Chapter 18 - THE RECORDING IN THE VINTAGE MUSIC BOX
Emma could not breathe. Her skull throbbed from the impact against the doorframe, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the violent shock tearing through her soul.
"Ava?" Emma gasped, tears blurring her vision as she looked at her best friend—the woman who had straightened her veil the day before, the woman who had embraced her at the reflecting pool, the woman who had documented every tender moment of her life. "Why? Why are you doing this?"
Ava’s face was devoid of warmth, stripped of the bubbly, loyal persona she had worn like a mask for years. She kicked Daniel’s unconscious arm away from the fireplace hearth, her eyes cold as flint.
"You really think you're the only one who lost a mother in that fire, Emma?" Ava’s voice was venomous, quiet and deadly. "You think you’re the only one whose life was wrecked by the Vance family?"
"Thomas... Thomas is your father," Emma stammered, fighting against the iron grip of the man holding her from behind. "He raised you!"
"Thomas is a coward who sold his soul for fifty thousand dollars and a quiet life on a farm!" Ava yelled, stepping forward and thrusting a trembling finger into Emma’s face. "My mother was Martha Lewis! One of the twelve women locked behind the third-floor industrial gates! The women who burned alive while your mother was being smuggled out of the drainage ditch with a purse full of cash!"
"No... my mother didn't know!" Emma wept, desperate to bridge the chasm between them. "Ava, please! She didn't lock those doors! Victoria said—"
"Victoria didn't lock them either!" Ava interrupted, her lip curling in bitter disgust. "Charles Vance didn't lock them! Do you want to know who turned the key on those twelve women, Emma? Do you want to know who took the match to the grease traps in the basement?"
Ava reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a small, ornate wooden box—a vintage Swiss music box with inlaid ivory, the very same box Emma remembered sitting on her childhood nightstand.
"Thomas kept this hidden behind the furnace for twenty-six years," Ava said, winding the brass key on the bottom with a harsh, clicking sound. "My father was too terrified of the Vance family to ever play it. But I found it last month."
Ava opened the lid.
Instead of a delicate nursery melody, the mechanism triggered a hidden micro-cassette player nestled inside the hollowed-out gears. A woman’s frantic, breathless voice echoed into the ransacked bedroom.
*"Charles, it's me. Pick up the phone. Please, God, pick up the phone!"*
Emma’s heart stopped. It was June’s voice. But it was raw, panicked, and choking on thick smoke.
*"Judith went crazy, Charles! She found out about the money! She locked the shift workers inside the warehouse and poured kerosene on the delivery bay! She said if she couldn't have you, nobody in this town would have a future! I’m trying to break the lock on the east exit, but the heat... Charles, the heat is too much! I can't breathe! Get Thomas! Tell him to send the ladder truck to the east bay! Judith has the keys!"*
The recording ended with the deafening sound of shattering safety glass, a woman's bloodcurdling scream, and the violent roar of an explosive backdraft before cutting into silence.
Emma fell to her knees as the man holding her let go. The room seemed to tilt beneath her.
Her mother hadn't set the fire.
Her mother hadn't abandoned those women.
Her aunt Judith—a deranged, jealous twin Emma never knew existed—had murdered those workers in a fit of psychotic vengeance. And June had spent the rest of her life running, hiding behind a dead sister's name, carrying the guilt of a crime she had nearly died trying to prevent.
"My father knew," Ava whispered, tears finally spilling from her cold green eyes. "Thomas knew June tried to save them. But he took Charles Vance’s money anyway to cover his debts, and he let everyone in this town believe it was an industrial accident. And now Victoria is using Marcus Sterling to pin the entire arson on you, Emma. To seize June’s estate trust and wash the Vance hands clean forever."
"Then why attack Daniel?" Emma cried, crawling across the floor to Daniel’s side, pressing her trembling hands against the bleeding gash on his temple. "Daniel fought his own mother for me! He stood by me in front of everyone!"
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"Because Daniel is a Vance," Ava said coldly, pulling a small silver revolver from her waistband and aiming it directly at Daniel’s head. "And as long as a Vance lives, the truth will always be bought and buried. It ends today."
***
