Chapter 8: What Simone Knew
Simone Adler had a file.
Not a thin file — a binder, two inches thick, that she brought to their apartment the following morning and set on the kitchen table next to Nora's coffee cup with the quiet confidence of someone who had been carrying it for a long time and was finally ready to put it down.
"Elias wasn't the first," Simone said.
Nora looked up from the binder.
"What?"
"There were two others before him.
A composer named Renata Voss — she was based in Vienna, worked with Blackwood Music Group from 2011 to 2013.
And a songwriter named James Okafor, out of Atlanta.
Both of them signed over rights to compositions under circumstances that don't hold up to scrutiny." Simone opened the binder to a tabbed section.
"Renata tried to fight it.
She ran out of money before she got to trial.
James never tried — he told me he was afraid." She looked at Nora steadily.
"Elias was the third.
I just couldn't prove the pattern without the original documentation."
"Until the recordings," Nora said.
"Until the recordings." Simone paused.
"Mrs.
Cole, I want to be honest with you.
I can write this story with or without your cooperation.
The recordings, the forged witness signature, the board chair's involvement — that's already enough.
But if you and Chloe are willing to speak on record, this becomes something that doesn't go away in a news cycle.
This becomes something that follows Victor Blackwood for the rest of his career."
Chloe was at the table too, eating toast, listening with the focused quiet she brought to everything.
"What happens to the other composers?" Chloe said.
"Renata and James.
If the story comes out, does it help them?"
Simone looked at her.
"That's a good question.
Legally, it depends on their individual situations.
But publicly — yes.
It establishes a pattern.
That matters, both in court and outside of it."
Chloe looked at Nora.
Nora looked at Priya, who had arrived twenty minutes earlier and was standing near the window with her arms folded, listening.
"Legally," Priya said carefully, "speaking to the press before we file carries risk.
Victor's team will use it to claim we're trying the case in public rather than in court."
"Aren't we?" Chloe said.
Priya almost smiled again.
"Yes.
But timing matters.
If we file Wednesday and the story runs Thursday, that's a different situation than running the story first."
"File Wednesday," Nora said.
"Talk to Simone Thursday."
Priya nodded once.
"Then that's what we do."
Victor called personally that afternoon.
Not through Hargrove.
His own number, which Nora recognized because Elias had once had it saved in his phone and she had never deleted the contact.
She answered.
"Nora." His voice was the gentle version again.
The funeral version.
"I think we've let this get out of hand.
I'd like to sit down with you.
Just the two of us.
No lawyers."
"No," Nora said.
"I understand you're angry.
I understand why.
But you need to think about what a public legal battle does to Elias's reputation.
To his music.
Once lawyers get involved, the compositions become evidence.
They become property of a proceeding.
They stop being his."
"They already stopped being his," Nora said.
"You made sure of that."
A silence.
Then: "I made a mistake.
I'm willing to acknowledge that privately.
But if you force this into the open, I will have no choice but to defend myself.
And my defense will require me to present evidence about Elias that you may not want made public."
Nora's hand tightened on the phone.
"What evidence?"
"Elias had debts, Nora.
Significant ones.
Ones he kept from you.
The transfer of rights was, in part, a settlement of those debts.
That's a story that can be told.
I would prefer not to tell it.
But I will, if I have to."
She sat with that for a moment.
Then she said: "Elias told me about the debts.
He told me everything, Victor.
That's the difference between him and you."
She ended the call.
Her hands were shaking.
She pressed them flat on the table until they stopped.
Chloe put her hand over Nora's without saying anything.
That was enough.
Wednesday morning, Priya filed.
By noon, the filing was public record.
By two o'clock, Hargrove had called four times.
By four, Arthur Fenwick had formally requested an emergency board meeting and suspended Victor's executive authority pending review.
Victor's response came at six in the evening — not through a lawyer, not through a phone call.
A man Nora didn't recognize was standing outside their building when she came home from the grocery store.
He didn't approach her.
He just stood there, looking at her, long enough to make sure she saw him.
Then he walked away.
She called Priya from the lobby.
"Document it," Priya said.
"Time, description, location.
Send it to me now." A pause.
"And Nora — don't let Chloe go anywhere alone until this is resolved."
Nora looked at the street through the glass door of the lobby.
Empty now.
Ordinary.
"How long?" she said.
May you like
"Not long," Priya said.
"He's running out of moves."
