Chapter 12 - The Song Rachel Left Behind
Detective Ortiz took the blue bird music box before Christopher could open it.
"Evidence first."
Emma frowned.
"It is mine."
Ortiz crouched to her height.
"You are right."
"Then why do you get it?"
"Because somebody may have hidden something inside it, and I want to make sure nobody can say later that your dad changed it."
Emma considered that.
"Grandma says Daddy changes stories."
Christopher felt the sentence hit him in the chest.
Ortiz did not look away from Emma.
"Sometimes adults say things because they want children to doubt what they know."
Emma glanced at Christopher.
"I know he is my daddy."
"Then hold on to what you know."
Emma nodded.
The forensic technician arrived within an hour.
He photographed the music box, dusted it for prints, and examined the porcelain shell under magnification.
The bottom plate showed tool marks around two screws.
Someone had opened it before.
Christopher watched through a conference room window with Naomi and Yvette.
"Why would Briggs bring it here?" Naomi asked.
"Maybe he planned to give it to Emma."
Yvette shook her head.
"He hid it beneath clothes in his bag."
Christopher looked at her.
"You searched his bag?"
"After police took him downstairs."
Naomi almost smiled.
"Remind me never to underestimate you."
Yvette did not smile back.
"I underestimated Mrs. Pierce for years."
Her voice became quiet.
"I will not make that mistake again."
The technician removed the base plate.
Inside the music mechanism was a narrow cavity that should not have existed.
He used tweezers to lift out a plastic sleeve.
A microcassette sat inside.
Christopher stopped breathing.
Yvette whispered.
"Rachel."
The cassette was old but intact.
Ortiz insisted it be copied before playback.
The process took another hour.
Christopher spent that hour with Emma.
He helped her draw a house that did not look anything like the Pierce mansion.
It had a yellow door, a crooked tree, and a dog nearly as large as the roof.
"Who lives there?" he asked.
Emma pointed to two stick figures.
"Us."
"No Grandma?"
Emma shook her head quickly.
"No Juliette?"
Another shake.
"Yvette?"
Emma added a third stick figure beside the tree.
Christopher smiled.
"Good choice."
When Ortiz returned, her expression told him the cassette contained something important.
"Emma should not hear this."
Christopher agreed.
Yvette stayed with the child while Christopher, Naomi, and Ortiz moved to a private room.
Ortiz placed a laptop on the table.
"The audio is damaged in places."
"Can it be repaired?"
"Maybe, but I want you to hear what is clear."
She pressed play.
For several seconds, there was only soft mechanical hiss.
Then Rachel Monroe's voice entered the room.
Christopher had not heard it in six years.
His eyes closed before he could stop himself.
Rachel sounded younger than he remembered.
Not because the recording had changed her.
Because grief had aged the version of her in his mind.
"If anyone finds this, my name is Rachel Monroe."
A faint sound followed.
Christopher recognized the Pierce library clock chiming in the background.
"I am recording this because Estelle Pierce threatened me tonight."
Naomi looked at Christopher.
Rachel continued.
"She knows Emma is Christopher's daughter."
Christopher's throat tightened.
"She has known since before Emma was born."
A door closed somewhere on the recording.
Rachel lowered her voice.
"She told me Christopher would lose control of Pierce Consolidated if I made the paternity public."
Static obscured several seconds.
Then Rachel returned.
"She said William had changed the family trust and that Emma would become dangerous to everyone who expected Christopher to marry inside their world."
Christopher opened his eyes.
Rachel had known about the trust before he did.
"I told her I did not want the company."
Rachel laughed bitterly on the tape.
"She said it did not matter what I wanted because the child existed."
A second voice became faintly audible.
Male.
Ortiz leaned closer.
The words were unclear.
Rachel spoke again.
"I asked why Owen Briggs was standing outside the room."
Christopher's jaw tightened.
"Estelle said he was there to make sure I understood the seriousness of the conversation."
The male voice said something.
This time one phrase was clear.
"You should listen to Mrs. Pierce."
Briggs.
Christopher recognized him instantly.
Rachel's voice shook.
"Then Estelle told me accidents happen to women who confuse love with leverage."
Christopher looked at Ortiz.
Briggs had repeated that line during interrogation.
The recording corroborated him.
Rachel continued.
"I left the house and called William."
A pause.
"He told me not to go home."
Christopher frowned.
He had never known that.
"He brought me to Lake Marlowe and showed me where he kept the trust copy."
Another burst of static.
"He told me Adrian Vale would protect the legal documents if anything happened to him."
Rachel's voice became softer.
"I asked him whether Estelle had ever hurt anyone before."
The tape went silent for nearly four seconds.
Then Rachel whispered.
"William said yes."
Naomi looked up sharply.
Christopher felt a new kind of dread.
The tape continued.
"He would not tell me who."
Rachel inhaled.
"But he told me to make a second recording and hide it somewhere Estelle would never search."
Christopher stared at the speaker.
This was the second recording.
Or so he thought.
Rachel immediately corrected him from six years in the past.
"This is not that recording."
Christopher went still.
"This is only a map to it."
Ortiz whispered.
"Damn."
Rachel's voice continued.
"The real recording contains the entire conversation from the library, including the person who came in after Briggs left."
Christopher's pulse accelerated.
"I know that person."
Rachel paused.
"Christopher trusts that person."
Static swallowed the next line.
Ortiz replayed it.
Still nothing.
The file moved on.
"If Christopher is hearing this, tell him I am sorry I did not tell him sooner."
Christopher looked down at the table.
"I wanted Emma to have a father without forcing him to choose between her and the family empire before he was ready."
His eyes burned.
Rachel had been wrong about one thing.
He should have been forced to choose sooner.
Maybe then she would still be alive.
"The real recording is where Emma heard her first song."
Christopher frowned.
Rachel repeated the clue.
"Where Emma heard her first song."
Then the cassette clicked off.
Naomi looked at Christopher.
"What does that mean?"
He did not answer.
He was remembering the day Emma was born.
Rachel had delivered at a small private maternity clinic outside the city to avoid attention.
Christopher had not been there because he still did not know the baby was his.
But he knew one person who had been.
Yvette.
He returned to the suite and found her brushing Emma's hair.
"Yvette."
She looked up.
"Where was Emma born?"
Yvette's face changed.
"St. Agnes Maternity House."
"Is it still open?"
"No."
"What happened to it?"
"It closed five years ago."
"Where did Emma hear her first song?"
Yvette stared at him.
Then her hand slowly dropped from Emma's hair.
"There was a music room in the maternity house."
Christopher felt his pulse quicken.
"What song?"
Yvette looked at Emma.
"Rachel played piano the morning after Emma was born."
"Which piano?"
"An old upright in the chapel room."
Christopher turned toward Ortiz.
She was already searching property records.
St. Agnes had been sold after closing.
The buyer was a private foundation.
Ortiz read the name aloud.
"Pierce Health Foundation."
Christopher felt cold.
Estelle had bought the building after Rachel died.
Naomi looked at him.
"She has owned the place containing Rachel's hidden evidence for five years."
Ortiz checked another record.
"Not anymore."
Christopher turned.
"What?"
"The foundation transferred the property yesterday."
"To whom?"
Ortiz stared at the screen.
"A demolition company."
The permit attached to the transfer authorized emergency structural removal.
Work was scheduled to begin at six the next morning.
May you like
Christopher looked at the clock.
They had less than eighteen hours before the room containing Rachel's final recording could be reduced to rubble.
