Chapter 2 - The Man Who Never Slept
Adrian Vance sat behind a desk large enough to make most people feel small.
Meline refused to let it.
She stood with her hands clasped in front of her apron while morning sunlight entered through tall windows behind him.
He had showered.
Changed clothes.
Put himself back together.
A charcoal suit concealed the man she had seen shaking on the floor.
Almost.
Dark shadows still lived beneath his eyes.
His fingers occasionally tightened against the arm of his chair.
“Where did you learn it?” he repeated.
“My mother wrote it.”
For the first time Adrian’s expression changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“What did you say?”
“The piece. My mother composed it.”
Adrian stood.
Bennett, positioned near the doorway, straightened immediately.
“What’s her name?”
“Norah Rhodes.”
The room went silent.
Adrian stared at her.
Then at Bennett.
The two men exchanged a look.
Meline noticed.
“You know her.”
Neither answered immediately.
Finally Bennett said, “Norah Rhodes worked here.”
Meline felt the floor shift beneath her.
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“My mother never worked in a house like this.”
“She wasn’t a servant,” Adrian said.
His voice had become quiet.
“She was my wife’s piano instructor.”
Meline stared at him.
Wife.
There were no family portraits in the public rooms.
No photographs of Adrian with a woman.
“Your wife?”
Adrian’s eyes moved toward the window.
“Elena.”
He said the name as if it hurt physically.
Meline waited.
“She died three years ago.”
The same period Bennett had mentioned.
The same three years during which Adrian had apparently stopped sleeping.
Meline understood part of the mystery.
Not enough.
“What was my mother doing here?”
Adrian leaned against the desk.
“Elena loved music. She hired Norah to help her improve. They became friends.”
“My mother never mentioned Elena Vance.”
“She may have had reasons.”
“What reasons?”
Adrian looked at Bennett again.
Meline was beginning to dislike those looks.
“If you know something about my mother,” she said, “tell me.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“You’re bold for someone who entered a restricted room.”
“The door was open.”
“You still entered.”
“And you still asked me to keep playing.”
Silence.
Bennett looked suspiciously like a man trying not to smile.
Adrian studied Meline.
Then something unexpected happened.
The corner of his mouth moved.
Not quite amusement.
But close.
“You’re not afraid of me.”
“I was terrified of you last night.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Meline hesitated.
She had heard stories.
Everyone in Chicago had.
Adrian Vance controlled shipping companies, private security businesses, construction firms, nightclubs, and businesses nobody described publicly.
Some people called him an entrepreneur.
Others called him the most powerful criminal figure on the North Shore.
Meline had never cared.
Rich men with dangerous reputations had nothing to do with her life.
Until now.
“I’m afraid of losing my job,” she said.
“Are you afraid of me?”
She considered lying.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because people who are truly enjoying being monsters don’t beg strangers to play piano.”
Adrian looked away first.
Bennett coughed.
“What?” Adrian said.
“Nothing, sir.”
Adrian returned to his chair.
“Twenty.”
Meline frowned.
“Twenty what?”
“Therapists.”
His gaze remained on the desktop.
“Psychiatrists, sleep specialists, neurologists, trauma specialists. Twenty people over three years.”
Meline said nothing.
“Some stayed one appointment. Some stayed months. Medication worked for minutes. Therapy worked during daylight.” He rubbed his thumb across an old scar near his wrist. “Nothing worked at night.”
“And the song did?”
“I slept three hours.”
He said it like a man describing a miracle.
Meline suddenly understood Bennett’s pale face.
“How much did you sleep normally?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Per night?”
“On a good night.”
“That’s impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“And nobody knows why?”
“They know why.”
His voice hardened.
“They just can’t fix it.”
Meline thought of Elena.
The locked room.
The shattered door.
She did not ask.
Adrian did something stranger.
He asked her another question.
“Can you play it again tonight?”
Meline blinked.
“I’m working.”
“You work for me.”
“As a cleaner.”
“Then consider your assignment changed.”
“I don’t perform anymore.”
“You performed last night.”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
Because she had been desperate.
Because for a few minutes, she had forgotten Riverbend.
Because the room had felt like the only place in the world where her mother still existed exactly as Meline remembered her.
But she refused to explain all of that.
“I stopped playing four years ago.”
“Why?”
“Personal reasons.”
Adrian gave her a look that said he was accustomed to receiving complete answers.
Meline gave him one that said he would survive disappointment.
Again Bennett looked away to hide something.
Adrian opened a drawer.
He removed an envelope.
Placed it on the desk.
“What is that?”
“Payment.”
“I haven’t agreed.”
“Five thousand dollars.”
Meline stopped breathing.
Five thousand.
Almost exactly what she could earn in thirty days of exhausting night shifts.
Her mind immediately jumped to Riverbend.
Adrian noticed.
She hated that he noticed.
“How much trouble are you in?” he asked.
“None of your business.”
“Five thousand for seven nights. One hour each night.”
Meline stared at the envelope.
Seven hours.
Five thousand dollars.
It would not solve the debt.
But it would buy time.
Maybe enough time to negotiate.
Maybe enough time to find another job.
“I don’t want charity.”
“It isn’t.”
“You would pay a concert pianist less.”
“I’m not hiring a concert pianist.”
His voice softened.
“I’m hiring the only person who has made me sleep in three years.”
That silenced her.
Meline looked at Bennett.
The older man gave the smallest nod.
She took the envelope.
“Seven nights.”
Adrian nodded.
“Seven.”
“And I choose when I stop playing.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t ask about my personal life.”
A longer pause.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Meline turned toward the door.
“Meline.”
She stopped.
It was the first time anyone in that house had used her name.
Adrian leaned forward.
“There’s something else.”
She waited.
“The music room belonged to Elena.”
“I assumed.”
“The night she died, that score was on the piano.”
Meline slowly faced him.
“What?”
“And your mother was the last person besides Elena who touched it.”
A chill moved across Meline’s skin.
Adrian continued.
“Norah disappeared from our lives the morning after my wife was killed.”
Meline forgot the envelope in her hand.
“My mother didn’t disappear.”
“She never answered another call. Never returned. Never explained.”
“She became sick.”
“When?”
Meline’s mouth opened.
Then closed.
Norah’s first signs of memory loss had appeared almost exactly three years ago.
Confusion.
Missing appointments.
Panic attacks.
Then rapid decline.
At the time, doctors had blamed stress.
Meline had accepted that explanation.
Adrian rose.
“I have spent three years wondering why your mother vanished.”
“You think she knew something?”
“I don’t know.”
Meline thought of Norah’s terrified expression whenever thunder sounded outside Riverbend.
A memory surfaced.
Her mother waking from a nap six months earlier, grabbing Meline’s wrist and whispering:
The music wasn’t finished.
Meline had assumed she was talking about the composition.
Now she wasn’t certain.
Adrian moved around the desk.
“If Norah remembers anything about Elena’s final night, I need to know.”
Meline stepped backward.
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“No?”
“You don’t get to walk into my mother’s illness because you’re curious.”
“My wife was murdered.”
“And my mother is vulnerable.”
“I won’t hurt her.”
“You frighten people without trying.”
Adrian looked almost offended.
Meline opened the door.
“You want music? I’ll play music. Leave my mother out of it.”
She walked away before he could answer.
But that afternoon, when Meline visited Riverbend, she discovered Adrian might not need to ask Norah anything.
Because when Meline placed a photograph of the Vance estate in front of her mother, Norah’s trembling finger touched the east-wing window.
Her cloudy eyes suddenly sharpened.
And she whispered one name.
“Elena.”
Then another.
“Victor.”
Meline leaned closer.
“Who is Victor?”
Norah’s face changed completely.
Fear returned.
She gripped Meline’s hand so hard her nails dug into skin.
And said:
May you like
“He knows the song isn’t finished.”
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