Chapter 6 - THE MUSIC BOX
I stared at the dusty documents in Madison’s trembling hands.
Twelve years ago.
A year before Nora’s fatal car accident.
“Why would Nora buy industrial land on the edge of town?” Arthur asked, his brow furrowed in deep confusion. “She dedicated her life to this community center. She had no interest in luxury real estate.”
“She didn’t buy it for luxury real estate,” a voice echoed from the doorway.
We all spun around.
Christopher Hale stood in the shattered frame of the office door.
His expensive suit was ruined, covered in plaster dust and dirt. His tie was loosened.
In his right hand, he held a heavy steel crowbar.
I immediately pushed Leo behind me, shielding my son with my body.
Arthur stood up, his spine rigid.
“Christopher.”
Christopher didn’t look arrogant anymore. He looked cornered. And dangerous.
“She bought that land,” Christopher spat, “because she knew I wanted it.”
He stepped fully into the room, the crowbar tapping lightly against his leg.
“You want to know the truth, Arthur? You want to know why I took the memorial fund? Why I’m tearing this pathetic monument down?”
“Tell me,” Arthur said quietly.
Christopher pointed the crowbar at Arthur.
“Thirty years ago, your affordable housing company outbid a small, family-owned contractor for a massive city project. You ruined him. He went bankrupt. He lost his home. He drank himself to death.”
Christopher’s chest heaved.
“That contractor was my father.”
The room went dead silent.
“I spent my entire life watching you parade around Columbus like a saint, getting awards, while my mother scrubbed floors to feed me,” Christopher sneered.
He looked at Madison.
“When I grew up, I made a plan. I was going to take everything from the Bennett family. I started by getting close to Nora.”
Madison looked physically ill. “You knew my mother?”
“I dated her assistant,” Christopher said coldly. “I got access to her files. I found out where the city was planning to build the new transit hub. I was going to buy the adjacent land and make millions. But Nora found out.”
Christopher looked at the music box on the floor.
“Nora was too smart. She realized who I was. She realized I was trying to use her family’s connections for insider trading. So she bought the land first. She hid the deeds to stop me.”
“And then she died,” Arthur whispered.
The air in the room felt thick. Unbreathable.
“She died in a single-car accident on a rainy highway,” Arthur continued, his voice trembling with a terrifying realization. “A crash the police said was caused by a blown tire.”
Arthur took a step toward Christopher.
“Did you blow the tire, Christopher?”
Christopher didn’t answer.
Instead, his eyes flicked to the silver locket Arthur was still gripping in his left hand.
“She was wearing that locket when I pulled her out of the ditch,” Christopher whispered. “She was still breathing. She looked right at me.”
Madison let out an agonizing scream.
She lunged at him.
Christopher shoved her backward with his free hand. Madison fell hard into the plaster debris.
“Don’t!” I shouted, stepping forward.
Christopher raised the crowbar.
“Stay back, waiter,” he snarled. “Give me the deeds, Arthur. They legally belong to Madison now as Nora’s heir, which means my power of attorney gives me control over them. I just need the physical copies to clear the title.”
“You murdered my daughter,” Arthur said.
His voice wasn’t a yell. It was a cold, absolute judgment.
“I took back what your family stole from mine,” Christopher rationalized, his eyes wide and frantic. “Give me the papers, and I’ll walk away. I have a plane to catch. You get to keep your pathetic center.”
“No.”
Arthur stood in front of me, in front of Madison, in front of my son.
A seventy-nine-year-old man facing down a killer with a steel bar.
“You will never touch a single thing my daughter built ever again.”
Christopher’s face twisted in pure rage.
He swung the crowbar.
I didn’t think. I reacted.
I lunged forward, tackling Arthur at the waist.
We hit the floor just as the heavy steel bar smashed into the wall where Arthur’s head had been a fraction of a second before.
The impact sent a shower of drywall dust over us.
Christopher pulled the bar back to strike again.
But he didn’t anticipate Leo.
My twelve-year-old son, terrified but brave, grabbed a loose brick from the demolished floor and hurled it with all his might.
The brick struck Christopher squarely in the knee.
Christopher yelled in pain, his leg buckling. He dropped the crowbar.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbed Christopher by his expensive lapels, and slammed him against the doorframe.
I drove my forearm into his throat.
“If you move,” I hissed in his ear, “I will break you.”
Sirens suddenly wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second.
Red and blue lights began to flash through the broken windows of Nora’s House.
Christopher stopped struggling.
He sagged against the wall, defeated.
He looked at Madison, who was clutching her mother’s deeds to her chest, weeping.
“Maddie,” he croaked.
May you like
“Don’t you ever speak to me again,” she whispered.
The police burst through the front doors.
