Chapter 5 - Smoke Without Fire
The alarm sent wedding guests pouring into the courtyard. Parents pulled children close. Adrian had lived in his father's grand house his entire life and had never seen it look so cheap: expensive flowers underfoot, frightened people pushing through narrow doors.
Ortiz kept Grant in sight. One of her officers intercepted him at the garden gate and took him aside for questioning. No one had found a fire.
"Someone wanted us outside," Tessa said.
Adrian checked on Willa and Helen. Both were safe in a police car away from the crowd. "My family hired Grant to keep us safe."
"Maybe that wasn't his job today."
They returned to the library when Ortiz allowed them. Tessa opened an email on her phone and showed Adrian a photograph of a handwritten page. It bore her mother's small, slanted writing.
When they say Walter signed, ask to see the date. He was in the mill that night. He never came out.
"My mom took this photo before she died," Tessa said. "She was scared. I thought she was paranoid."
Adrian enlarged the image. There was a second line at the bottom.
The only original is in the red music box.
"We don't have a red music box," he said.
"Your mother does. I saw it on her bedroom shelf at Christmas."
Adrian remembered it, the little velvet-lined box Alisa played when she missed her father. Gideon hated the tune. He had once told Willa to stop winding it.
"If that box holds evidence, we shouldn't touch it until Ortiz can collect it," Adrian said.
Tessa nodded. At last they stood together.
Gideon appeared at the door. "Adrian, the guests need reassurance. Go outside and tell them the wedding will be rescheduled."
"My fiancée was tied up. Your old partner wore her face. Nobody's rescheduling anything."
May you like
Gideon stared at Tessa. "You should have left old business buried."
Then he glanced at the photograph on Adrian's phone and whispered, "Mara kept the music box?"
