Chapter 16 - The Song in the Wall
The code opened nothing obvious.
Not the safe.
Not the alarm panel.
Not Peter’s steel box.
Renee walked through Hawthorne Ridge humming the six notes.
She stopped in the library.
An old upright piano had come with the house because it was too expensive to remove during staging.
Sophie loved banging on it.
Renee stared.
“My father played.”
Andrew lifted the fallboard.
Six keys had tiny scratches near their edges.
Renee translated the numbers into notes using Peter’s childish numbering system from the rain song.
She played them.
Nothing happened.
Then Sophie said, “Again.”
Renee did.
On the final note, a mechanical click sounded inside the wall.
Andrew pulled aside a narrow panel beneath the keyboard.
A compartment opened.
Inside was one cassette.
Renee covered her mouth.
Label:
FOR EVELYN AND MARA.
They took it to Rachel’s office.
Nobody listened alone.
Peter Keene’s voice emerged through static.
“Mara, if you ever hear this, you are probably old enough to be angry with me.”
Renee broke immediately.
Andrew held her hand.
Peter continued.
“I made choices I cannot defend. I told myself I was protecting your mother and you, but fear turned me into an accomplice.”
He described Charles’s fraud.
Thomas’s attempt to expose him.
Gabriel’s surveillance.
Then Peter said something none of them expected.
“Hawthorne Ridge belongs to you only if you want it. Your grandmother placed it in trust. Charles tried to seize it because one of the earliest fraudulent transfers is documented in the title chain.”
Renee looked at Andrew.
Peter’s voice continued.
“But the house is not the important inheritance.”
He coughed.
“The important inheritance is the truth that I should have told sooner.”
Then:
“Charles believes the money is the secret. It isn’t.”
Andrew leaned closer.
“His secret is that the first money did not come from Bennett Development.”
Peter named a charity.
The Halcyon Children’s Foundation.
Andrew knew it.
His grandmother had established it.
Peter explained that Charles diverted nearly four million dollars from the foundation through fake construction grants, then used it to acquire properties.
The later eighteen-million-dollar fraud had been designed partly to cover the earlier theft.
Renee whispered, “He stole from his mother’s charity.”
Peter continued.
“There is one person who can prove the original transfer.”
A name.
Margaret Bennett.
Andrew closed his eyes.
Again.
Peter said Margaret had been treasurer of Halcyon at the time.
She signed the transfer.
She later claimed she did not understand the transaction.
Peter did not know whether that was true.
The tape ended with a message to Renee.
“I hope you choose a life larger than what happened to me.”
Then a softer line:
“And if you still remember the rain song, tell your mother I never forgot the second verse.”
The tape clicked off.
Renee sobbed.
Andrew embraced her.
Rachel gave them time.
Eventually Andrew said, “We have to ask Mom.”
Renee nodded.
But they did not need to.
Margaret called first.
Her voice was shaking.
“Andrew, Julian is here.”
“What?”
“At my house.”
“Is he threatening you?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“He brought someone.”
“Who?”
May you like
Margaret whispered:
“Gabriel.”
