Chapter 22: The Song Elena Sang

Nora's cassette player looked too small to carry the dead. It sat in the center of the kitchen table beside Elena's letter while rain tapped the window and sirens moved somewhere far away. Megan had taken the records clerk to a safe apartment in Jersey. Ethan stood by the door as if expecting Martha's men to come through the walls. Leah pressed play. Static filled the room. Then Elena Voss began to sing. It was not a performance. It was a lullaby, broken by breath, soft and trembling. Leah did not know the words, but her body did. Something ancient inside her leaned toward the sound. Ethan made a noise like pain. The singing stopped. Elena's voice changed, urgent now. "James is dead. They told me the baby was safer with the Thornes, but Martha lied. Catherine signed because she was afraid. Richard does not know. If I disappear, Halcyon has the records. M-17 is Martha. The Costa family arranged transport. The Hunt boy saw the second car." Ethan gripped the doorframe. On the tape, a child's voice sobbed. "I did not see." Elena answered gently, "Yes, you did, sweetheart. You saw enough. When you are older, remember the song." The tape clicked. No one moved. Leah looked at Ethan. "You were there." He closed his eyes. "I remembered fire. I remembered a woman singing. I remembered my father telling me it was shock." "Your father?" "James Hunt Sr. adopted me six months later." Nora's face hardened. "Convenient." Ethan opened his eyes. "Yes." Leah stood. "Did your family help Martha?" "I do not know." "Not good enough." "No," he said. "It is not." The admission disarmed her more than denial would have. Her phone buzzed. Unknown again. Your mother trusted the boy. Not the man who raised him. Leah showed Ethan. He stared at it for a long moment, then pulled out his own phone and made a call. "Freeze all Hunt exposure to Costa Strategic. Quietly. And pull every file we have on Halcyon Medical from 2005 to 2007." He listened. His face changed. "Say that again." Leah knew before he lowered the phone. "Hunt Capital funded Halcyon's 2006 expansion," he said. The room tightened around them. Then Ethan added, almost without voice, "The authorization code was my father's."