danger.
The whole answer continued after the crash, after the memorial, after seven years of watching entrances instead of approaching her.
“Your apartment has been breached,” I say. “We need to leave.”
“You avoided the question.”
“Yes.”
She looks toward the exit.
“Then do one thing honestly. Ask me to come with you.”
I force the words through the part of me built for orders.
“Elise, will you get in the car?”
She holds my gaze.
“Yes.”