Chapter 7 - The Box That Wouldn’t Sing
This time, I went into Carmela’s room with Dante.
Sophia stayed with Mrs. Bell in the guesthouse.
I wasn’t bringing her back into a mystery that had already put a threat on our refrigerator.
The room smelled like closed curtains and old perfume.
Dante stood just inside the doorway.
“I haven’t been in here since the funeral.”
“You opened it yesterday.”
“I stood at the door.”
There was a difference. I could hear it.
We checked the cabinets first.
Books. Letters. A sewing kit. Receipts folded into a bowl.
Then I noticed a wooden music box on a shelf beside the window.
A small dancer stood beneath its lid.
Dante picked it up.
“It stopped working before she died.”
“Did you try to fix it?”
“She told me not to.”
Beneath the box was a tiny brass lock shaped like a star.
The key fit.
Inside the base, beneath the silent mechanism, lay a slim notebook, a flash drive, and an envelope.
On the envelope, in blue ink, were three words.
DANTE. PLEASE LISTEN.
He didn’t open it immediately.
His thumb moved over her handwriting.
I looked away.
When he finally unfolded the letter, he read the first lines without speaking.
Then his face changed.
“What?”
He handed it to me.
Dante,
If you’re reading this, I ran out of time to make you hear me in person.
Marco did not betray you.
Your brother Vittorio has been using the children’s foundation to move money. When I found the transfers, he told me you had approved them.
I don’t believe him.
But I need you to understand something: being innocent of this does not make you innocent of everything.
I stopped reading.
Dante watched me.
“Keep going.”
There were dates. Account references. Names I didn’t know.
Carmela had arranged to meet Elaine Porter on the evening of the ambush. Marco had agreed to drive her.
She had changed her plans after Dante insisted on taking her himself.
At the bottom, the handwriting grew uneven.
If something happens, don’t let your anger choose the answer before you’ve asked the question.
I looked up.
“Did Vittorio know where you were going?”
“He arranged the restaurant.”
The room seemed to shrink around us.
Dante took the letter back.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message from Luca.
MERCER NEVER LEFT THE PROPERTY.
Before Dante could answer, the lights went out.
May you like
Somewhere below us, an alarm began to ring.
Then I smelled smoke.
