Chapter 3 - The Broken Music Box
By six o'clock that evening, the sky over Manhattan had turned the color of bruised plums. Rain began to streak down the floor-to-ceiling glass of the penthouse, blurring the twinkling lights of the city below into long, liquid smears of gold and red.
In the executive suite of James Holdings on 57th Street, Vance Hastings sat across from Andrew’s empty desk, his polished leather shoes resting on the glass coffee table. Vance was fifty-two, a man built like a broadsword, with silver hair, a sixty-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe watch, and a ruthless legal mind that had helped Andrew build his four-billion-dollar investment portfolio.
He was also Emma’s older brother.
“He didn't show up for the closing, Marcus?” Vance asked, his voice sharp with disbelief as he looked at Marcus Cole, who stood by the window holding a leather folder.
“Andrew pulled himself off the afternoon schedule,” Marcus replied flatly. “He’s at the penthouse.”
Vance let out a harsh, contemptuous laugh. “The penthouse? He missed a hundred-and-eighty-million-dollar signature to sit in an empty apartment with a kid who doesn't speak? What the hell is happening to him?”
“He’s grieving, Vance,” Marcus said quietly. “It’s only been three months.”
“We are all grieving!” Vance snapped, swinging his legs off the table and standing up. He buttoned his double-breasted suit coat with a violent snap. “Emma was my sister! I loved her just as much as he did! But business doesn't stop because a driver hit a patch of black ice on the Taconic Parkway! The board is getting restless, Marcus. If Andrew can't execute the Hastings Logistics merger by Friday, they are going to vote to temporarily reassign his voting proxy to me.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Andrew still holds fifty-one percent of the founder shares, Vance. You can't strip his proxy without a medical declaration of incompetence.”
Vance stepped close to Marcus, his face inches away. “Have you looked at him lately? He looks like a ghost. He hasn't slept in a month. If he misses one more major board deadline, I won't have to declare him incompetent—the SEC will do it for me.”
Vance grabbed his leather briefcase from the chair. “Where’s the background check he asked you to run on the new housekeeper?”
Marcus held the folder slightly closer to his chest. “I’m still verifying her secondary employment records.”
Vance snatched the folder out of Marcus’s hand before the security director could stop him. He flipped it open, his sharp eyes scanning the pages under the bright office lights.
When Vance reached the third page—a black-and-white copy of Elizabeth Brown’s state identification photo—his face drained of color so fast that he looked as if he had been struck by lightning.
“Vance?” Marcus asked, frowning. “What is it?”
Vance quickly slammed the folder shut, his fingers digging into the leather cover so hard the cardboard creaked. He smoothed his tie with his other hand, though his breath had become shallow and fast.
“Nothing,” Vance said, his voice forced and unnaturally thin. “It’s... it’s clean. She’s nobody. Tell Andrew to get his head out of the clouds and call me by eight tonight.”
Vance turned and walked briskly out of the office, his leather soles clicking furiously against the marble floor of the executive corridor.
Meanwhile, back at the penthouse, the atmosphere was dense with an unuttered storm.
Andrew sat on the carpet in Alex’s bedroom. The room was vast and filled with expensive, untouched wooden toys—a hand-carved rocking horse from Germany, a miniature electric train set from Switzerland, shelves of unread leather-bound children's classics.
Alex sat in the middle of the floor, holding a small silver music box.
It was a delicate antique piece—a silver heart engraved with wild rose vines that Emma had kept on her nightstand since her college days. The winding key on the bottom had been snapped off during the crash, jammed solid inside the gear mechanism. For three months, the box had sat silent on a high shelf in the master closet.
Andrew had no idea how Alex had gotten it down.
The boy was sitting with his legs crossed, pressing his small thumb against the cold metal rose vines, his lips moving in silent, rhythmic frustration as he tried to force the frozen key to turn.
“Alex,” Andrew said gently, reaching out. “Let Daddy see that. It’s broken, buddy. The key won't turn.”
Alex pulled the box back against his chest, shielding it with his arms, his eyes flashing with sudden, defensive panic. He shook his head violently.
“Alex, please,” Andrew coaxed, stepping closer on his knees. “If you give it to me, I can send it to a jeweler tomorrow. They can fix the spring—”
“No!” Alex shouted.
The word ripped through the bedroom like a jagged piece of glass. It was the first loud sound the boy had made in ninety days.
He clutched the silver box so tightly his small knuckles turned yellow. Tears flooded his dark eyes, spilling over his long eyelashes and running down his flour-dusted cheeks.
“Elizabeth!” Alex cried out, his small voice cracking with absolute desperation. “ELIZABETH!”
Andrew felt a cold, sharp spike of grief pierce his heart. His son wasn't calling for him. He wasn't reaching for his father’s arms.
Footsteps hurried down the hardwood hallway. Elizabeth appeared in the doorway, her apron removed, wearing her simple gray sweater. She took one look at Alex’s tear-stained face, knelt on the rug, and opened her arms.
Alex didn't hesitate. He scrambled into her lap, burying his face in the crook of her neck, his small body shaking with heavy, ragged sobs while his tiny hands kept the silver music box pressed between them.
“Shh,” Elizabeth whispered, rocking him back and forth with a slow, hypnotic sway. “I’m here, sweet boy. I’m right here. Nobody is taking it.”
Andrew stood up slowly, feeling like a stranger in his own son’s room. “He got it out of Emma’s closet,” Andrew said, his voice flat with pain. “It’s broken. I told him I would have it fixed.”
Elizabeth looked up at Andrew over the child’s dark hair. Her expression was not angry; it was filled with a deep, devastating pity that hurt Andrew far more than her harsh words had earlier.
“He doesn't want it fixed by a jeweler, Mr. James,” she murmured softly.
She reached down, her slender fingers gently covering Alex’s small hands on the silver box. She didn't try to pull the key. Instead, she slid her thumbnail into the thin, invisible seam along the back panel of the casing—a tiny hidden release catch that had no visible marking on the outside.
CLICK.
The bottom panel of the silver heart swung open.
Inside, tucked neatly into the tiny mechanical space beside the brass comb, was a small, folded square of blue linen paper.
Andrew’s breath stopped in his chest.
He knew that blue paper. It was the heavy, custom stationery Emma had ordered from a boutique printer in Paris six years ago.
Elizabeth did not open the paper. She gently closed the silver casing back up, pressed the box back into Alex’s hands, and kissed the top of the boy’s head.
“He didn't want the music, Mr. James,” Elizabeth whispered, looking up at Andrew with eyes that held the weight of an inescapable truth. “He wanted the letter his mother wrote him the night before she died.”
Andrew felt the room spin around him. The floor seemed to drop away beneath his feet.
“How do you know about that letter?” Andrew choked out, his voice a terrified whisper. “Emma never told anyone about a letter. I searched her desk for weeks! I searched every drawer in this house!”
Elizabeth stood up slowly, easing the sleepy, exhausted boy onto the soft duvet of his bed. She pulled the warm blanket over Alex’s shoulders and waited until his long eyelashes fluttered closed under the influence of deep, sudden exhaustion.
May you like
She turned to face Andrew, her gray eyes dark and steady in the dim amber light of the nursery lamp.
“Because, Andrew,” she said, dropping the formal 'Mr. James' for the very first time. “Emma wrote that letter while I was sitting in the room with her.”
