Chapter 2 - The Room Nobody Entered.
Ethan picked up the brass key before Celeste could move.
The tag marked M.H. felt cold against his palm.
"What did my mother tell you?"
Mrs. Bell looked toward Celeste, and that single glance answered more than words could have.
Ethan noticed it immediately.
"You can speak freely."
Mrs. Bell folded her hands in front of her gray uniform.
"Your mother gave me the ring two weeks before she died."
"She said one key was for the music room, one was for her dressing room, and one was for something she called the last drawer."
Celeste laughed, but the sound was thin and forced.
"Mother was heavily medicated during her final weeks."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"Do not use her illness to explain away every inconvenient thing she said."
Mara remained on the floor with Lily, gently checking the child's wrist.
There was no serious injury, but Lily still trembled whenever Celeste shifted her weight.
Ethan saw that too.
"Mara, take Lily to the morning room."
Celeste stepped between them and the hallway.
"She is not taking my niece anywhere."
Ethan's eyes hardened.
"Move."
Celeste held his stare for several seconds, then stepped aside.
Mara carried Lily out while Mrs. Bell followed with a glass of water.
The other staff members vanished with the speed of people who had learned that survival in a wealthy house often depended on becoming invisible.
Ethan turned back toward his sister.
"Why were you shouting at a three-year-old?"
Celeste crossed her arms.
"Because that piano is the last untouched thing Mother left us."
"Us?"
"Yes, Ethan, us."
"You do remember she was my mother too."
He looked at the red mark on Lily's wrist again.
"That does not give you permission to put your hands on my daughter."
Celeste's face sharpened.
"I barely touched her."
"Mara says you pushed her."
"Mara is a maid who has been here six months."
"And Lily is three, which means I am not interested in debating who had more power in that moment."
Celeste's mouth opened, then closed.
Ethan moved toward the piano.
The grand instrument occupied the brightest part of the living room beneath three tall windows.
His mother, Margaret Harrington, had played every Sunday morning when he and Celeste were children.
After her death, Celeste had ordered the lid closed and the bench covered.
Ethan had accepted it because grief made strange rules seem reasonable.
Now he wondered how many of those rules had hidden something else.
He slid the brass key into the small lock on the piano's side cabinet.
It did not fit.
Celeste exhaled almost imperceptibly.
Ethan tried the second key.
Nothing.
The third key turned halfway and stopped.
Celeste stepped closer.
"You are damaging it."
"Funny," Ethan said.
"You were less worried about damage when Lily hit the floor."
Her face flushed.
He inspected the instrument more carefully.
The lock was decorative, newer than the piano, and too obvious.
His mother had loved puzzles.
She had hidden birthday gifts in false-bottom boxes and left clues in sheet music.
Ethan crouched beside the piano bench.
Under the lip of the seat, he found a tiny brass plate he had never noticed before.
The letters M.H. were engraved there.
Celeste stopped breathing normally.
Ethan inserted the key.
This time it turned.
A narrow drawer released with a soft click beneath the bench.
Inside lay a sealed ivory envelope and a small black notebook.
Celeste moved before Ethan could reach them.
She grabbed the envelope.
He caught her wrist.
"Give it to me."
"It is private family property."
"I am family."
For a moment they stood frozen, brother and sister, each holding one edge of the envelope.
Then the paper tore.
A single folded page slipped out and fell between them.
May you like
At the top, in their mother's handwriting, were seven words.
If Celeste controls this house, open everything.
