Chapter 60: The Key in the Ashes

 

The letter M was cut deep into the brass.

Rhys stared at the photograph. In the little boy's fist, the key looked enormous.

“That's my hand,” he said.

Elara looked at the bandage across the child's knuckles. “You were injured.”

“I remember the bandage. The rest…” He pressed his fingertips together. “I remember something hot enough that I couldn't hold it.”

Brandt slid the photograph into its sleeve.

“Do you recognize the key?”

Rhys shook his head.

“M doesn't necessarily mean Marcus,” Elara said. “It could mean Maison. The atelier had its own keys.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure my mother stamped every drawer and cabinet with the house's initials. But I haven't seen this key.”

Brandt wrote something down. “That's a distinction worth keeping.”

Rhys looked at her. Gratitude crossed his face, quickly followed by shame.

“You shouldn't have to keep finding innocent explanations for my father.”

“I'm finding possible explanations,” she said. “There's a difference.”

 

The property inventory from the fire was seven pages long.

Brandt read it aloud in the records office while Priya compared every entry with photographs from the scene.

“Two watches. One child's shoe. An enamel brooch. Keys, assorted.”

Elara leaned forward. “How many keys?”

“Not specified.”

“Who collected them?”

Brandt turned the page.

“Most evidence was transferred to storage. Personal belongings were released to an authorized representative of the Quinn estate.”

“Odette?” Elara asked.

“No. An attorney named Philippe Moreau.”

She had heard the name before. A lawyer employed by Conrad Hart years earlier, at the time Julian had begun buying up bankrupt workshops.

“Moreau worked for the Harts,” she said.

Priya looked up. “He still does. He's the registered agent on two of the shell companies we're tracing.”

“So the Harts may have taken the key,” Rhys said.

“They may have taken several,” Brandt corrected. “We'll request the release forms and check the chain of custody.”

Elara stood. The old anger was familiar: everyone had been able to touch Lucille's work except her daughter.

“Could the key have opened the courtyard door?” she asked.

“The report doesn't identify the lock manufacturer,” Brandt said. “We'd need the lock or an original specification.”

“The site was rebuilt,” Priya said.

Elara remembered something.

“Not all of it.”

Three faces turned toward her.

“Odette kept a box of metal fittings from the atelier. She said my mother would have wanted them saved. They were in her studio when I was a child.”

“Where are they now?” Brandt asked.

“At her apartment, if she hasn't moved them.”

 

Odette was sleeping when Elara went to her room.

She didn't wake her. Instead, she sat beside the bed and watched the woman's thin chest rise and fall.

For years, Odette had been keeper of her mother's memories. Now Elara didn't know whether the keepsakes were relics or evidence.

Rhys stood quietly at the door.

“I thought you'd gone ahead,” she whispered.

“I said I'd come with you.”

“You don't have to.”

“I know.”

She looked at the faint scar above his eyebrow, at the exhaustion in his eyes.

“Do you ever wish we'd met somewhere ordinary?”

“Like a café?”

“A dreadful one. Bad coffee. No lawyers. No family secrets.”

He considered. “You'd have complained about the coffee.”

“I would have.”

“And I'd have ordered another.”

“You don't even like coffee.”

“Then I'd have had tea.”

They both stopped.

The word hung between them, sharp as broken glass.

Rhys looked away first.

Elara took his hand.

“We'll find you something safe to drink,” she said, and felt him give a small, surprised laugh.

 

Priya arranged for Tobias to meet them at Odette's apartment. Brandt sent an officer to document the search after obtaining Odette's consent through the hospital.

The studio was exactly as Elara remembered. Clean glass flasks. Labels written in two languages. A dried bouquet hanging upside down beside the window.

Under the workbench stood a cedar chest.

Elara knelt, lifting its heavy lid.

Inside were hinges, brass plates, a scorched measuring spoon, and three keys on a ring.

One key had a deep M stamped into the handle.

Her breath caught.

Rhys crouched beside her. Without touching it, he studied the shape.

“It looks like the one in the photograph.”

Brandt's officer photographed the ring where it lay.

Elara reached toward the chest, then stopped when she saw a folded slip wedged beneath the lining.

“There's a note.”

The officer removed it carefully, unfolded it and read the heading.

For Elara, when she is old enough to ask.

Below, in Lucille's handwriting, were nine words.

The key opens the room beneath the greenhouse.

Elara stared.

House Calloway had a greenhouse.

And her mother had known what lay beneath it.