Chapter 8 - THE LAST ROOMFederal agents surrounded Bellavista just before sunset.
I remained in the command vehicle.
This time I didn't argue.
Seven months pregnant was not the ideal condition for hostage rescue.
Dante stayed beside me.
Victor called at 7:04.
"Where is the ledger?"
Sloan nodded.
I answered.
"Close."
"You have thirty-six minutes."
"I want proof my mother is alive."
The video feed activated.
My mother sat in the conservatory.
Her hands were bound in front of her.
She looked frightened but uninjured.
Victor stood behind her.
Then the camera shifted.
He had ripped apart sections of the wall.
"You're looking for something," I said.
"Your grandmother enjoyed hiding things."
"What?"
"Records."
"You already know about the ledger."
"Different records."
Then I understood.
Original accounting ledgers.
If Harold Price handled legal documents while Victor's father handled accounting, there might be parallel evidence.
"Grandmother kept copies."
Victor smiled.
"Smart girl."
"What makes you think they're there?"
"Because she told my father she had enough evidence to put him in prison."
My mother suddenly spoke.
"Elena, don't give him anything."
Victor grabbed her shoulder.
Dante stood.
I caught his arm.
"Sit down."
His jaw clenched.
Victor continued.
"Thirty minutes."
The call ended.
Sloan whispered with the tactical commander.
I stared at the conservatory floor plan.
Where would my grandmother hide records?
Where music sleeps.
We assumed the phrase meant piano.
It led us to the blue ledger.
But maybe there was another meaning.
Music sleeps when the instrument closes.
Or when the musician dies.
Grandfather's music.
I remembered his memorial plaque.
It had hung in the conservatory when I was young.
After renovations, it disappeared.
"There's a plaque."
Everyone looked at me.
"What?"
"My grandfather's memorial plaque. Brass. It used to hang behind the piano."
Dante leaned over the plan.
"Where?"
"West wall."
Victor had been tearing apart the east wall.
Agents could enter through the western service corridor, but Victor had a clear line of sight.
Unless there was another route.
I looked at the old architectural drawings.
Then I remembered childhood.
There was a dumbwaiter passage between the pantry and upper storage rooms.
Sealed decades ago.
"Here."
Sloan looked.
"That shaft still exists?"
"Maybe."
The tactical team inspected it.
Eight minutes later:
Confirmed.
Narrow.
But passable.
A rescue plan formed.
I hated every second.
At 7:31, Victor called again.
"Nine minutes."
"I need more time."
"No."
"The FBI won't release evidence just because I ask."
"Then your mother dies because bureaucracy moves slowly."
My mother stared at the camera.
She looked directly at me.
Then did something strange.
She started humming.
Victor snapped.
"Stop."
Mom continued.
Three notes.
Pause.
Three notes.
It was the lullaby Grandfather used to play.
Then I understood.
"Mom."
She hummed louder.
Victor slapped the phone away.
The video ended.
Dante stared at me.
"What?"
"The song."
"What about it?"
"Grandfather played it whenever we asked him to open the secret cabinet."
"What cabinet?"
I nearly laughed.
How had I forgotten?
The music cabinet.
Built into the wall beside the fireplace.
As children, Emma and I thought it held sheet music.
Grandfather would pretend it was magical.
He'd play the first three bars of the lullaby, then tap something beneath the mantel, opening a concealed panel.
"There's another compartment."
I told Sloan.
Agents relayed the information.
Victor was looking for it too.
Which meant he was distracted.
At 7:36, the tactical team entered the old dumbwaiter shaft.
At 7:38, Victor called.
"Two minutes."
I answered.
"The ledger is coming."
"No more games."
"Let my mother walk out first."
"You don't negotiate from strength."
"Neither do you."
His breathing changed.
"You have thirty seconds."
"Victor, your father is dead."
Silence.
"So is Samuel's father. You're destroying your life to protect men who aren't here."
"You know nothing about my father."
"I know he was a thief."
Dante looked at me sharply.
Good.
I wanted Victor angry.
Angry people stopped listening.
"You spoiled little—"
"You burned my house because you're terrified of a dead woman."
He shouted.
"Your grandmother destroyed my family!"
"No. Your father did."
Behind Sloan, an agent held up five fingers.
Five seconds.
I kept Victor talking.
"Grandmother just documented it."
"She blackmailed him."
"With evidence?"
"She ruined him!"
Three.
Two.
One.
The audio feed exploded with commands.
"FBI! DROP THE WEAPON!"
My mother screamed.
A crash.
Victor shouted.
Then silence.
I stopped breathing.
"Mom?"
Nothing.
"Mom!"
The command radio crackled.
"SUSPECT IN CUSTODY."
Another voice:
"HOSTAGE SECURE."
I collapsed against Dante.
He wrapped both arms around me.
This time I didn't resist.
My mother walked out of Bellavista six minutes later wrapped in a blanket.
I ran toward her despite everybody yelling at me not to run.
We collided halfway across the lawn.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed.
"For what?"
"I should have told you everything years ago."
I held her.
"We're done keeping secrets."
Behind us, agents brought Victor out in handcuffs.
He looked at me.
Not angry.
Defeated.
Then investigators opened the hidden music cabinet.
Inside were fourteen accounting books, original loan agreements, copies of forged instruments, letters between Harold Price and Victor's father, and one cassette recording made by my grandmother.
On it, two men discussed falsifying mortgage collateral.
Their voices were clear.
The records didn't merely prove Samuel and Victor inherited a criminal system.
They proved their fathers created it.
By midnight, prosecutors believed they could reconstruct nearly four decades of fraud.
And for the first time since my baby shower, I thought the nightmare might actually end.
Then, at 1:13 a.m., my body reminded me that life doesn't care about courtroom schedules.
A sharp pain wrapped around my abdomen.
I grabbed Dante's arm.
He looked down.
"Elena?"
Another pain.
Then warm liquid ran down my leg.
His face went white.
"My water just broke."
May you like
I stared at him.
"I'm only thirty-one weeks."
