CHAPTER 6
NOLAN
Elise does not touch the piano.
She stands close enough that the toes of her shoes nearly meet the brass pedals, but her hands remain at her sides. The injured one is wrapped in white, four stitches hidden beneath the dressing. The other is closed around the strap of her handbag.
Seven years ago, I selected the instrument because the sound was warm without being soft.
I did not imagine telling her that while wearing her ring.
“For me,” she repeats.
“It was for you.”
“You bought a piano for a woman you had never met.”
“I had met you.”
Her attention lifts from the keys. “When?”
“At Theo’s memorial.”
I watched from the back of the church because Malcolm had instructed security to remain invisible.
Elise stood beside the closed casket in a black dress that did not fit correctly across the shoulders, as though someone had bought it while she was still in Vienna and guessed.
Everyone who approached her took both her hands.
She allowed it until the pianist began playing the piece Theo had requested years earlier for their father’s funeral.
Then Elise pulled her hands free. I remember thinking grief looked different on her than it did on Theo. His had been restless. Angry. He had made calls, broken promises, driven too fast. Elise became still enough that every person around her moved more carefully.
“You were at the memorial,” she says.
“I was.”
“Did you speak to me?”
“I stayed at the back.”
“Did you want to?”
The question has no useful answer.
“I was working.”
Her gaze drops to the ring on my hand.
“That seems to be the answer to most things.”
She turns away from the piano and walks toward the windows. Winter has left the garden colorless, bare branches crossing the darkening sky. Beyond the trees, the stone wall hides the road.
The room was designed to be quiet. Double glass, insulated walls, thick rug beneath the seating area. I wanted her to have a place where exterior movement would not reach her. Now the quiet feels arranged.
“What else did you buy?” she asks.
“For you?”
“Anything chosen specifically for me.”
“Nothing.”
It is technically true. The blanket, tea, and bottled water were replaced today by Jonah after I told him she was coming.
The bench was adjusted based on measurements from public rehearsal photographs.
The piano was the only permanent object.
Elise looks over her shoulder. “You know what tea I drink.”
“That is not difficult information to obtain.”
“Neither is my shoe size, apparently.”
“Tessa asked Miriam about the ring.”
“And the dress bag was already upstairs.”
“Jonah collected it from your apartment after you packed.”
She studies my face, searching for the boundary between preparation and surveillance. There is one. I have maintained it carefully enough to convince myself it matters.
“No cameras in here?” she asks.
“Not in this room.”
“In my bedroom?”
“Not there either.”
“The hall?”
“The hall is covered.”
“Can I see where?”
“Now?”
“I can show you now.”
Her exhaustion is visible in the slight delay before she straightens.
She should sleep. She has been awake since before six, received two manufactured messages from her dead brother and herself, had her hand cut open, learned her home was entered, negotiated a marriage, and faced cameras outside a municipal building.
I want to tell her the security review can wait.
The contract says I do not decide that alone.
“Yes,” I say.
I show her the house. Not all of it. The lower level includes operations rooms she does not need tonight and storage she has no reason to enter.
I show her the areas that affect her privacy: the upstairs corridor, the stairwell, main entry, kitchen, library, sitting room, terrace doors, and garage passage. She makes me point to every camera.
The hallway outside her room has one positioned toward the stairs. It does not face her door. She checks the angle herself.
“Audio?”
“None inside the house.”
“None?”
“Security cameras record images only. Exterior microphones activate with broken glass or forced entry.”
She looks up at the small black lens above the landing. “Can Mae watch this live?”
“Mae can.”
“Can you?”
“I have access.”
“Will you?”
“When there is an alert.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I stop at the foot of the stairs. The truth would be that I have watched far more useless feeds than necessary when she was under external coverage.
Hotel entrances. Conservatory hallways. The street outside her apartment.
Never private space. Never a bedroom. But enough to know what coat she reached for when it rained and how often she returned home after midnight.
“I will not use the cameras to watch your routine,” I say.
“You have before.”
“Not inside this house.”
Her mouth tightens.
“That is not an answer I should find reassuring.”
“It should not reassure you.”
She looks surprised that I agree. I lead her toward the kitchen. The room is warmer than the rest of the house. I left a pan on low heat before we went upstairs, and the smell of rosemary and chicken has settled into the air. Elise pauses at the entrance.
“You cook.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Food.”
She blinks. The answer was not intended as humor. The small movement at one corner of her mouth suggests it became humor anyway.
“I assumed men who own security companies had people for this.”
“I have people for the company.”
“And nobody for the house?”
“A housekeeper comes twice a week.”
“You live alone in a secured building and cook for yourself.”
“That is accurate.”
“That sounds less like wealth and more like a complicated punishment.”
I turn off the burner before the sauce reduces too far.
“I did not know what you eat after a performance.”
“Usually whatever Miriam puts in front of me.”
“This is not a performance day.”
“No. It was only the day I almost lost my hand and married a stranger.”
Her tone remains even. The words do not. I set the spoon down.
“You did not almost lose your hand.”
Her eyes go cold. There are moments when accuracy becomes cruelty. I recognize this one after speaking.
“The mechanism missed the tendon,” I add, and make it worse.
Elise looks toward the table. “I am aware of the medical details.” I should apologize. Instead, I plate the food because it is the task nearest my hands.
When I face her again, she has moved to a chair but has not sat. Her left hand rests on the back, fingers spread against the wood.
“I know what you meant,” I say.
“No, you know what happened.”
The distinction stays between us. I place a plate at the seat farthest from the entry so she can see both doors. The choice is automatic. She notices.
“Do you always seat people according to which direction danger might arrive?”
“I do.”
“What if I want to sit there?”
She points to the chair with its back partly toward the kitchen entrance.
“Then you sit there.”
“And you spend dinner looking over my shoulder.”
“Until I know the room is secure.”
For the first time since we entered the house, her expression softens without becoming vulnerable.
She sits in the safer chair. Not because I told her to.
The difference matters more than it should.
I serve water. The bottle cap resists beneath my fingers.
Elise watches as I loosen it, then close it lightly before placing the bottle beside her.
“What was that?”
“The seal was tight.”
“My left hand works.”
“I know it does.”
“Then why?”
I look at the dressing on her right hand. She follows my gaze and understands. A flush moves slowly across her face. Not embarrassment exactly. Anger may be part of it, but not all.
“I can ask,” she says.
“You can.”
“You didn’t give me the opportunity.”
“I did not.”
I take the bottle back and set an unopened one beside her instead. Her gaze remains on it. The correction does not satisfy either of us. Dinner begins in silence.
Elise cuts the chicken with her left hand, slower than usual. She refuses assistance and does not complain. After several minutes, she places the knife down.
“This is good.”
“Thank you.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am not.”
“Then you have a strange way of accepting praise.”
“I don’t receive much praise for chicken.”
She lets out a short breath that might be a laugh. I look at my plate before she can see that the sound has affected me.
Her phone is with Mae for examination, so the only device on the table is mine. It vibrates twice. I leave it facedown.
“You can answer,” Elise says.
“It can wait.”
“What if it concerns the apartment?”
“Mae will call the house line if it is urgent.”
“You arranged that?”
“I arranged it.”
“When?”
“On the drive.”
Her fork stops. I have altered the method by which information reaches her without asking. It is minor, reasonable, and exactly the pattern she warned me against.
“You keep doing it,” she says.
“I redirected urgent calls to a secure line.”
“You could have told me.”
“I should have.”
“You admit it as if admission is repair.”
I look at her. She is no longer eating.
“I am not practiced at explaining decisions before I make them.”
“I noticed.”
“I will tell you next time.”
“Before or after?”
“Before, when possible.”
Her eyes narrow. “That phrase is carrying too much weight.”
“I cannot promise there will always be time.”
“You can promise not to use urgency when the real reason is convenience.”
The answer is simple. It still takes me too long.
“I can promise that.”
She picks up her fork again. The conversation is not resolved. But she remains at the table. After dinner, I show her the alarm controls and the exterior doors. She refuses to wear a tracker.
“It is removable,” I say.
“That does not make it less of a tracker.”
“It allows the team to locate you if you activate an alert.”
“I already agreed to the emergency button.”
“The tracker gives a precise location.”
“The button can remain in my bag.”
“You do not always carry your bag.”
Her attention sharpens. “How do you know?” Public photographs. Rehearsal footage. Security observations. The safe answer is that most people do not carry bags inside their homes. The honest answer is worse.
“I’ve seen you leave it in rehearsal rooms.”
“How many times?”
“Enough to know it is not reliable protection.”
She looks toward the windows. The room has become too controlled again. I set the tracker on the counter. “The button is sufficient tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“We can discuss the rest later.”
“No. We can discuss it if I ask.”
I nod. She picks up the small emergency device and examines it. No larger than a car remote, a single recessed button on one side.
“What happens when I press it?”
“Once sends an alert. Twice indicates immediate physical danger. Hold it for three seconds and the police are contacted automatically.”
“Does it record?”
“It does not record.”
“Can it be triggered accidentally?”
“It requires pressure.”
She places it in her handbag. The clock above the pantry shows ten eighteen.
“You need medication,” I say.
“I remember what the doctor said.”
“Did the doctor prescribe anything stronger?”
“Nothing stronger.”
“Do you have the anti-inflammatory she recommended?”
“I brought it.”
“Where?”
“In my bag.”
She looks at me before I can offer to retrieve it.
“I can manage that portion of the evening.”
“I know.”
The repetition sounds different this time.
Less like contradiction. More like effort.
Elise leaves the kitchen. I clean because the alternative is following her upstairs to ensure she takes the medication.
I rinse plates, store leftovers, wipe a counter already clean. Her footsteps cross the second floor.
The hallway camera shows movement on the small wall panel, a silent figure passing from bedroom to sitting room. I turn the screen off. At eleven, music enters the house. One careful chord. Then another. I leave the kitchen and stop outside the sitting room.
Elise sits at the piano without a coat now, wearing dark trousers and a pale blouse with the sleeves folded above her wrists.
Her hair has come loose completely, falling over one shoulder.
The injured hand rests in her lap. She plays with the left hand only.
A quiet pattern. Nothing written on the stand. I recognize it after the third phrase.
Theo played the same melody on my office desk while refusing to answer questions about a threat he considered less urgent than his financial investigation. He could not carry a tune. The rhythm was worse. Elise stops.
“What is it?” she asks without turning.
I step into the doorway. “Nothing.”
“You recognized it.”
“I knew the sonata.”
Her head turns. The room light catches the gray-green of her eyes, making them appear lighter than they did in the conservatory.
“How?”
“Theo liked it.”
“Everybody likes it.”
“He tapped it when he was avoiding a question.”
Her lips part. She understands the music was not random; it was a test.
“What question?”
“Who had access to the financial records he was reviewing.”
“And did he answer?”
“Theo never answered.”
She looks back at the keys. “That sounds like him.” There is affection in the sentence and anger beneath it.
I do not enter farther. Elise places her left hand on the keyboard again.
She plays the melody from the beginning.
This time, at the end of the phrase, she changes one note.
The wrong pitch is subtle, chosen carefully enough that someone only familiar with the melody might accept it. I hear it.
She waits.
“You changed the last note,” I say.
Her shoulders shift. Not surprise. Confirmation.
“You do listen.”
“I do.”
She lets the corrected note sound once.
The string vibrates after her hand lifts, filling the room until the note becomes too quiet to separate from the house.