Chapter 9 - The Recording in the Piano.
Victor was escorted from the property before midnight.
This time, Daniel's security team took his keys, his phone, and every access card he carried.
Daniel did not touch him.
He did not need to.
The look on his face was enough to tell everyone in the room that twenty years of loyalty had ended.
Lucas refused to let Natalie out of his sight.
Daniel did not argue.
By morning, the storm had passed, but the mansion felt more dangerous than it had during the blackout.
Not because Victor was inside it.
Because his secrets were.
Daniel gathered Evelyn and Natalie in the music room.
Lucas sat on the piano bench.
“I checked the private accounts Victor controlled,” Daniel said.
Natalie waited.
“There were payments to a courier service.”
“The letters.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
Daniel continued.
“Every letter Claire sent was redirected before it reached me.”
Lucas stared at him.
“You didn’t burn them?”
Daniel looked at his son.
“I burned the first three.”
Natalie's chest tightened.
Daniel did not look away from Lucas.
“I was afraid they could expose her location.”
“And the rest?”
“I never saw them.”
Lucas's face did not soften.
Daniel seemed to realize that partial innocence was not innocence.
He sat in the chair opposite his son.
“I made the first mistake.”
Lucas stared at the piano keys.
“And Victor made the rest?”
Daniel swallowed.
“No.”
The answer surprised Natalie.
Daniel looked toward the windows.
“I gave him the power to make them.”
Lucas's fingers moved over one piano key without pressing it.
Natalie saw a tiny strip of black tape beneath the keyboard lid.
She leaned closer.
“What is that?”
Evelyn frowned.
“I’ve never seen it.”
Natalie peeled the tape free.
A small digital recorder had been attached beneath the lid.
It was old.
The battery was dead.
Daniel took it from her.
His face changed.
“Claire used these.”
“For what?”
“She recorded music ideas.”
Lucas looked up.
“My mom played piano?”
Daniel gave a faint, broken smile.
“Badly.”
It was the first affectionate thing Natalie had heard him say about Claire.
Lucas almost smiled too.
They charged the recorder in Daniel's study.
It contained eleven audio files.
Ten were short piano fragments.
The final file was forty-seven minutes long.
Daniel hesitated before pressing play.
Claire's voice filled the room.
She sounded close enough to be standing behind them.
“Daniel, if you ever hear this, it means I was right not to trust the phones.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Lucas leaned toward the speaker.
Claire continued.
“Victor says someone is watching every route in and out of the city.”
“He says coming home will put Lucas in danger.”
“But every time I ask for proof, he gives me another reason to wait.”
Natalie looked at Daniel.
His face had gone completely still.
On the recording, Claire took a breath.
“I don’t know what you have been told about me.”
“I don’t know if you think I changed my mind.”
“I didn’t.”
Lucas covered his mouth with both hands.
“I want my son.”
The room seemed to shrink around the words.
Then Claire said something even worse.
“Victor told me you signed papers giving him authority to decide when I could contact Lucas.”
Natalie turned sharply toward Daniel.
Daniel stood.
“I never signed that.”
The recording continued.
“If that paper is real, I will fight it.”
“If it is fake, then Daniel, someone inside your house is building a wall between us.”
A sound occurred in the background of the recording.
A door opening.
Claire's voice dropped.
“Someone’s here.”
The file ended.
Daniel immediately replayed the last ten seconds.
A man's voice could barely be heard beyond Claire's words.
Natalie leaned closer to the speaker.
The voice said only one sentence.
“You should have stopped writing.”
Evelyn's face drained of color.
Daniel looked at her.
“You recognize him.”
Evelyn did not answer.
Lucas did.
“That’s not Victor.”
Everyone turned toward him.
May you like
Lucas looked terrified.
“I know that voice.”
