Chapter 5 - The Little Girl They Tried to Erase
“The man who started the fire wanted the little girl.”
Carmine Marino's finger remained pointed at Norah.
Vincent moved between them.
“Dad, what are you saying?”
Carmine's breathing became uneven.
Norah stepped closer to the bed.
“Why would anyone want me?”
The old man tried to answer, but his throat tightened.
The nurse adjusted his oxygen.
Vincent reached for the water glass.
“Don't push yourself.”
Carmine ignored him.
“Her father,” he whispered.
Norah's hands went cold.
“My father?”
Carmine nodded.
“What about him?”
“He worked at the pier.”
Norah looked toward Vincent.
She had spent most of her life wondering whether her parents had abandoned her.
Now she was learning that her father might have been among thirty people killed in a fire.
“What was his name?”
Carmine stared at her.
“Thomas.”
Norah repeated it.
“Thomas what?”
“Reed.”
The name meant nothing.
And somehow, it meant everything.
For the first time, her father wasn't an empty space on a form.
He was a person.
Thomas Reed.
A man who had worked at Pier Nine.
“Was he one of the people who died?”
Carmine closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Norah felt her knees weaken.
Vincent pulled a chair beneath her before she fell.
Carmine whispered, “He was a good man.”
Norah looked at him.
“You knew him?”
“Yes.”
“And you locked him inside that warehouse?”
Carmine turned his face away.
The silence answered her.
Vincent took Norah into the library.
She sat on the leather couch with her father's name written on a piece of paper.
Thomas Reed.
She kept looking at it.
Vincent stood near the fireplace.
“I didn't know.”
Norah laughed bitterly.
“You keep saying that.”
He accepted the accusation.
“My family hurt yours.”
“Your family killed mine.”
Vincent lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
Norah looked at the piano visible through the open doorway.
Four nights earlier, she'd been grateful for the money.
Now she couldn't bear the thought of touching it.
“Was that why you chose me?”
Vincent looked up.
“What?”
“Did you know who my father was?”
“No.”
“Did Arthur?”
Vincent hesitated.
That was enough.
Norah stood.
“I want to leave.”
“I'll have someone take you.”
“No guards.”
“Norah—”
“No one following me. No one paying my bills. No one deciding what I can know.”
Vincent remained silent.
Then he reached into his pocket and placed his car keys on the table.
“Take my car. Nobody will stop you.”
Norah stared at him.
“You're giving me your car?”
“I'm giving you a way out without asking permission.”
She picked up the keys.
At the doorway, Vincent spoke.
“Your father deserves the truth.”
Norah turned.
“So does yours.”
Then she left.
The next morning, Norah returned to the St. Jude Hotel.
The old piano still stood in the lobby.
Middle E remained broken.
So did the G-sharp above it.
She sat on the bench and opened the music stand.
For years, the broken keys had felt like proof that nothing in her life would ever work properly.
Now she wondered whether she had spent her entire life learning to play around things that other people had deliberately damaged.
The bartender, Frank, approached.
“Thought you moved on to better things.”
Norah gave a tired smile.
“I'm not so sure.”
Frank looked at the expensive car parked outside.
“Looks better from here.”
She almost laughed.
Then she asked, “Do you remember a man named Thomas Reed?”
Frank frowned.
“Should I?”
“He worked at Pier Nine.”
The older man went still.
“That's an old name.”
“You knew him?”
Frank set down his towel.
“Everybody knew Tommy Reed. He used to play piano here on Sundays.”
Norah stared.
“My father played piano?”
Frank's expression changed.
“Your father?”
She nodded.
For a moment, he simply looked at her.
Then his eyes filled.
“Well, I'll be damned.”
He sat beside her.
“Tommy had hands like yours. Long fingers. Never rushed a song.”
Norah felt tears rising.
“Was he any good?”
“Better than this place deserved.”
Frank looked toward the battered instrument.
“He used to complain about that middle E. Even back then.”
Norah touched the dead key.
Her father had played this piano.
Before she ever entered the hotel, he'd sat on the same bench.
Frank continued.
“He had a wife. Sarah. Sweet woman. Worked nights at a diner.”
Norah could barely breathe.
“My mother?”
Frank nodded.
“They had a little girl. Nora.”
Without the h.
Norah closed her eyes.
“What happened to Sarah?”
Frank's smile disappeared.
“She died in a car accident a few months before the warehouse fire. Tommy was raising the girl alone.”
Norah pressed her hands together.
A mother lost.
A father killed.
And a childhood erased.
Frank looked around the lobby.
Then lowered his voice.
“Tommy wasn't just a dockworker.”
“What do you mean?”
“He kept records. Cargo numbers. Payment receipts. Workers who disappeared from the schedule but were still being paid.”
“Why?”
“He thought someone was using the port to move things that weren't supposed to be there.”
Norah remembered Vincent's mother discovering something about the shipping business.
“Elena Marino.”
Frank nodded slowly.
“Tommy trusted her.”
“Why?”
“She was helping him.”
Norah leaned closer.
“With what?”
Frank hesitated.
Then reached beneath the bar and removed a small leather case.
He placed it in front of her.
“I've kept this for twenty years.”
Norah opened it.
Inside lay a tarnished silver pocket watch.
Its chain was broken.
On the back were engraved initials.
T.R.
Norah covered her mouth.
“His?”
Frank nodded.
“He left it here the afternoon before the fire.”
“Why didn't you give it to the police?”
“Because Tommy told me not to trust anyone who came asking for it.”
Norah turned the watch over.
Its hands were stopped at 9:17.
Frank pointed toward the winding crown.
“There's something inside.”
Norah pressed it.
The back opened.
Inside was a narrow strip of paper.
Three numbers.
9\.
17\.
30\.
And a single word.
Listen.
That evening, Norah returned to the Marino estate.
Not for money.
Not because Vincent ordered her.
Because her father had left her something, and she believed the answer was hidden in Elena's music.
Vincent met her at the door.
He looked surprised.
“I thought you were finished here.”
“So did I.”
She showed him the watch.
He examined the inscription.
“Thomas Reed.”
“My father.”
Vincent looked at her.
Something softened in his expression.
“You found him.”
“A bartender remembered him.”
For a moment, Vincent said nothing.
Then he returned the watch carefully.
“What do you need?”
“The piano.”
Vincent stepped aside.
Carmine was sleeping when they entered the living room.
Norah sat at the Steinway.
She placed the watch on the music stand.
9:17.
Thirty.
Listen.
She began the forbidden melody.
Five notes.
A pause.
Three more.
Then the unfinished ending.
Vincent stood beside her.
“What's missing?”
“I think the melody is a message.”
“About the watch?”
“Maybe.”
She replayed the final phrase.
The notes moved upward, then stopped.
Norah frowned.
“The last note should be E.”
She pressed the key.
The Steinway answered with a full, clear tone.
Then she pressed G-sharp.
Another clear note.
Suddenly, she remembered the St. Jude.
The broken middle E.
The broken G-sharp.
She looked at Vincent.
“My father played on a piano with the same two damaged keys.”
“What?”
“At the hotel. He complained about them twenty years ago.”
Vincent frowned.
“That can't be a coincidence.”
Norah stared at the watch.
Then at the musical notation in Elena's photograph.
“Maybe the missing notes weren't missing from the music.”
She stood abruptly.
“Maybe they were instructions.”
Vincent followed her toward the door.
“What instructions?”
“To find something in the piano my father used.”
They reached the St. Jude shortly before midnight.
Frank unlocked the lobby for them.
Norah pointed toward the broken keys.
Vincent removed the upper wooden panel with Frank's permission.
Inside, the mechanism was coated with dust.
Two hammers had been deliberately wedged.
One beneath middle E.
The other beneath G-sharp.
Vincent reached carefully inside.
Something metallic scraped against the wood.
He withdrew a small brass key.
Attached to it was a faded paper tag.
Pier Nine. Locker 30.
Norah stared.
Her father hadn't left her a broken piano.
He'd left her a place to look.
Then Frank, who had been watching from behind them, whispered something neither expected.
“That locker was supposed to be destroyed.”
Vincent looked up.
“Why?”
Frank's face drained of color.
“Because the night of the fire, I watched Arthur Bell carry a little girl out of the warehouse.”
May you like
He turned toward Norah.
“And that little girl was you.”
