"Never challenge a penniless child to play an unpublished symphony — especially when her quiet mother was your former partner's widow, and the girl knows every single note by heart."

Nora didn't sleep.

She sat at the kitchen table with the envelope open in front of her, going through the documents one by one in the thin light of the overhead bulb.

Chloe had fallen asleep on the couch still in her dress, the faded cotton twisted around her knees, one hand curled under her chin.

Nora had covered her with a blanket and then come back to the table and kept reading.

Elias had been meticulous.

That was the word for it — not organized, not careful, but meticulous in the way of a man who knew, somewhere beneath his trust, that he might need these things someday.

There were copies of emails.

Annotated contracts.

A handwritten timeline in his cramped, slanted script that tracked every meeting with Victor from the first partnership agreement in 2015 through to the final document in February 2018.

And at the bottom of the stack, in a separate sealed envelope within the larger one, a USB drive with a strip of masking tape across it.

In Elias's handwriting: FOR NORA.

WHEN IT'S TIME.

Her phone rang at 7:14 in the morning.

She didn't recognize the number.

She answered anyway.

"Mrs.

Cole." The voice was smooth and unhurried.

Male.

Older.

"My name is Daniel Hargrove.

I represent Victor Blackwood.

I'd like to discuss last night's events before this goes any further."

"I'm listening," Nora said.

"Good.

I want to be direct with you.

The documents your daughter presented last night are — interesting.

But interesting isn't the same as actionable.

A photocopy of a d*ath certificate proves nothing about the contract's validity.

Signatures can be challenged.

Dates can be disputed.

These things take years, Mrs.

Cole.

Years and resources that I suspect you don't have."

"What do you want, Mr.

Hargrove?"

"I want to offer you a clean exit.

Mr.

Blackwood is prepared to establish a trust in your daughter's name.

Two million dollars, held until she turns eighteen.

In exchange, you sign a non-disclosure agreement and withdraw any claims regarding the Cole compositions."

Nora looked at Chloe sleeping on the couch.

"Two million dollars," she said.

"It's a generous offer.

Given the strength of your actual legal position, it's an extraordinarily generous offer."

"And the USB drive?"

A pause.

Short, but there.

"I'm sorry?"

"My husband left a USB drive with the documents.

I haven't looked at it yet.

But I'm going to.

Before I talk to anyone else, I'm going to look at what's on it." She kept her voice even.

"I thought you should know that."

Another pause.

Longer.

"Mrs.

Cole, I would strongly advise you not to—"

She ended the call.

She looked at the USB drive for a long moment.

Then she got up, went to the small desk in the corner of the room where Chloe did her homework, and plugged it in.

The drive contained one folder.

Inside the folder: forty-seven audio files.

She clicked the first one.

Elias's voice filled the room.

Quiet, careful, speaking directly into what sounded like a phone recorder.

Giving the date.

Giving the location.

And then beginning to describe, in precise and methodical detail, every conversation he had ever had with Victor Blackwood about the composition that would become Symphony No.

7 in D Minor — the piece that now bore Victor's name on every program, every recording, every licensing agreement worldwide.

Nora sat down on the floor next to the desk.