Chapter 3 - THE HOLLOW END
Daniel refused to answer questions inside Room 1708.
He insisted Emily return to Blackwood House.
Emily refused.
Their argument lasted until Detective Torres intervened.
“She needs medical attention anyway.”
That ended it.
Emily’s bruised elbow was examined at a private clinic.
Nothing was broken.
The injury would heal.
Her mother’s violin would not.
At least that was what Emily believed until Raymond introduced them to Samuel Price.
Samuel owned a tiny violin restoration shop near Beacon Hill.
He was seventy-three.
His hands trembled slightly when he poured coffee.
They became perfectly still when he touched an instrument.
Emily laid the shattered violin pieces on his worktable.
Samuel stopped breathing.
“Where did you get this?”
“It belonged to my mother.”
“What was her name?”
“Grace Blackwood.”
Samuel slowly sat.
Daniel noticed.
“You knew her.”
Samuel looked at the violin.
“I repaired this instrument for twenty-two years.”
Emily leaned closer.
“You knew my mom?”
“She came here when she was sixteen.”
Samuel smiled sadly.
“She couldn’t afford repairs then.”
Emily glanced at Daniel.
Her father looked surprised too.
The Blackwoods had money.
Grace had not.
Before marrying Daniel, she had been the scholarship student who arrived at conservatory carrying sandwiches wrapped in paper towels.
Samuel examined the pieces beneath a magnifying lamp.
His expression changed.
“This has been opened.”
Daniel looked toward him.
“What?”
Samuel turned the base.
“Recently.”
Emily pointed to the missing endpin.
“A woman took the brass piece.”
Samuel nodded.
“The endpin wasn’t decorative.”
He showed them a narrow drilled channel.
“It was hollow.”
Raymond leaned closer.
“Large enough for what?”
“A rolled strip of paper.”
“A key?”
“Possibly.”
Emily remembered Grace replacing it.
Some things deserve a better lock.
Samuel removed a fragment near the tailpiece.
Then another.
Beneath the varnish was something Grace had etched directly into the wood.
Three notes.
E.
A.
D.
Emily frowned.
“That isn’t a melody.”
Samuel turned the fragment.
On the opposite side were three more notes.
G.
B.
E.
Emily whispered the letters.
“EADGBE.”
Samuel smiled faintly.
“Guitar tuning.”
“But Mom played violin.”
“Exactly.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“So why put guitar tuning inside a violin?”
Samuel looked at Emily.
“Because she didn’t want another violinist to understand it.”
Emily studied the letters.
Six strings.
Not four.
Then she remembered something.
Her mother had owned a guitar too.
An old one she never played.
It had disappeared after the funeral.
“Dad.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What happened to Mom’s guitar?”
He frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“It was in the music room.”
“Most of her instruments went to the foundation.”
“Which foundation?”
Daniel’s eyes hardened.
“The Grace Blackwood Arts Foundation.”
“Who runs it?”
He already knew why she was asking.
“My sister.”
Aunt Lydia.
The person Emily trusted almost as much as her father.
Samuel continued examining the violin.
He found another mark.
Not letters this time.
A date.
APRIL 14.
4/14.
Daniel stared.
Four-one-four.
Detective Torres was called.
Foundation records were searched.
On April 14, three years earlier, Grace had performed at a private fundraiser inside the Grand Halcyon.
Twenty-six days before her fatal crash.
The event had raised fourteen million dollars for youth music programs.
But when Torres examined banking records, only nine million could immediately be traced to charitable accounts.
Five million dollars had vanished.
Daniel stood by the window of Samuel’s shop.
“My sister handled the finances.”
Emily studied him.
“You think Aunt Lydia stole money?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You thought it.”
Daniel turned.
“My sister loved your mother.”
“Did Mom love her?”
He hesitated.
Emily noticed.
Another lie hiding behind silence.
Raymond’s phone rang.
He stepped outside.
When he returned, he was holding a printed photograph.
“Evelyn Cross woke up.”
Emily stood.
“What did she say?”
“She claims someone attacked her in Room 1708.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t see their face.”
Daniel looked at the photograph.
“What is that?”
Raymond placed it on Samuel’s table.
Hospital staff had found it inside Evelyn’s jacket.
A security still.
The image showed Grace entering the Grand Halcyon three years earlier.
Beside her was another woman.
Lydia Blackwood.
Emily’s aunt.
But the photograph itself was not what frightened Daniel.
May you like
Written across the bottom in Grace’s handwriting were six words.
IF I DIE, DO NOT TRUST LYDIA.
