Chapter 10 - THE MUSIC BOX
By the time Julian’s men reached Maya’s apartment, the music box was gone.
Nothing else had been taken.
That was worse.
Gabriel knew exactly what he wanted.
Maya stood in the doorway looking at the wreckage.
Her old couch had been overturned.
Drawers had been ripped out.
Photographs scattered across the floor.
Julian stood behind her.
“I’m sorry.”
Maya stared at the empty shelf.
“He gave me that when I was born.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No.”
“I almost threw it away last year.”
Julian glanced at her.
“The paint was peeling.”
She laughed weakly.
“I thought it was junk.”
“Apparently your family hides international crime evidence in nursery decorations.”
She looked at him.
“Your family has a corpse quarry.”
“Fair.”
Derek entered.
“No prints.”
“Cameras?”
“Destroyed.”
“Witnesses?”
“One.”
Maya turned.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Callahan across the hall.”
Maya groaned.
Julian frowned.
“What?”
“She knows everything.”
“That is useful.”
“She also thinks I’m secretly married to you.”
Julian considered.
“Less useful.”
Mrs. Callahan was eighty-two and extremely pleased to be included in a criminal investigation.
“The handsome one came around noon.”
She told Derek.
Julian frowned.
“What handsome one?”
“The silver-haired one.”
Maya’s heart tightened.
“Gabriel?”
Mrs. Callahan shrugged.
“I don’t know his name.”
She looked at Julian.
“Not as handsome as this one.”
Maya closed her eyes.
Julian looked deeply uncomfortable.
Mrs. Callahan continued.
“He had two men.”
“What did they carry out?”
“Little wooden box.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Which direction?”
“Garage.”
Julian looked at Derek.
“Cameras?”
“Already checking.”
Mrs. Callahan leaned toward Maya.
“You should marry him.”
Maya stared.
“Mrs. Callahan.”
“He looks expensive.”
Julian coughed.
Maya pushed him toward the hallway.
“Go investigate crime.”
“I was standing still.”
“Do it elsewhere.”
For the first time in two days, Maya saw him genuinely smile.
Then Derek called from the stairwell.
“We have Gabriel’s vehicle.”
The smile vanished.
Security footage showed a black sedan entering Lower Wacker.
Then disappearing into a maintenance tunnel.
Julian knew the tunnel.
“Old freight access.”
Derek nodded.
“Leads toward the river.”
They mobilized immediately.
Daniel remained in surgery.
Rosa stayed with him.
Maya refused to remain behind.
Julian no longer argued.
He merely handed her a bulletproof vest.
She stared.
“You keep women’s sizes around?”
“I have many employees.”
“Sure.”
His eyebrow rose.
Maya flushed.
“That sounded different than I intended.”
“Very.”
“Forget I said it.”
“Impossible.”
They entered the tunnel on foot.
Water dripped from concrete.
Old tracks ran beneath their feet.
Maya stayed between Julian and Derek.
They found Gabriel’s sedan abandoned.
The rear door was open.
No music box.
Derek examined tire tracks farther ahead.
“Second vehicle.”
Julian cursed.
Maya noticed a small scrap of blue paint on the ground.
She picked it up.
“From the box.”
Julian crouched.
More flakes formed a trail.
“He opened it here.”
They followed.
Thirty yards farther, they found pieces of broken wood.
Maya’s chest tightened.
The music box had been smashed.
Derek searched the fragments.
“Nothing.”
Julian examined the metal cylinder.
“He found whatever was inside.”
Maya picked up a small photograph that had been hidden under the base.
It showed Daniel holding baby Maya.
She stared.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Julian moved beside her.
Daniel looked terrified and happy.
Maya was asleep against his chest.
On the back, Daniel had written:
My little moon.
If I disappear, remember that leaving you was never the same as choosing to go.
Maya’s eyes filled.
Julian said nothing.
He simply stood beside her.
Derek called from farther down the tunnel.
“You need to see this.”
A steel door stood open.
Beyond it was a hidden room.
Computers lined the walls.
Files covered tables.
Several screens showed live camera feeds.
Maya recognized one immediately.
Julian’s penthouse kitchen.
Another showed the hallway outside Rosa’s apartment.
Another showed the bakery.
Maya went cold.
“They were watching everything.”
Derek disconnected the feeds.
Julian examined the central computer.
“This is recent.”
Maya found a folder marked TORRES.
Inside were photographs spanning years.
Maya at thirteen.
Maya at sixteen.
Maya leaving high school.
Maya at her mother’s hospital.
Maya interviewing at the placement agency.
Maya entering Julian’s penthouse for the first time.
She felt nauseated.
“He watched me grow up.”
Julian’s face became murderous.
Derek opened another folder.
CROFT.
Photographs of Julian.
Meetings.
Restaurants.
Funerals.
Private moments.
Then Maya saw something unexpected.
A photograph of Julian standing outside a cemetery twelve years earlier.
He looked young.
Alone.
Another image showed him sitting beside his parents’ grave after midnight.
Maya looked at him.
Julian closed the folder.
“Enough.”
“No.”
Maya reopened it.
“Why?”
“I don’t need you seeing that.”
“Why?”
“Because I was twenty-three.”
“So?”
“I was not particularly stable.”
Maya’s expression softened.
“That was how old I am now.”
Julian looked away.
Maya suddenly understood why her exhaustion had affected him so deeply.
He knew what it was to be twenty-three and drowning.
He simply drowned in a different ocean.
Derek interrupted.
“Found something.”
He opened the most recent file.
A scan from inside the music box.
A tiny memory card.
Gabriel had copied it.
But another line showed an attempted decryption.
FAILED.
Maya stared.
“He can’t open it.”
“Not yet.”
“What does it need?”
Derek examined the program.
“Biometric input.”
Julian looked at Maya.
“Adrian’s letter.”
Maya’s stomach dropped.
“Only I can open the archive.”
“Yes.”
“So Gabriel still needs me.”
“Yes.”
Maya looked toward the tunnel entrance.
“Then why didn’t he just take me at the bakery?”
Julian frowned.
Derek went still.
Maya continued.
“If he needs my fingerprint or face or whatever, he could have kidnapped me.”
Julian’s expression changed.
“He needs something else.”
Derek searched the file.
The encryption protocol appeared.
Three authentication requirements.
DNA.
VOICE.
MEMORY PHRASE.
Maya frowned.
“What is a memory phrase?”
Derek read the details.
“It looks like Daniel created an audio challenge.”
Maya’s heart tightened.
“Something only I would know.”
“Apparently.”
Julian stared at the requirements.
Gabriel had Maya’s DNA easily enough from decades of surveillance.
Voice could be recorded.
But the memory phrase required an answer.
Something Daniel believed no one else could steal.
Maya whispered.
“I don’t remember him.”
Julian looked at her.
“Maybe you do.”
“I was three.”
“Memory survives strangely.”
Maya stared at the broken music box.
Blue Moon.
Home before morning.
Three years old.
A father she thought she had forgotten.
Then something came back.
Not an image.
A sound.
Daniel’s voice.
A dark bedroom.
Thunder.
Tiny Maya crying.
Her father whispering something.
Maya closed her eyes.
Julian watched.
“What?”
She pressed both hands to her temples.
“I remember a sentence.”
“What sentence?”
Maya opened her eyes.
“When the moon goes dark…”
She stopped.
Derek waited.
Julian leaned closer.
“When the moon goes dark what?”
Maya’s face went pale.
“I don’t remember the rest.”
A slow clap came from the darkness behind them.
Everyone turned.
Gabriel Croft stood at the tunnel entrance.
Older.
Silver-haired.
Calm.
Alive.
Twenty armed men surrounded him.
He smiled at Maya.
“Fortunately, sweetheart.”
May you like
His eyes were cold.
“I do.”
