Chapter 6
My anger returned slowly, not as heat but as weight.
“You knew there was a possibility the document was false before Saturday.”
Dad closed his eyes briefly.
“Yes.”
“And you still let me marry him.”
“I had less than seventy-two hours and no idea why someone had done it. Vittorio had already announced the arrangement privately. Pulling out immediately would have alerted whoever created the amendment.”
“So you used me to investigate.”
“No.”
“You absolutely did.”
“I was trying to keep you close to the one person whose interests were tied to yours.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You mean Niko.”
“Yes.”
I turned away.
The windows looked over the gardens my mother had loved.
For years I had thought the worst thing my father could do was choose his career over me.
I had never imagined he might choose a mystery.
Behind me, Niko spoke.
“You should have told her.”
Dad nodded.
“Yes.”
“Before the ceremony.”
“Yes.”
“No explanation changes that.”
“I know.”
I turned back.
My father looked smaller than I remembered.
That did not erase what he had done.
But for the first time, I believed his fear had not been about money.
“What happens now?” I asked.
Dad glanced at the journal.
“We find out what the original trust says.”
“Where is it?”
“That’s the problem.”
He looked toward the shelves.
“Your mother removed the final signed copy from her attorney’s office a week before she died. No one knows where she put it.”
Stella’s words returned to me.
Your dad asked whether your mother ever gave you a key.
“A key,” I said.
Dad looked up quickly.
“What?”
“Why did you ask Stella about a key?”
His face changed.
“You remember?”
“No. But she told me.”
He stood.
“Elizabeth wrote something in her journal.”
Niko flipped through the pages until Dad stopped him near the back.
A sentence had been underlined in blue ink.
For A., when she is old enough to understand: the truth is safest where music keeps its promises.
I read it twice.
Then I turned toward the hallway.
The piano.
We crossed the house almost at a run, though no one said anything.
The old Steinway stood beneath the staircase, polished despite years of silence.
My mother had taught me scales there.
Music keeps its promises.
I lifted the fallboard.
Nothing.
Niko crouched beside the bench.
“Did she keep music here?”
“Yes.”
I opened the bench.
Sheet music filled the compartment.
Mozart. Debussy. Chopin.
Then I saw a thin blue volume at the bottom.
My mother’s favorite collection of nocturnes.
Inside the cover, taped beneath yellowing paper, was a small brass key.
My hands trembled as I removed it.
Dad stared.
“I searched this bench.”
“You were looking for documents,” I whispered. “Not music.”
Niko examined the key.
A number was engraved along the side.
“Safe-deposit box,” he said.
Dad nodded slowly.
“There’s a private bank Elizabeth used near Grand Central.”
We went the following morning.
The bank manager led us through a quiet corridor to a private room.
Box 417 required two keys.
Mine.
And the bank’s.
When the metal drawer finally slid open, there was no fortune inside.
No diamonds.
No incriminating ledger.
Only a stack of papers tied with faded blue ribbon and two sealed letters.
One said Amelia.
The other said Niko.
My breath caught.
Niko stared at his name in my mother’s handwriting.
“She wrote to me?”
Dad seemed equally stunned.
“I didn’t know.”
I untied the ribbon.
The first document was the trust agreement.
Niko read over my shoulder.
Nothing in it required marriage.
Nothing required even friendship.
It simply named us as future joint trustees when we both reached twenty-five, with provisions allowing either heir to decline.
My father sank into a chair.
“The amendment was false.”
“Yes,” Niko said.
May you like
His voice was dangerously calm, but his anger was not directed at me.
I opened my letter.
