Chapter 5 - The Voice Inside the Music Box
Emily nearly dropped the music box.
Find me.
Not avenge me.
Not discover what happened to me.
Find me.
Richard replayed the recording three times.
Michael’s voice was unmistakable, but the message did not include a date. It might have been recorded months before the accident, when Michael feared financial betrayal rather than death.
Nora examined the mechanism.
“The speaker is new,” she said. “Someone recently installed it inside the original box.”
Richard looked toward his security chief.
“Where was the courier recorded?”
“He approached from the west side. Baseball cap, hood, no visible face. He left the package and walked toward Beacon Street.”
“Find every camera between here and the river.”
The security chief left.
Emily remained beside the table.
“Michael knew someone would empty the bank box.”
“He knew someone was watching him,” Richard replied.
“He said to find him.”
“He may have meant finding evidence he concealed.”
“You do not believe that.”
Richard did not answer.
Lily entered the room holding Ava’s stuffed rabbit.
“Was that Daddy’s voice?”
Emily closed the music box.
“It was an old recording.”
“Is Daddy alive?”
The question silenced every adult in the room.
Emily knelt in front of her daughter.
“We do not know anything new about what happened to Daddy.”
“But he said find me.”
“He may have been talking about a hiding place.”
Lily looked unconvinced.
Michael had never spoken to his children as though they were too young to understand. Emily did not want to begin lying to them now.
“We are going to investigate,” she said. “And I promise I will tell you when we know the truth.”
Lily nodded and returned upstairs.
Richard waited until she was gone.
“You should prepare yourself for the possibility that the recording was designed to manipulate you.”
“By Margaret?”
“Or by the person who stole the bank documents.”
Emily opened the box again.
Inside the lid were three carved birds. One had been broken off before the package arrived.
She ran her finger across the empty space.
“The broken bird is a message.”
Richard studied it.
“What kind of message?”
“Michael used to call the girls his little birds.”
“Then one missing bird could be a threat.”
Emily’s face tightened.
Richard immediately regretted saying it.
Before he could apologize, Nora discovered a narrow compartment beneath the velvet lining.
Inside was a strip of paper bearing a sequence of numbers.
14, 9, 7, 8, 20.
“Coordinates?” Nora asked.
Richard shook his head.
“Letters.”
Fourteen was N. Nine was I. Seven was G. Eight was H. Twenty was T.
NIGHT.
Beneath the numbers was another sequence.
18, 15, 19, 5.
ROSE.
“Night Rose,” Emily said.
She remembered the sketch inside the bank envelope.
The truth is where Mother never looks.
A rose.
“There was an old greenhouse behind the east gardens,” Richard said. “Our father called it the Night Rose House because all the flowers opened after sunset.”
“Why would Margaret never look there?”
“She hated it. My father built it for someone else.”
“Who?”
Richard’s expression became distant.
“A woman named Catherine Reed.”
Emily had never heard the name.
“Was she your father’s employee?”
“She was his first wife.”
Emily stared at him.
“I thought Margaret was his first wife.”
“That is what Margaret wanted everyone to believe.”
Richard moved toward the window.
“Our father was married before he met her. Catherine disappeared when I was six. A year later, Margaret married him and ordered every photograph of Catherine removed from the house.”
“Was Catherine your mother?”
Richard looked back at Emily.
“Yes.”
The missing branch of the Hartwell family was not Michael.
It was Richard.
That evening, Nora obtained permission from the probate court to inspect the greenhouse as part of the estate inventory.
They returned to Hartwell Manor with independent security and a court representative.
Margaret met them in the front hall.
“You will not wander through my property searching for imaginary evidence.”
“The greenhouse belongs to the family trust,” Nora replied.
“I am the executor of that trust.”
“For now.”
Margaret’s eyes moved to Emily.
“You should have stayed in the laundry room. It was the safest place in this house.”
Richard stepped between them.
“Was that a warning?”
“It was advice.”
The greenhouse stood beyond the eastern hedge, hidden beneath decades of ivy. Most of the glass panels were cracked. Dead vines twisted around rusted frames, and a stone path disappeared beneath fallen leaves.
Emily entered with Richard and Nora.
The air smelled of damp soil.
At the center of the greenhouse was a dry fountain shaped like a rose.
Richard pressed the stone petals one by one.
The fifth petal moved.
A compartment opened beneath the fountain.
Inside was a digital recorder wrapped in plastic.
Richard pressed play.
Michael’s voice emerged through the static.
“Richard, I was wrong about you.”
A pause followed.
“Mother showed me documents proving you stole from the family. I believed her. Now I know every page was false.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Michael continued.
“The girls’ trusts have been drained through accounts controlled by Julian Vale. Mother knows, but she is not the person at the top.”
A sound interrupted the recording.
Footsteps.
Michael lowered his voice.
“If anything happens to me, find the man with the gold D ring. He knows what happened to Catherine. He knows why Mother is afraid of the Night Rose House.”
The recording ended.
Nora looked toward the entrance.
“Did either of you hear someone come in?”
Richard listened.
A shadow moved behind the broken glass.
His security team ran outside.
Seconds later, one officer called out.
“There is no one here.”
Emily looked down at the recorder.
A new line had appeared on its small screen.
A file had been added remotely while they were listening.
The file was titled EMILY.
She pressed play.
May you like
A distorted voice whispered through the speaker.
“Ask Richard why Michael removed him from the will two days before the crash.”
