Chapter 2 - The Echo of Broken Strings
Three days after Sloan was locked out, the high-ceilinged drawing room of No. 41 Chestnut Street fell into an unbearable, suffocating silence. Cormack Sheridan sat at the mahogany desk by the fireplace, an unpoured decanter of scotch gleaming in the amber light. On the corner of his desk lay a single silver key and an engagement ring set with an untreated sapphire—the ring Sloan had left behind on the marble mantelpiece without taking a single diamond from the Sheridan vaults.
Dermit Quinnland entered silently, his damp wool coat hanging over his forearm. He had served Cormack’s father for two decades, but he had never seen Cormack look this dangerous. The calm was unnatural. It was the terrifying stillness of a predator waiting for the right moment to strike.
"Did you trace her transit card?" Cormack asked, his voice low and devoid of inflection.
"She hasn't used it since Tuesday evening, Boss," Dermit answered quietly. "She abandoned her apartment in Dorchester. Landlord says she packed two suitcases and her father's tuning tools and vanished into South Boston. But there’s something else."
Cormack’s eyes shifted, dark and unreadable. "Speak."
"Father Boland at St. Brendan’s called the estate line this morning. He was frantic. He said two private security men tried to force their way into the parish basement searching for Sloan's storage locker. When Father Boland threatened to call the police, they flashed badges from a private firm out of Back Bay—the Vanguard Group."
Cormack straightened slowly, the leather of his armchair groaning softly. The Vanguard Group was not a police outfit. It was an elite, off-the-books security contractor retained exclusively by high-society clients—including his mother, Eleanor Sheridan.
"Why would my mother be hunting for a piano tuner who broke my heart and walked away?" Cormack murmured, his fingers curling into a tight fist against the desk.
"That's not all, sir," Dermit added, stepping closer to place a folded receipt on the desk. "Sloan’s mother, Bernadette Ashby, was transferred out of the Quincy facility at midnight yesterday. Not by Sloan's request, but due to an anonymous stop-payment order on her trust account. If Sloan took your money like she claimed, she never spent a dime of it on her mother’s care. The woman is sitting in a state ward tonight, barely receiving oxygen."
A sharp pang of doubt tore through Cormack's carefully constructed armor. Three nights ago, Sloan had told him she used him for his vast wealth. She had called him a monster whose criminal empire repulsed her, claiming she only stayed long enough to siphon his resources. Yet she had left the sapphire ring, refused the settlement check, and now her dying mother was being neglected in a cold county ward.
May you like
Cormack rose to his feet, grabbing his long dark overcoat. "Bring the car around. We're going to St. Brendan's."
As Cormack walked out the double front doors, the antique concert grand piano in the corner of the grand hallway seemed to loom in the shadows. Its lid was propped open, its polished mahogany keys waiting for hands that were no longer there. He remembered the first day he saw her at the Kingsbury, kneeling on the cold marble floor, talking softly to the damaged instrument. Anything can be fixed if somebody is willing to listen to it complain first, she had told him. He had thought she was talking about the piano. Now, the bitter sting of regret began to whisper in his ear that he had failed to listen to the woman who was trying to save his soul.
