Chapter 4 - The Safe Behind the Piano
Thomas took them to the only place in New Orleans Jacques did not know he still owned.
A narrow shotgun house near Bayou St. John registered to a dead accountant.
Rosa fell asleep on the couch within minutes, wrapped in an old Saints blanket. Maya sat at the kitchen table with an ice pack against her eye.
Thomas poured whiskey.
She pushed the glass away.
"I don't drink around Rosa."
"You used to."
"I used to trust you too. People improve."
Thomas drank both glasses.
"Tell me about the ledger."
Maya looked toward her sleeping daughter.
"Celeste knew your husband-father relationship with the truth was complicated."
"Try that sentence again without insulting me."
"No."
Thomas almost smiled again.
He hated that too.
Maya continued. "Your mother kept a duplicate record of the family's operations. Not because she wanted control. Because she wanted an exit. She contacted Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Price. The night before they were supposed to meet, her car went through a guardrail."
Thomas remembered the funeral.
His father standing dry-eyed beside the coffin.
Jacques's father, Henri, holding Thomas's shoulder.
Family protects family.
That was what Henri had said.
"How did your brother get the ledger?"
"He didn't. He found Celeste's letters in the city archives after a retired clerk died. The letters pointed to the old Treme house. I took a job there as a maid because your people never see women carrying laundry."
"Jacques saw you."
"Eventually."
"And the ledger?"
"I found half of it."
Thomas frowned.
"Half?"
"Pages one through eighty-six. The rest were removed. Celeste left a note saying the second half was where her son would hear the truth."
Thomas stared at her.
"The Séance."
His mother had taken him there every Sunday afternoon when he was a boy, before it became one of his meeting rooms. She loved the old upright piano in the private lounge.
Thomas stood.
"We go now."
Maya looked toward Rosa.
"She stays."
"With who? Every guard I have might belong to Jacques."
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Thomas spun, gun raised.
A small face appeared around the doorway.
"I can hear you," Rosa said.
Maya exhaled.
"Honey, go back to sleep."
"No."
"Rosa."
The girl folded her arms.
"Grandma Celeste hid something in a piano?"
Thomas stared.
"Who told you her name?"
Rosa reached into the pocket of the hospital gown.
She pulled out a folded photograph.
Celeste Rousseau stood beside a much younger Maya's mother.
On the back, in Celeste's handwriting, were seven words.
FOR THOMAS, WHEN HE FINALLY ASKS WHY.
Thomas took the photograph with unsteady fingers.
Maya said quietly, "My mother kept that for twenty-eight years."
Thomas turned it over again.
A set of numbers was written beneath the message.
Rosa pointed at them.
"That's not a phone number."
Thomas knew immediately what it was.
A safe combination.
And there was only one safe in The Séance he had never been able to open.
The one hidden behind his mother's piano.
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