Chapter 5 — The Silver Music Box
Daniel reached the NICU before I did.
Nathan pushed my wheelchair as fast as hospital staff would allow, while Detective Reed ran several steps ahead of us, one hand pressed to the radio clipped to his shoulder.
The corridor seemed endless.
Every second stretched painfully.
By the time we reached the secured entrance, Daniel was already arguing with a nurse.
“My daughter’s incubator,” he said. “There was a silver music box beside it. Where is it?”
The nurse looked confused.
“Mr. Mercer, please lower your voice.”
“Where is the box?”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
“You told us a gift had been delivered.”
“I didn’t tell you that.”
Daniel stopped.
The color left his face.
A second nurse approached from behind the desk.
“I did,” she said.
She was young, with tired eyes and a purple badge clipped to her scrubs.
“I found it outside the family waiting room around five this morning. It had Grace Mercer’s name on the card.”
“Who brought it?” Detective Reed asked.
“I assumed a family member.”
“Did you check the delivery log?”
“It wasn’t delivered through reception.”
“Then how did it enter the unit?”
Her gaze moved uneasily toward the security doors.
“I don’t know.”
Reed spoke into his radio.
“Lock down the neonatal floor. Nobody leaves until we identify all visitors from the last six hours.”
The nurse’s face tightened.
“What is happening?”
“That box may contain evidence in an active criminal investigation.”
“Where is it now?” Daniel demanded.
The nurse looked toward Grace’s incubator.
“I placed it on the lower shelf beside her station.”
Daniel pushed past us.
The shelf was empty.
Grace lay beneath the warming light, breathing through a tiny nasal tube, unaware that adults had turned her first day of life into a battlefield.
Her brother slept in the incubator beside her.
Daniel dropped to one knee and checked beneath the shelf.
Nothing.
“No,” he whispered.
I gripped the arms of my wheelchair.
“Search the room.”
Hospital security sealed the NICU.
Nurses checked cabinets, supply carts, family lockers, and trash bins. Detective Reed reviewed security footage on a tablet while Nathan called the vault company.
I moved as close to Grace as I could.
A faint indentation marked the padded shelf where the box had rested.
Whoever took it had done so recently.
“How long ago did you last see it?” Reed asked the nurse.
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
“Who entered this section?”
“Staff. Parents. A respiratory technician.”
“Names.”
She began listing them.
One name made Daniel turn.
“Say that again.”
“Dr. Helen Walsh.”
“She isn’t one of our doctors.”
The nurse frowned.
“She said she was covering for neonatology.”
The attending physician was summoned.
There was no Dr. Helen Walsh assigned to the hospital.
Reed pulled up the security feed.
At 7:42 a.m., a woman in a white coat entered the NICU using a temporary visitor badge. Her hair was tucked beneath a surgical cap. A mask covered most of her face.
She paused beside Grace’s incubator for eleven seconds.
Then she slid the music box beneath her coat and walked away.
The camera captured her profile only briefly.
Rachel Hayes gasped.
“That’s Melissa.”
I turned sharply.
“You’re sure?”
“She changed her hair, but yes.”
“My aunt stole the box?”
Rachel stepped closer to the tablet.
“She didn’t steal it.”
“What would you call taking it from my child’s bedside?”
“She must have believed someone was following her.”
Daniel stared at the image.
“Then why bring it here at all?”
“To make us think it was safe,” Nathan said.
“Or to draw someone out,” Reed added.
The video continued.
Melissa left through a service hallway leading toward the hospital parking structure.
A second figure appeared twenty-three seconds later.
A man in dark clothing.
Baseball cap.
Gray jacket.
He followed her.
The camera angle did not show his face.
“Can you track him?” Daniel asked.
“We’re working on it.”
A security officer rushed into the room.
“Detective, we found the visitor badge in a stairwell.”
“And Melissa?”
“No sign of her.”
“Check every exit.”
The officer hesitated.
“There’s another issue.”
“What?”
“A vehicle was reported stolen from the physician parking level.”
Reed’s expression hardened.
“Description?”
“Black Mercedes sedan.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“That’s Melissa’s car.”
My aunt had entered the hospital disguised as a doctor, taken the music box, and disappeared in her own stolen vehicle.
Or someone had taken her with it.
Reed turned to me.
“Did Melissa ever give you a place she might go in an emergency?”
“No.”
“Childhood home? Friend? Vacation property?”
“She never spoke about the past.”
Rachel looked down.
“She had one place.”
All eyes moved toward her.
“A cabin near Lake Briar. Laura used to go there when she needed to disappear.”
“Address?” Reed asked.
“I don’t remember the number, but I know the road.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“I’m going.”
“No,” I said.
He looked at me.
“If she has the authorization—”
“If someone followed her, you could walk into a trap.”
“I can’t sit here while our house burns and the only evidence disappears.”
“You think I can?”
His face softened for half a second.
Then Reed intervened.
“Neither of you is going anywhere. Local police will check the cabin.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“They don’t know what they’re looking for.”
“They know they may be dealing with an abduction and financial crimes tied to attempted murder.”
The words attempted murder struck me hard.
Until then, every official had spoken carefully.
Assault.
Family dispute.
Trauma.
Now the detective had named it.
Attempted murder.
Nathan ended his call.
“The vault company confirmed the account.”
Daniel turned.
“They’ll let us in?”
“Not yet. The vault requires the brass key, the original trust authorization, and biometric verification from both parents.”
“The key is here.”
“The authorization is supposedly inside the music box.”
“And the biometric verification?”
“Fingerprints and live facial recognition.”
I stared at him.
“I can’t leave the hospital.”
“They have a mobile verification unit. They can come here.”
“Then call them.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“They’re sending a representative this afternoon.”
Daniel looked toward the incubators.
“And if we don’t recover the music box?”
“We don’t open the vault.”
Reed’s phone rang.
He stepped away to answer.
The NICU remained locked down while security questioned staff. I sat between Ethan and Grace, unable to escape the feeling that danger had already entered the room and stood beside my children.
Daniel leaned near me.
“I need to tell you something.”
I looked at him.
“What now?”
“I recognized the stolen car.”
“You’ve seen Melissa’s Mercedes?”
“No. The license plate.”
My stomach tightened.
“What about it?”
“It appeared in photographs from the storage unit.”
“The surveillance photographs?”
“Yes.”
“Why was her car in them?”
“One image showed it parked outside our house three months ago.”
I searched my memory.
Melissa had not visited us in nearly a year.
“Did you tell Reed?”
“I didn’t notice until now.”
“Then tell him.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Why are you hesitating?”
“Because there was another vehicle in the photograph.”
“What vehicle?”
“A company car assigned to Elliot Crane.”
The room seemed colder.
“You think Elliot met Melissa at our house?”
“Or watched her.”
“Did she enter?”
“The photograph only showed the street.”
“Daniel.”
He looked at me.
“What if Melissa wasn’t only afraid of Vanessa and Victor?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if she was helping Elliot?”
Before he could answer, Reed returned.
“They found the Mercedes.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Three blocks from the hospital.”
“Was Melissa inside?”
“No.”
“The music box?”
“No.”
“What did they find?”
Reed’s voice became careful.
“Blood in the back seat.”
Rachel sank into a chair.
Daniel stepped closer to the detective.
“Whose blood?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Was there enough to suggest—”
“I’m not speculating.”
A uniformed officer entered and handed Reed an evidence bag.
Inside was a folded sheet of paper.
Reed opened it with gloved hands.
The note had been found beneath the driver’s seat.
It contained only one sentence.
The twins were never meant to inherit the company.
Daniel read it twice.
“What does that mean?”
Rachel’s face had gone pale.
“It means Victor knows what is inside the vault.”
“What is inside?” I demanded.
She looked at Daniel, then at the babies.
“Your father did not leave Daniel the controlling interest in Mercer-Lane.”
Daniel stared at her.
“I inherited his shares.”
“You inherited temporary custody of them.”
Nathan stepped forward.
“That distinction does not appear in the will.”
“Because the actual succession agreement is in the vault.”
Daniel’s expression emptied.
Rachel swallowed.
“Thomas planned to transfer his controlling shares to Daniel’s first children.”
Silence spread through the NICU.
I looked at Ethan and Grace.
“They own the company?”
“Not yet,” Rachel said. “The transfer activates only if evidence proves Victor committed fraud against the family trust.”
“Then the vault does not just contain criminal evidence,” Nathan said. “It contains ownership documents.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked toward the empty shelf.
“Vanessa did not need the trust fund only to replace the stolen money.”
“No,” Rachel said. “She needed to empty the trust before the twins were legally recognized as beneficiaries.”
I felt sick.
“If the trust had no assets—”
“The succession clause could be challenged as invalid.”
Daniel stared at his sister’s daughter through the glass.
“She attacked my wife to erase my children’s claim to the company.”
Rachel’s answer was quiet.
“Yes.”
Reed’s phone rang again.
This time, he listened without speaking for almost a full minute.
Then he looked at Daniel.
“Local police reached the Lake Briar cabin.”
“Was Melissa there?”
“No.”
“What did they find?”
“The front door was open. There were signs of a struggle.”
My fingers tightened around the key.
“And?”
“A body was found near the dock.”
Rachel covered her mouth.
“Is it Melissa?” I whispered.
“They have not confirmed the identity.”
Daniel stared at the floor.
May you like
Reed continued.
“There was a silver music box beside the body.”
