The Piano Built in Secret
Chapter 03 - The Piano Built in Secret
The Steinway serial records told a different story from the brass plaque.
The instrument had been purchased in 1992 by a shell company called Lantern Music Works. Two years later, the shell company donated it to Blackwood under an agreement signed by Thomas Sterling.
Ruth recognized the address.
It was the warehouse where Andrew died.
Malcolm converted the faculty lounge into a temporary evidence room. Ruth, Daniel, Sophie, Vivian, two board attorneys, and conservatory investigator Lena Ortiz gathered around the manuscript.
Lena had spent fifteen years investigating art theft before Blackwood hired her to protect rare instruments. She photographed every page before allowing anyone to touch it.
“Who had access to the piano today?” she asked.
Vivian folded her hands.
“Dozens of people.”
“Who had access to the pedal mechanism?”
“The technical staff.”
Head technician Owen Pike stood near the door. Blue wax stained the cuff of his shirt.
Lena noticed.
Owen claimed he had repaired a cello case sealed with the same wax.
Ruth asked him to remove his gloves.
A fresh cut crossed his left palm.
The black rubber block beneath the pedal contained a trace of blood.
Owen requested an attorney.
Vivian’s face remained composed, but she stopped defending him.
Daniel opened the first page of the manuscript.
A dedication had been scratched away. Under angled light, Lena recovered part of it:
For A.M., who heard the storm before I did.
Andrew Mercer.
Daniel looked at Ruth.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried when you were twelve.”
“You said Father died protecting a piano.”
“He died protecting the proof inside it.”
Ruth explained that she and Andrew discovered Thomas Sterling had copied her concerto sketches while serving as her faculty mentor. Thomas’s wife, Vivian, handled his contracts and recognized the composition’s commercial value.
Ruth planned to present her dated notebooks to the dean.
Before she could, the notebooks disappeared.
Blackwood accused her of entering Thomas’s office and stealing his work. The disciplinary panel included Vivian’s father, two Sterling Foundation attorneys, and the dean whose new concert hall depended on Sterling money.
Andrew believed the panel had already decided.
He acquired an unfinished concert grand through Lantern Music Works and built a hidden compartment beneath its soundboard. Ruth’s carbon copies, recording reels, and correspondence were meant to go inside.
The warehouse burned before he completed the transfer.
“They said everything was destroyed,” Ruth said.
Lena examined the piano frame.
Someone had modified one of the cross braces. The manuscript strip had not been hidden randomly. It marked the edge of a concealed panel.
A board attorney objected to opening it.
Malcolm authorized the examination.
Owen Pike suddenly ran.
He knocked over a chair and reached the hallway before Lena tackled him.
Inside his jacket was a remote-control transmitter.
At the same moment, smoke began rising from beneath the piano cover in the sealed concert hall.
May you like
Someone had installed an incendiary device inside the instrument.
The piano that remembered the truth was being ordered to forget again.
