Chapter 6 - THE LICENSE PLATE IN THE MUSIC
Meline had learned musical cryptograms at the conservatory.
Composers had hidden names inside melodies for centuries.
Letters became notes.
Numbers became rhythm.
Personal codes became signatures.
Norah Rhodes loved puzzles.
Meline had forgotten that.
As a child, she once found birthday presents by solving chord progressions taped beneath furniture.
If Norah hid a license plate inside The Harbor Piece, she would have used something Meline could understand.
The problem was they no longer had the original sheet.
Emmett had stolen it.
But Meline knew most of the notes from memory.
Norah had hummed the missing bridge.
Together, those pieces might be enough.
Back at the estate, Meline wrote the melody from memory.
Garrison sat quietly opposite her.
For once, he did not pace.
Dr. Foster had begun a controlled review of his medication.
The household alert tone had been disabled.
For thirty-six hours, no severe episode had occurred.
The difference frightened him almost as much as the episodes had.
“If this works,” he said, “then the last three years…”
“Don’t.”
He looked at Meline.
“What?”
“Don’t decide what they were yet.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll turn it into another reason to blame yourself.”
His expression tightened.
“You know me very well for someone I met three days ago.”
“I know guilt.”
That silenced him.
Meline’s father had died while she was at school.
Heart attack.
She had ignored two calls because she was rehearsing.
For years, she had told herself that if she answered, maybe she could have changed something.
Norah had eventually told her:
You cannot live inside the phone call you missed.
Then Alzheimer’s took that version of her mother away.
Meline looked at Garrison.
“Missing a moment doesn’t make you responsible for everything that follows.”
He understood.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Then Meline found the pattern.
The melody’s left-hand bass notes repeated in groups.
Six.
Two.
Five.
The right hand accented letters.
J.
R.
K.
“License plate format,” she whispered.
Garrison leaned forward.
“Say it.”
“JRK 625.”
Bennett immediately contacted investigators.
The plate existed.
Registered three years earlier to a black Lincoln Navigator.
Owner:
Whitaker Legal Services.
Sloan went pale when told.
“My firm?”
“Who used the vehicle?” Garrison asked.
Sloan pulled archived fleet records.
The SUV had been assigned to one partner.
Caroline Whitaker.
Sloan’s sister.
Silence.
Garrison looked at him.
“She followed Lydia.”
Sloan closed his eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“Your vehicle did.”
Sloan sat down.
“She told me she was home that night.”
“Did you verify it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s my sister.”
Garrison laughed bitterly.
“Blood has done extraordinary work for all of us.”
Sloan did not defend himself.
He called Caroline.
No answer.
Her office was empty.
Her assistant said she had not arrived.
Her home security showed she left at five that morning.
She was running.
That was enough to involve law enforcement fully.
Within hours, Caroline became a person of interest in Lydia’s death and financial fraud.
Her accounts were monitored.
Her passport flagged.
Emmett remained at the mansion.
Garrison wanted to remove him.
Police advised against confrontation until they understood whether Emmett knew Caroline was missing.
So Garrison did something nearly impossible for him.
He pretended.
Breakfast the next morning looked normal.
Emmett entered the dining room.
Garrison read the newspaper.
Meline carried coffee because remaining in her maid uniform allowed Emmett to underestimate her.
He barely looked at her.
That was useful.
“You seem better,” Emmett said.
“I slept.”
“Good.”
“No episode.”
Emmett’s fork paused.
Only half a second.
Garrison noticed.
Meline noticed.
“Dr. Foster adjusted medication,” Garrison said.
“She isn’t part of your regular team.”
“No.”
“That seems reckless.”
Garrison looked at him.
“So does stealing prescriptions.”
Emmett smiled faintly.
“Still on that?”
“Should I not be?”
“I collected medication as a favor.”
“Of course.”
Meline poured coffee.
Emmett looked at her.
“You.”
She met his eyes.
“What’s your name?”
Finally.
“Meline.”
“Right.”
He smiled.
“Your mother taught music?”
“Yes.”
“Sad about her condition.”
Meline’s hand tightened around the pot.
“You know about it?”
“Garrison mentioned it.”
Garrison had not.
Neither had Bennett.
Emmett knew before.
Meline smiled politely.
“Yes. Very sad.”
Emmett took coffee.
Then:
“People with Alzheimer’s say strange things.”
“They do.”
“Memories become unreliable.”
“Sometimes.”
“Important to remember.”
Garrison’s gaze sharpened.
Meline nodded.
“I’ll remember.”
Emmett almost smiled.
Later, Bennett whispered:
“He knows.”
“Yes.”
“But not how much.”
Meline went to see Norah again.
This time without Garrison.
She brought a portable keyboard.
When she played The Harbor Piece, Norah became calmer.
Her eyes followed Meline’s hands.
Then she whispered:
“Caroline.”
Meline stopped.
“Mom?”
“Pretty coat.”
“What coat?”
“Red.”
“Caroline had a red coat?”
Norah nodded.
“Lydia said don’t trust the red coat.”
Meline recorded everything.
“Mom, did Caroline follow Lydia?”
Norah frowned.
“Music.”
“Yes.”
“Car.”
“JRK 625?”
Norah smiled.
“Good girl.”
Meline almost cried.
“Who was driving?”
Norah looked frightened.
Then:
“Not Caroline.”
Meline froze.
“What?”
Norah began trembling.
“Not Caroline.”
“Then who?”
“Man.”
“What man?”
“Red coat in the back.”
Meline stared.
Caroline had been in the vehicle.
But not driving.
“Who drove, Mom?”
Norah’s eyes filled.
“The cousin.”
Meline’s skin went cold.
Emmett.
“Emmett drove?”
Norah shook her head violently.
“No.”
Another cousin?
Garrison had many.
Meline thought.
“Whose cousin?”
Norah whispered:
“Sloan’s.”
Meline stopped.
Sloan Whitaker’s cousin.
She called Garrison.
“Does Sloan have a cousin connected to Emmett?”
Silence.
Then:
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Dr. Marcus Hale.”
Meline’s stomach dropped.
“Who is that?”
Garrison’s answer was quiet.
“My psychiatrist.”
One of the specialists who treated him after Lydia died.
Not the twentieth.
The first.
The man who created the original treatment plan.
Marcus Hale was Sloan’s cousin.
And nobody had mentioned it.
Garrison summoned Sloan.
This time, Sloan looked genuinely blindsided.
“Hale is my mother’s nephew.”
“You recommended him.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he knew Emmett?”
“Everyone knows Emmett.”
“Financially?”
Sloan stared.
“No.”
Investigators checked.
Marcus Hale had received consulting payments from a Vance medical subsidiary.
The same subsidiary Lydia identified in the missing thirty-one million.
Two million dollars over three years.
Garrison’s face hardened.
Hale had not merely treated him.
He had profited from keeping him sick.
Then Dr. Foster discovered something else.
The medication used to sedate Garrison had been prescribed under Hale’s authorization even after Hale supposedly stopped treating him.
Electronic renewals.
Regular.
Quiet.
Emmett approved every payment.
Sloan sat down.
“Oh God.”
Garrison looked at him.
“How many people around me did you recommend?”
Sloan understood the accusation.
“Hale. Caroline. Calder originally.”
“Calder was honest.”
“Yes.”
“And when Calder questioned things, Caroline processed his settlement.”
Sloan covered his face.
“They used my firm.”
Meline said quietly:
“Because people trusted your name.”
That was the whole architecture.
Emmett had not needed to control every person.
Only the systems people trusted.
Doctors.
Lawyers.
Family.
The house.
Later that evening, police found Caroline.
She had not fled the country.
She had driven to a cabin near Rockford.
Alone.
Terrified.
She surrendered immediately.
Her first words to investigators were:
“I didn’t kill Lydia.”
Her second:
“Emmett did.”
Garrison watched the interrogation through an authorized video feed with his lawyer present.
Caroline cried.
“Emmett and Hale were in the SUV. I was in the back.”
“Why?”
“I had helped forge signatures.”
“Whose?”
“Garrison’s.”
“Why follow Lydia?”
“She had copies.”
“What happened?”
“Emmett wanted to scare her.”
Garrison’s face went cold.
Caroline continued.
“He called her phone from the SUV. Told her to pull over.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
“She sped up?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“Hale said to stop.”
Caroline began sobbing.
“Emmett didn’t.”
“What did he do?”
“He hit her car.”
Garrison stood.
Meline grabbed his wrist.
He froze.
Caroline continued.
“Once.”
“Intentionally?”
“Yes.”
“And Lydia went through the barrier?”
“No.”
Everyone stopped.
“What?”
Caroline shook her head.
“Her car spun. She stopped near the shoulder.”
Garrison stared.
“She survived the first impact?”
“Yes.”
“Then how did her car go over?”
Caroline covered her face.
“Emmett got out.”
Garrison’s entire body locked.
Meline stepped closer.
Caroline whispered:
“He went to Lydia’s car.”
Then the video feed suddenly cut.
Black screen.
“What happened?” Garrison demanded.
Bennett’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“Power outage at the station.”
Meline’s blood turned cold.
Not again.
Then Garrison’s phone buzzed.
A message from Emmett.
You wanted the rest of the story?
Come to the lake house alone.
Garrison looked toward the windows.
Meline shook her head.
“No.”
“I know.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“I know.”
She stared.
“That was too easy.”
He looked at her.
“I’m learning.”
Then another message arrived.
A photograph.
Norah Rhodes.
Sitting in a wheelchair.
Outside her care facility.
A man’s hand rested on her shoulder.
Emmett’s.
Meline stopped breathing.
The message beneath it read:
May you like
ALONE.
NOW.
