Chapter 5 — The Blackbird’s Key

Dante reached into his pocket.

For a moment, I thought he meant to call someone.

Instead, he took out a small brass key.

“The basement archive. Third cabinet on the left.”

I didn’t take it.

“Why did you move her things?”

“Because the storage facility had one camera and a lock anyone could force.”

“You could have told me that.”

“Yes.”

“You could have asked.”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

His jaw tightened.

“Because I’m accustomed to giving an instruction and knowing it’s been carried out.”

“I’m not one of your instructions.”

“No.”

The word came quietly.

I waited.

Dante looked down at the key.

“I saw a problem. I dealt with it. I didn’t consider what it would feel like to you.”

“They were all I had left.”

“I know.”

“You know now.”

He lifted his eyes.

“Yes.”

I took the key.

“I want an inventory. I want the storage release corrected so no one can collect anything else without speaking to me. And I want you to stop treating my belongings as evidence before you remember they belong to me.”

“I’ll have it done.”

“Ask me before doing anything else.”

He nodded.

The archive lay beneath the west wing, behind a locked door at the bottom of a narrow staircase.

Dante walked beside me, slower than usual.

“You shouldn’t be using that arm,” I said.

“I’m not.”

“You’re holding the railing.”

He removed his hand.

I resisted the urge to help him.

The room smelled of paper, cedar, and cold stone.

Shelves lined the walls. Several metal cabinets stood beneath bright ceiling lights.

The third cabinet held six cardboard boxes.

My handwriting was on every one.

I crouched beside the first.

Elena’s kitchen towels lay on top, folded exactly as I had left them. Beneath them were chipped plates, a flour tin, and the apron she had worn until the ties became thin.

I pressed the apron to my face.

It smelled of the detergent she bought because it was always on sale.

Behind me, Dante said nothing.

That helped more than anything he could have offered.

I found the music box in the fourth carton.

The blackbird on its lid had lost a little paint around one wing.

I remembered being scolded for scratching it with a fork.

My hands trembled as I lifted it.

“Is that the one?” Dante asked.

“Yes.”

I sat at the small table beneath the lights.

The winding key was stiff.

I turned it gently.

The melody began.

Dante pulled out the chair opposite me, but waited until I nodded before sitting.

I watched the blackbird.

“When the blackbird sings backward,” I whispered, “the truth opens its eyes.”

“What does that mean?”

“Elena said it once. Maybe more than once.”

I tried turning the key in reverse.

It resisted.

Dante leaned forward.

“Don’t force it.”

“I know.”

I examined the base.

One corner of the velvet lining sat higher than the others. I pressed it with my thumb, then tried the key again.

A small mechanism clicked.

The music stopped.

A narrow drawer slid from beneath the box.

Inside lay a bank key and a folded strip of paper.

Six numbers had been written in blue ink.

I stared at them.

For twenty years, I had thought this was something Elena kept because she liked the tune.

Dante didn’t touch either object.

“May I see the paper?”

I handed it to him.

He read the number.

“There’s a bank name inside the fold.”

I opened it fully.

There was also my name.

Sofia Moretti.

Written by Elena.

I knew the slope of her letters, the way she crossed a seven.

“She knew who I was.”

Dante looked at me.

“Yes.”

“She said my parents were dead.”

“I know.”

“How do you live with a child for twenty years and never tell her something like this?”

He didn’t attempt an answer.

I was grateful for that.

I photographed the key, the paper, and the open compartment with my phone.

Then I placed the originals in the small zippered pocket of my cardigan.

Dante watched me do it.

“Copies are sensible.”

“I’m learning.”

He looked toward the boxes.

“There’s something else you need to see.”

My stomach tightened.

“What?”

“Your lawyer asked us to verify the documents related to Elena’s death. Once your background records became inconsistent, my people checked those too.”

He took his phone out and showed me a scanned certificate.

I had seen it before.

I had carried a copy in my bag while visiting offices where strangers asked me to sign forms.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“The physician who signed it no longer works at the clinic listed here.”

“That happens.”

“He left three days after the certificate was issued. The address he provided to his former employer was false.”

I read the name.

Dr. Paul Merton.

I had never met him.

Elena had arranged so much before she died. The cremation. The service. Even the money for the urn.

I had thought she was trying to spare me.

“Are you saying the certificate is fake?”

“I’m saying we can’t yet establish that it’s reliable.”

“She was sick.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Her heart. She said it had become worse.”

“Did you speak to her specialist?”

“She said there was nothing they could do.”

The room seemed to become smaller.

I looked at the music box.

“She wouldn’t do that.”

Dante was silent.

“She wouldn’t let me think she was dead.”

A scrape came from the stairwell.

Dante stood.

Something in his face changed so quickly that I stopped speaking.

He moved toward me.

“Behind the cabinet. Now.”

I heard the first shot as he pushed me down.

A light shattered above the table.

I landed on my knees behind the metal cabinet, still holding the music box.

Dante drew his pistol.

Two men entered the archive.

Their faces were covered.

The nearer one fired toward the table.

Dante returned fire from beside a shelf.

The man fell backward against the doorframe.

The second ducked into the stairwell.

Dante started after him.

“Don’t leave me here!”

He stopped.

A shot struck the cabinet beside my head.

I crawled toward the wall, keeping low.

Dante fired again, forcing the attacker back.

Footsteps thundered above us.

Then Nico’s voice.

“Dante!”

“Second man. West passage.”

More running.

Dante crouched beside me.

“Are you hit?”

I shook my head.

“Look at me.”

I did.

“Are you certain?”

“My knees. I fell. That’s all.”

He checked the blood on his bandage.

A fresh spot had appeared.

“You’re bleeding again,” I said.

“It can wait.”

He reached for the music box.

I pulled it against me.

His hand stopped.

“All right,” he said.

Nico appeared in the doorway.

“He used the service exit. There was a car waiting.”

“How did he get in?”

“We’re checking.”

Dante stood.

I caught his sleeve.

“Wait.”

Beside the fallen attacker, a silver coin had rolled against the base of a shelf.

I had seen Vittorio turning one between his fingers at the gala.

I pointed.

Nico crouched, pulled on a glove, and lifted it.

A crowned wolf was stamped on one side.

He turned it over.

Words had been scratched into the metal.

THE WIFE OPENS THE VAULT.

No one spoke.

I felt the outline of the bank key through my cardigan.

Dante looked at the broken music box drawer, then toward the stairwell.

“They weren’t here to search,” I said.

His gaze returned to me.

“They knew we would find something.”

“Yes.”

I stood, though my legs shook.

“Then we don’t leave the key here. And we don’t discuss the number with anyone who doesn’t need it.”

Nico glanced at Dante.

Dante nodded.

“Exactly.”

I held the box beneath one arm.

“Tomorrow, we go to the bank.”

Dante looked at the coin in Nico’s hand.

“Tomorrow may be too late.”