Chapter 8 - The Name Beneath the Dust
Daniel followed Victor into the hallway.
“You don’t get to walk away after saying that.”
Victor stopped near the stairwell but did not turn around.
“The building is filling with smoke. This is not the place.”
“Then tell me now.”
Eleanor stepped between them, still struggling to catch her breath.
“Victor, enough secrets.”
For several seconds, only the distant sound of fire alarms filled the office floor.
Victor finally faced Daniel.
“Samuel and Lydia were together before the studio existed. Before the contracts. Before any of us had money.”
Daniel’s expression tightened.
“You’re saying he was my father.”
“I’m saying Lydia believed he was.”
The answer struck harder than Daniel expected.
“Believed?”
Victor looked down the corridor.
“There were reasons to doubt.”
Before Daniel could demand more, the elevator at the far end opened.
No one stepped out.
Instead, a small metal music box sat in the center of the elevator floor.
It was playing the same melody Daniel had performed in the ballroom.
Eleanor went pale.
“That belonged to Lydia.”
Daniel approached cautiously.
The music box was scratched and burned along one side. Beneath it lay a photograph covered in dust.
Daniel picked it up.
The image showed Lydia standing between Samuel and Victor inside the old Winter Room. All three were smiling, but someone else stood in the background.
A fourth figure.
The face had been cut from the photograph.
On the back, Lydia had written one sentence:
The wrong man was blamed because the right man owned the building.
Daniel turned toward Victor.
“Who was removed from this picture?”
Victor stared at the photograph.
His silence was enough.
“You know him,” Daniel said.
Eleanor took the picture from Daniel and examined the remaining details.
The fourth man wore a ring shaped like a violin key.
Her hand began to tremble.
“No,” she whispered.
Daniel looked at her.
“Who is it?”
Eleanor handed the picture back.
“Arthur Vale.”
Daniel frowned.
“Samuel’s brother?”
Victor answered quietly.
“Older brother. Business manager. Investor. And the man who arranged every contract we signed.”
Daniel remembered seeing the name in old newspaper articles. Arthur Vale had supposedly died in a car accident three weeks after the studio fire.
Eleanor shook her head.
“He didn’t die.”
Victor looked at her sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw him two years later in Vienna.”
The music box stopped.
Then the elevator doors began closing.
Daniel reached inside and grabbed the box before they shut.
A folded note was attached beneath it.
He opened it.
Find Arthur before Samuel does.
At the bottom was a time and location.
May you like
Midnight.
Central Station.
