Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO STOLE HER MOTHER'S MUSIC
“That's a lie, Thomas.”
Richard Bellamy's voice carried across the theater.
But Maya wasn't looking at him.
She was studying the photograph.
Her mother's smile.
Thomas Greene standing beside her.
And Richard Bellamy, younger and thinner, wearing the same unmistakable black-stone ring.
Maya's heart was pounding.
“My mother wrote your music?”
Thomas answered carefully.
“Some of the compositions that launched Richard's career originated with her.”
Bellamy stepped toward the stage.
“That's a serious accusation.”
“It is,” Thomas replied.
“And you know exactly why I'm making it.”
The producer, a woman named Claire Whitfield, motioned for the cameras to stop.
Red recording lights went dark.
Audience members immediately began whispering.
Some lifted their phones.
Others looked toward Bellamy with growing suspicion.
Maya wanted answers.
Instead, two security guards approached her.
“Miss Santos,” one said politely, “we need you to come backstage.”
“Am I being disqualified?”
He glanced toward Bellamy.
“I don't make those decisions.”
Thomas stepped forward.
“She's coming with me.”
Bellamy laughed without humor.
“You haven't protected anyone very well, Thomas. I wouldn't start making promises now.”
Something passed across Thomas's face.
Regret.
Or fear.
Maya couldn't tell.
Claire walked onto the stage.
“We're taking a production break,” she announced.
Then she turned to Maya.
“Please don't leave the building.”
Maya followed Thomas into a narrow backstage hallway.
The moment the theater doors closed, she pulled away from him.
“Tell me what happened.”
Thomas stopped beside a rack of costumes.
“Maya—”
“No.”
Her voice was sharper than she intended.
“You recognized my mother's music. You recognized her name. You knew that man.”
Thomas nodded.
“Then tell me.”
He looked older without the stage lights.
“Elena and I met during a summer music program in Philadelphia. We were both young. She was already composing pieces far beyond anything I could write.”
“And Bellamy?”
“He was working as an arranger. Ambitious. Charming. He knew people in the recording industry.”
Maya folded her arms.
“He stole her work?”
Thomas exhaled.
“Not everything happened at once.”
Elena had written original piano compositions for a small recording project.
Bellamy offered to help produce them.
He had studio contacts, equipment, and money.
Elena had talent but almost no professional connections.
They agreed to collaborate.
“The first recordings were meant to introduce her as a composer,” Thomas explained.
“But they didn't?”
“Some were released under different credits. Elena challenged the arrangements, but the contracts were complicated.”
“Why didn't she sue?”
“She tried to correct the record privately.”
Maya stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your mother believed she could solve the problem without destroying everyone's careers.”
Maya thought of Elena teaching children at their kitchen piano.
Her mother had never complained about being overlooked.
She had simply worked.
“What happened when she demanded credit?”
Thomas's answer was quiet.
“She lost access to the recordings.”
Maya felt anger rising.
“And you?”
“I was involved in the sessions.”
“Did you help her?”
Thomas looked away.
That was answer enough.
“You didn't.”
“I testified about what I remembered during a private arbitration.”
“Did it help?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I signed a statement that I later regretted.”
Maya took one step backward.
“You lied?”
“I agreed to language that minimized her role. I told myself it was a technical distinction.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
She looked at him with sudden disgust.
“You stood on that stage like you were her friend.”
“I was.”
“Not when she needed one.”
Thomas lowered his head.
Maya turned away.
She had expected the world to be difficult.
She hadn't expected kindness to come from someone who admitted helping take something from her mother.
A woman wearing a production headset approached.
“Miss Santos? Claire needs you in the conference room.”
Maya looked at Thomas.
“I'll go alone.”
He didn't argue.
The conference room overlooked the theater parking lot.
A tray of untouched sandwiches sat on the table.
Claire Whitfield stood beside a television monitor.
She was in her forties, with tired eyes and the practical manner of someone accustomed to solving problems quickly.
“Sit down, Maya.”
“I'd rather stand.”
Claire nodded.
“Fair enough.”
She held up a printed document.
“Bellamy's representatives are asking us not to broadcast your performance.”
“Because he says I stole a song.”
“Yes.”
“I didn't.”
“I believe you.”
Maya blinked.
“You do?”
Claire turned the monitor toward her.
A paused recording showed Maya seated at the piano.
“Watch this.”
She pressed play.
Maya saw herself begin the opening passage.
The camera cut to Thomas.
Then to the other judges.
Then to Bellamy.
At the six-note sequence in the middle, Bellamy's expression changed.
His fingers tightened around the edge of the judges' table.
He glanced toward a man standing near the production booth.
That man immediately walked away.
Claire paused the footage.
“Richard wasn't surprised by your name,” she said.
“He was surprised by what you played.”
Maya stared.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know yet.”
Claire opened another file.
“Your application listed an original arrangement inspired by your mother. Our music-clearance team reviewed it before the audition.”
“Then why did he accuse me?”
“Because the title you submitted didn't match anything in our database.”
Maya frowned.
“I called it For My Mother.”
“Exactly.”
Claire slid a second sheet across the table.
“This is a publishing registration from nineteen years ago.”
At the top was Richard Bellamy's name.
Beneath it was a composition titled The House With the Yellow Door.
Maya's breath caught.
“That was my mother's title.”
Claire nodded.
“The registered score contains the same opening melody. But the version you played today contains an additional section.”
“The six notes?”
“Yes.”
Claire leaned forward.
“That section isn't in the copyrighted version.”
Maya remembered her mother's fingers slowing over the keyboard.
The strange pause.
The unfinished phrase.
“So?”
“So Bellamy has been performing variations of that composition for years. Yet when you played those six notes, he reacted as though he'd heard something he was afraid of.”
Maya studied the frozen image.
Bellamy's face was unmistakably tense.
“What could six notes mean?”
Claire shook her head.
“I was hoping you might know.”
Maya closed her eyes.
She remembered her mother counting softly.
One, two, three.
Then stopping.
She remembered Elena placing a folded paper inside the piano bench.
And she remembered something else.
A small blue notebook.
Her mother kept it beside the silver metronome.
Maya hadn't thought about that notebook in years.
“She wrote things down,” Maya whispered.
“What things?”
“Music. Dates. Sometimes numbers.”
Claire sat straighter.
“Do you still have it?”
“No. Everything was packed after the accident.”
“Where did the belongings go?”
Maya swallowed.
“Some went to my grandmother. Some went into storage. I lost track after the foster placements.”
Claire considered this.
Then she opened a drawer and removed a plain envelope.
“There's another problem.”
Inside was a copy of Maya's competition application.
Someone had highlighted her address.
The shelter.
In the margin, a handwritten instruction read:
Confirm contestant's living situation before filming. Emphasize personal hardship.
Maya's face burned.
“So that was the plan?”
Claire looked uncomfortable.
“Our casting team thought your circumstances would interest viewers.”
“You wanted the homeless girl.”
“We wanted your story.”
“You didn't even know my music.”
Claire didn't deny it.
Maya pushed the paper away.
“Then I'm done.”
She turned toward the door.
“Maya, your performance could still reach millions.”
“Not if you make me look like a charity project.”
Claire followed her into the hall.
“Then let me change that.”
Maya stopped.
“How?”
“By giving you the full recording and letting you decide whether we use your personal history.”
For the first time, someone in the building was offering her a choice.
Before Maya could answer, a stagehand hurried toward them.
“Claire, there's something wrong with the piano.”
Claire frowned.
“What happened?”
“The technician found something inside the music desk.”
They returned to the stage.
The Steinway stood beneath work lights.
A technician held a folded yellowed sheet.
“It slipped from behind the removable music rack when I checked the mechanism.”
Maya approached.
The paper was old.
Creased.
Covered with handwritten notation.
At the bottom was a name.
Elena Santos.
Maya's knees nearly buckled.
Thomas appeared behind her.
“Where did that come from?”
The technician pointed toward the piano.
“Someone concealed it there.”
Maya unfolded the sheet.
The opening bars matched her mother's composition.
But beneath the six-note passage, Elena had written a short message.
In the familiar handwriting Maya hadn't seen since childhood.
If they erase my name, follow the second ending.
Below it was a date.
And an address in Richmond.
Thomas read the address.
Then whispered:
“Oh, Elena.”
Maya turned.
“What is it?”
May you like
Thomas looked directly at her.
“That's the address of the house where your mother made her last recording.”
