“Elena, stop.”
Maxwell turned toward her sharply.
“Why are you telling her to stop?”
“Because this is insane.”
“Then let her prove it.”
That was the moment Vanessa became frightened.
Not angry.
Frightened.
And Maxwell saw it.
I carried Eleanor’s violin toward the old fireplace.
Above it hung a portrait of Eleanor in a pale blue dress.
She was thirty-nine in the painting.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
Beautiful without appearing fragile.
Maxwell followed me.
“Your mother died in the third-floor music room,” I said.
His jaw tightened.
“That room has been locked since before her death.”
“Yes.”
“Because the floor was damaged.”
“No.”
I turned toward Arthur Bell.
“Mr. Bell, do you still have Eleanor Anderson’s original trust documents?”
The elderly attorney looked startled.
“I have copies.”
“Have you ever seen the original handwritten codicil dated October seventeenth?”
“No.”
Margaret made a sound.
Tiny.
Almost nothing.
But I heard it.
Maxwell did too.
“What codicil?” he demanded.
I looked toward him.
“The one your mother hid the night she died.”
Maxwell’s face became unreadable.
“Where?”
I lifted Isabella.
“Inside the violin.”
Vanessa whispered, “No.”
Every head turned toward her.
Maxwell stared.
“What did you say?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“You said no.”
“I was surprised.”
I turned the violin over.
Beneath the chin rest was the old repair.
Eleanor had once told me never to forget it.
A narrow seam.
Almost invisible.
I pressed my thumbnail beneath the edge.
Nothing happened.
Margaret suddenly stepped forward.
“That instrument is priceless. You’re damaging it.”
“Stay where you are.”
Maxwell’s command froze her.
I pressed again.
A small wooden panel opened.
Gasps filled the room.
But the compartment was empty.
My stomach dropped.
Empty.
For three years, I had worked toward this moment.
Three years of cleaning rooms.
Three years of searching archives.
Three years waiting for Isabella to reappear.
And there was nothing inside.
Vanessa exhaled.
Almost imperceptibly.
Then she smiled.
“Well,” she said. “That was dramatic.”
I stared at the hollow compartment.
Impossible.
Eleanor had placed the papers there herself.
I had seen her.
On the last night I ever saw her alive.
Then I understood.
The violin had been in a locked cabinet.
A missing key.
Margaret had arranged for it to appear today.
She knew about the compartment.
But why bring Isabella into the ballroom if she had already removed the document?
Unless she had wanted to destroy it afterward.
A sentimental wedding display.
An old violin.
An accidental fire.
Or perhaps it was simply arrogance.
I looked at Margaret.
“You opened it.”
She laughed.
“Excuse me?”
“You found the compartment.”
“Elena,” Maxwell said, “do you have proof?”
“Not yet.”
Vanessa smiled.
“There. Can we please stop this circus?”
I looked down at Isabella.
Then I remembered Eleanor’s final words.
Not the words everyone knew.
The words meant only for me.
When the harbor disappears, follow the lighthouse.
At eleven, I thought she had been comforting me.
Now I looked toward the portrait above the fireplace.
Eleanor was painted beside a window.
Outside the painted window stood the old Newport lighthouse.
