Chapter 4 - The Man with the Silver Ring

Marcus secured the guard in the hotel’s empty kitchen. Alexander ordered the rest of his men to stand down until he knew who had been compromised.

Lena stayed in Room 19 with the recorder. She replayed her mother’s message, listening for every breath, every pause.

“Names hidden in the music,” she murmured.

The waltz.

She sat at the piano and pressed the keys. The melody came back slowly. Her mother had always taught her to count the beats, but there had been another pattern beneath the music: three notes, a pause, two notes, then a long rest.

Lena found a sheet of music inside the piano bench. Small numbers had been written beneath selected notes.

Alexander entered quietly. “What did you find?”

“Maybe a code.”

He studied the page. “My mother used to keep ledgers in musical notation. She said it was safer than paper.”

“Your mother?”

“She died when I was a child. My father told me she was sick.”

Lena looked up. “Did you believe him?”

“I believed what I had to.”

He removed the silver ring and placed it on the piano. “My father used it to sign orders. I never asked what those orders were.”

Lena pointed to the numbers. “Can you read this?”

He leaned closer. Their shoulders nearly touched. For a moment, the room felt less like a crime scene and more like the studio Lena had lost.

Alexander decoded the first line. It was a bank name and a date. The second was a shipping container number. The third was a name: VICTORIA ROYCE.

Lena’s stomach turned.

“Your fiancée?”

“She was not supposed to be part of this.”

“People don’t end up in secret codes by accident.”

Alexander looked at the door. “Victoria’s father handled my family’s accounts. He died three years ago.”

“Maybe he didn’t take the secret with him.”

A phone rang in Marcus’s pocket. He answered, listened, then turned pale.

“Boss, the guard is dead.”

“How?”

“Someone got into the kitchen. The camera feed went dark for eleven seconds.”

Alexander’s gaze sharpened. “And the body?”

“Gone.”

Lena looked at the silver ring on the piano.

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A second line had appeared beneath the music, written in her mother’s handwriting.

IF ALEXANDER FINDS THIS, ASK HIM WHO ORDERED THE FIRE.