Chapter 8 - THE MAN EMILY WAS TAUGHT TO HATE
Emily had only been taught to hate one person.
Her grandfather.
Not Charles Blackwood.
Her mother’s father.
Thomas Mercer.
Grace rarely spoke about him.
When she did, she described him as violent.
Controlling.
Dangerous.
According to Grace, Thomas had disappeared after years of abuse.
Emily assumed he was dead.
He wasn’t.
Detective Torres located him in Vermont.
Thomas Mercer was sixty-eight and living under another name.
When Daniel saw the photograph, his reaction was immediate.
“He stays away from Emily.”
“Why?”
“Grace was afraid of him.”
Torres folded her arms.
“Grace also left a letter implying someone she taught Emily to hate saved her.”
“That doesn’t mean Mercer.”
“Who else?”
Daniel had no answer.
Thomas agreed to meet in a police station.
Emily insisted on attending.
The man who walked into the interview room did not look like the monster she had imagined.
He walked with a cane.
One side of his face drooped from an old stroke.
He cried when he saw Emily.
“You have her eyes.”
Emily did not smile.
“My mother said you hurt her.”
Thomas nodded.
“I did.”
Daniel stiffened.
Thomas did not excuse himself.
“I drank.”
He stared at his hands.
“I hit walls.”
“Did you hit Mom?”
“Yes.”
Emily swallowed.
“Then why would she say you saved her?”
Thomas looked confused.
“She said that?”
Emily showed him the letter.
He read it twice.
Then leaned back.
“I know what she meant.”
Thomas told them about Charles Blackwood.
Years earlier, Charles had secretly approached him.
Grace had discovered someone targeting vulnerable musicians through fake scholarships.
Some were being used to move money through charitable foundations.
Charles believed the scheme touched Blackwood interests.
Thomas wanted to help Grace.
She refused.
She had forgiven him enough to speak to him, but never enough to allow him back into her life.
Still, Thomas passed information to Charles.
Together they discovered Victor Sloane had connections to several shell companies.
“But Victor wasn’t running it,” Thomas said.
“Who was?” Torres asked.
Thomas stared at Daniel.
“Charles thought it was one of his own children.”
Daniel went cold.
“Me or Lydia.”
Thomas nodded.
Emily’s chest tightened.
Thomas continued.
“Charles created the trust because he believed Grace might need resources outside your family.”
Daniel looked hurt.
“My father trusted her more than me.”
“No.”
Thomas shook his head.
“He trusted her to protect your daughter.”
Emily looked toward her father.
Thomas then gave them something Grace had mailed him one week before her death.
A music score.
Unfinished.
Grace’s handwriting covered the margins.
Emily recognized it.
Her mother’s unfinished composition.
“The Glass Room.”
She had heard Grace play fragments late at night.
Emily placed the score on the table.
The notes looked normal.
Until she noticed Grace had circled certain rests.
Not notes.
Silences.
Samuel Price’s words returned.
Sometimes the spaces matter more than the sound.
Emily wrote down the measure numbers containing circled rests.
Grand Halcyon.
Room 1708.
Then:
March 11.
The date Grace had first registered there under Margaret Bell.
Then:
A final measure.
Daniel frowned.
“Twenty-one?”
Thomas looked toward him.
“Floor?”
“The hotel only has nineteen floors.”
Emily stared at the score.
“Maybe not the hotel.”
She examined the title.
THE GLASS ROOM.
Daniel stood suddenly.
“I know what that is.”
The original Blackwood Systems headquarters had contained a conference room called the Glass Room.
It was on the twenty-first floor.
The building had been abandoned after the company moved downtown.
They searched it that night.
The twenty-first floor was dusty.
Empty.
The Glass Room still existed.
So did the wall safe behind a decorative panel.
Inside was a laptop.
Grace’s laptop.
Daniel touched it like it might burn him.
Emily opened the lid.
A password screen appeared.
She typed her mother’s favorite composition.
Wrong.
Her birthday.
Wrong.
Daniel tried their anniversary.
Wrong.
Emily thought for a moment.
Then typed:
SOME THINGS DESERVE A BETTER LOCK.
The screen opened.
There were hundreds of files.
One folder was labeled DANIEL.
Another LYDIA.
Another VICTOR.
Another RAYMOND.
And one labeled EMILY.
Emily clicked her own name.
A video appeared.
Grace filled the screen.
Alive.
Tired.
Afraid.
“My darling Emily.”
Emily covered her mouth.
“If you are watching this, then I am probably gone.”
Grace looked behind the camera as if afraid someone might enter.
“There are things your father does not know.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“There are things Lydia believes she understands but doesn’t.”
Lydia.
Again.
Grace continued.
“And there is one thing I need you to remember.”
She leaned toward the camera.
“The first person who tells you I died because of money is lying.”
The video ended.
A new sound came from behind them.
A door closing.
Raymond turned.
“Police?”
No answer.
Then gasoline fumes entered the hallway.
Torres ran toward the stairwell.
Locked.
The elevator had been disabled.
Daniel looked through the glass conference wall.
Smoke was already rising from the twentieth floor.
May you like
Someone had followed them.
And whoever it was had decided that this time, there would be no evidence left to recover.
