Chapter 2 - The Song Elena Left Behind
Damon locked the study door.
Mrs. Whitfield noticed.
“So this is an interrogation now?”
“No,” Damon said quietly. “It becomes an interrogation if you lie.”
Naomi stood near the sofa holding Zuri.
“I should take my daughter upstairs.”
“No.”
Naomi stiffened.
Damon softened his voice.
“Please. Stay.”
He looked toward Zuri.
“She knows something none of us do.”
Mrs. Whitfield slowly lowered herself into a chair.
Damon had known Margaret Whitfield for eleven years.
She had been there when Elena hosted Christmas parties.
She had been there when Damon buried his wife.
She had watched him transform from a husband who occasionally laughed into a man whose life consisted of meetings, acquisitions, and empty dinners.
He trusted her.
Or he had.
“Tell me about the recording,” Damon said.
Mrs. Whitfield looked toward the window.
“Elena made it six weeks before she died.”
“I know.”
“No. You know about one recording.”
Damon stared at her.
“There were more?”
“Several.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
He sat down.
Elena had been ill for months, but she hated speaking as if death were certain. Damon had respected that.
Perhaps too much.
She had secretly recorded messages for him.
He knew of only one.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“It’s the truth.”
Mrs. Whitfield folded her hands.
“Elena gave them to someone else.”
“Who?”
“She never told me.”
Damon’s frustration sharpened.
“Then what do you know?”
Mrs. Whitfield hesitated.
“Elena was worried about you.”
“I was her husband.”
“Not about your grief.”
That silenced him.
“She believed something was happening inside Ashford Holdings.”
Damon frowned.
“What?”
“She wouldn’t tell me specifics. She said there were financial records she didn’t trust and people around you she didn’t trust.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
“She tried.”
Damon shook his head.
“No.”
“She said you dismissed it.”
The accusation landed painfully because Damon remembered.
Near the end of Elena’s illness, she had become concerned about several charitable accounts administered through the Ashford Foundation.
Damon had promised to investigate.
Then Elena’s condition worsened.
Everything else became irrelevant.
After her death, Damon forgot.
“You’re saying the recordings were about company finances?”
“Some of them.”
“And the others?”
Mrs. Whitfield looked toward the velvet box.
“You.”
Damon’s jaw tightened.
“Why hide them?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you knew they existed.”
“Yes.”
“Why never tell me?”
“Because Elena made me promise.”
Damon laughed once, without humor.
“That makes no sense.”
“She said you had to find them when you were ready.”
“And who decides when I’m ready?”
Mrs. Whitfield looked at Zuri.
“Apparently she does.”
Everyone turned.
Zuri was playing with her mother’s apron.
Damon crouched.
“Zuri?”
She looked at him.
“Where did you hear the song?”
“At home.”
Naomi frowned.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“The box.”
Naomi’s expression changed.
“What box?”
Zuri thought.
“Pretty box.”
Naomi stared at her daughter.
Then she looked at Damon.
“I think I know what she means.”
They left the study together.
Twenty minutes later, Damon Ashford entered a part of the city he normally experienced only through tinted windows.
Naomi lived in a modest second-floor apartment.
She apologized for the clutter.
Damon barely noticed it.
Zuri ran toward a bedroom.
“Here!”
She emerged dragging an old wooden music box.
Damon stopped.
He recognized it immediately.
Elena’s.
A small rosewood box with tiny brass stars decorating the lid.
He had bought it for her in Boston during their first year of marriage.
“How did you get this?”
Naomi stared at it.
“I bought it.”
“Where?”
“A church rummage sale about two months ago.”
Damon took it carefully.
He opened the lid.
Four notes played.
The melody.
Zuri smiled.
“Sad lady.”
Damon searched the box.
Nothing.
Then he noticed a tiny seam beneath the velvet lining.
He removed the tray.
Underneath lay a folded piece of paper.
His name was written across it.
Damon.
Elena’s handwriting.
His knees nearly failed.
He unfolded it.
The note contained only three sentences.
Damon,
If this reaches you, the lion has already shown you where to begin.
Don’t trust the numbers until you find the seven pieces.
E.
Damon read it twice.
Then a third time.
Naomi whispered, “Seven recordings.”
“Maybe.”
Something fell from the folded note.
A tiny brass key.
Zuri picked it up.
“Mine.”
Damon almost smiled.
“No, Boss. I think I need that.”
Zuri considered his request before surrendering it.
Naomi covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.
For a moment, something unexpected happened.
Damon laughed.
A real laugh.
It startled him.
Then his phone rang.
His security chief, Marcus Reed.
“Sir, we have a problem.”
“What kind?”
“Someone accessed the security archive at the estate.”
“When?”
“Eight minutes ago.”
Damon’s amusement disappeared.
“What did they access?”
“The study cameras.”
He looked at Naomi.
Someone knew they had found the ring.
“Can you identify them?”
“Not yet.”
Marcus paused.
“But whoever did it deleted three years of archived footage.”
Damon looked down at Elena’s note.
Don’t trust the numbers.
“Lock down my financial servers.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
He ended the call.
Naomi stared at him.
“You think somebody is watching?”
“Yes.”
“Why would anyone care about an old music box?”
Damon looked toward Zuri.
The toddler had climbed onto the couch and was examining the brass key.
He suddenly understood something.
“They don’t care about the box.”
He took the key gently from her.
“They care about what Elena hid.”
Naomi lowered her voice.
“And if someone has been hiding it for three years?”
Damon stared at his dead wife’s handwriting.
“Then they’ve had three years to prepare for the day I found it.”
His phone buzzed again.
A text from Marcus.
FOUND SOMETHING.
Damon opened the attached security still.
A figure had entered the restricted archive room.
The image was grainy, but the face was unmistakable.
Damon stared.
Naomi stepped beside him.
“Do you know him?”
“Yes.”
Damon’s voice became almost inaudible.
It was his younger brother.
Richard Ashford.
May you like
And suddenly Elena’s warning felt far more dangerous than grief.
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