CHAPTER 6 — The Three Music Boxes
CHAPTER 6 — The Three Music Boxes
Margaret lived twenty minutes from the Whitmore estate.
Alexander arrived with Clara and two security vehicles.
Amelia stood at the top of the staircase, clutching a small wooden music box against her chest.
She had Eleanor’s eyes.
Alexander had seen the child many times before, but now every detail struck him differently.
The shape of her face.
The small dimple in her left cheek.
The way she tilted her head when frightened.
All of it belonged to Eleanor.
Margaret stood below her, crying.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “Vanessa told me the mother had abandoned her.”
Alexander could barely speak.
“May I talk to Amelia?”
Margaret nodded.
He walked slowly up the stairs and knelt several feet from the child.
“Hello, Amelia.”
She stared at him.
“Aunt Vanessa said you might come.”
“What else did she say?”
“That you want to take me away.”
Alexander’s chest tightened.
“I want to know the truth. I won’t force you to go anywhere tonight.”
Amelia looked at Clara.
“Who is she?”
Clara’s eyes filled with tears.
“My name is Clara.”
Amelia glanced down at the music box.
“You know the song.”
Clara nodded.
“My mother taught it to me.”
Amelia opened the lid.
The same lullaby floated into the hallway.
Margaret gasped.
“Vanessa gave that to us when Amelia was a baby.”
Alexander examined the box.
Three initials were carved beneath it.
E.B.W.
Eleanor Bennett Whitmore.
“She made three of them,” Clara whispered.
“One for each child she hoped to have someday.”
Alexander looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“My mother kept the original design.”
Clara removed a folded page from her bag.
It showed three identical music boxes.
Each contained a hidden compartment beneath the rotating figure.
Alexander opened Amelia’s box carefully.
Inside was a tiny brass key.
Margaret stared at it.
“I never knew that was there.”
Clara turned the key over.
A number was engraved along the side.
Alexander’s security chief recognized it immediately.
“Safe-deposit box number.”
“At which bank?” Alexander asked.
Clara remembered something.
“My mother kept old receipts from Hawthorne Trust.”
Alexander stood.
“We go there in the morning.”
A loud crash came from the back of the house.
One of the guards shouted.
Alexander rushed downstairs.
The kitchen door stood open.
A black vehicle sped away from the driveway.
On the floor lay a security guard, unconscious.
Margaret ran to the staircase.
“Amelia!”
The child was gone.
Her music box lay shattered on the floor.
Beside it was a note written in Vanessa’s handwriting.
May you like
Bring Clara to Blackwater.
Come alone if you want your daughter alive.
