Part 3
Julian Ferraro had brought a folio so thin it could have held a dinner menu. He balanced it on one knee while Nico walked past the study windows and checked the latch himself.
The other three men waited: Walter beside the fireplace, Paul DeSanto near the door, Everett at the end of the desk. Paul still wore his field jacket. A scrape across his knuckles had been covered with a strip of tape.
Nico turned from the window.
“Someone knew our habits. Until we know who, nobody gets the whole investigation.”
He gave Paul the task of reconstructing the perimeter failure. Walter would account for everyone who had entered the property during the preceding three months, down to the man who sharpened the kitchen knives. Julian would trace the payment. Everett would work the brokers and hired-gun networks.
“Friday,” Nico told him. “Bring me a name by Friday.”
“You’ll have it.”
Nico gave each man a separate sheet. The working notes differed deliberately. Everett’s version placed the breach eleven minutes later than it had occurred. Paul’s included an unverified reference to a northern camera gap. Julian received a deposit estimate twice the amount Nico had reason to suspect. Walter’s visitor list contained a supplier who had never come.
If any of those details traveled back through an enemy channel, Nico would know which door it had used.
He took the sheets back before dismissing them.
Everett lingered to ask whether Hannah needed anything. Nico told him she needed the men responsible found.
“Of course,” Everett said, and left.
That night, Rosie planted herself in her bedroom doorway and folded her arms.
“He sleeps here.”
Hannah glanced at Nico, who had come up to check the floor.
Rook stood behind the child with the blue bow tie dangling sideways beneath his chin.
Nico should have objected to a dog that size climbing onto a little girl’s bed. Instead he stepped aside.
Rook settled across the foot, leaving Rosie barely enough space for her toes. She drew a blanket over his shoulder, patted it flat, and climbed beneath her own quilt.
Nico watched until Hannah lowered the light.
Downstairs, he poured two small glasses of whiskey and carried them onto the library terrace. Hannah accepted hers, turning it between her hands without drinking.
“What kind of old accounts?” he asked.
She knew what he meant.
“Years-old invoices. Payments that didn’t match what was on the books. He’d add the same column three times, as if he wanted himself to be wrong.”
“Did he name anybody?”
“No. When I asked, he’d close the folder.”
Above them, in Rosie’s bedroom, Rook lifted his head.
The child was asleep, one heel poking out from under the quilt. The dog eased himself down and went to the window. Through the lower pane, a figure moved beside the clipped evergreen hedge bordering the drive.
Rook growled, low enough not to wake her.
The figure disappeared beyond the utility building.
By breakfast, Nico had asked Hannah to bring the music box to his study.
Rosie arrived carrying it herself.
The box was made of honey-colored pearwood, its lid carved with two small birds on a branch. A brass winding key projected from the back. Rosie climbed into Nico’s desk chair, drew the box against her stomach, and inspected everyone in the room.
Julian stayed by the window. Walter stood near the door. Hannah rested a hand on the back of Rosie’s chair.
Nico crouched beside her.
“I’d like to hear it.”
“Daddy said nothing could touch the stars in here.”
“Then we’ll be careful with it.”
She thought about that, then put it on the desk and wound the key.
The first measures of Clair de Lune sounded from beneath the lifted lid. The mechanism gave a faint ticking beneath the melody. Nico kept his hands in his lap until the last note had faded.
Then he asked Rosie to show him how the lid closed.
While she explained, he examined the hinges, the joins, the lining around the mechanism. He found no loose screw, no obvious catch, no space where paper might have been slipped. The inside was as ordinary as the outside.
Rosie watched him turn it over.
“You can’t shake the stars out.”
“I won’t.”
Julian stepped closer.
“There’s a conservator across town who uses radiography on small antiques. We could have an image made without disturbing anything.”
Nico looked at Walter.
“You take it. No driver. No explanation beyond the examination.”
Rosie’s arms tightened around the box.
Walter knelt before her, his old knees cracking.
“I’ll carry it myself,” he said. “And I’ll bring every note of the tune home.”
She surrendered it with a solemnity that made nobody in the room smile.
After Walter left, Hannah remained beside the desk.
“He used to take it to work,” she said suddenly.
Nico looked up.
“Near the end. He’d put it in his briefcase, then return it before she went to bed. I asked why he kept borrowing her present.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That he liked listening to it while he ate lunch.” She looked at the square of protective felt Walter had left behind. “I complained that he’d scratch it.”
Under the desk, Rook stirred. He came out, raised his nose to the felt, and nudged it. A small whine escaped him.
Nico ran a finger along its edge.
The examination took longer than Julian had promised. Rosie ate lunch beside the study door and refused to go outside. Hannah brought her a puzzle. She fitted two pieces together, then went back to watching the hall.
Walter returned carrying the box and a large envelope.
He laid the radiograph over the desk lamp and angled it so Nico could see.
The mechanism showed clearly. Beneath it, separated from the visible floor by a narrow space, lay another layer.
Walter pointed with a blunt fingernail.
“Three millimeters of room,” he said. “And there’s metal inside…”
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