“Yes,” I snapped. “That’s it. I saw Ian and told him you wanted to talk to him. But I can’t help you if you’re not going to help yourself.”
Instead of waiting for Alex to answer, I crawled into bed on top of the covers, closed my eyes, and waited for Alex to leave.
* * *
I dreamed of New York City. And of Ian. We toured the city, Ian playing tour guide and dragging me to see the hidden tunnels under Central Park, the view from the Empire State Building, an underground sake bar.
Then Ian, remarkably sober but still technically dead, looked at me and said, “Why didn’t we do this earlier? You make a great travel companion.”
I’d spent copious amounts of time building up my defenses against Ian. I wasn’t keen on bringing them down now, particularly when I had work to do. “What use would Alex have for Dec’s piano? How could he use that to talk to you?”
“He doesn’t need the whole piano.” Ian laughed. “Just the G string.”
I looked past Ian’s searing blue eyes, his carnivorous smile, and his overwhelming intensity, to notice that, unlike most ghosts, Ian was mostly opaque. I’d hovered over Laura’s shoulder while she was designing Hampton House’s latest marketing pieces and watched as she’d changed the images from 100 percent to 50 percent so the background could peek through. That was what most ghosts looked like, depending on the strength they’d had while living. Ian was an unnerving 90 percent, only his edges—and possibly his morals—were fuzzy and insubstantial.
“Pay attention, Griffin. Seriously; take notes if you need to,” Ian said. “Talk your boyfriend into giving you the low G string from his piano. Then pull the stereo out of the Mustang and slot the string in. Somewhere. You’re smart. You’ll figure it out, not like I had an engineering degree or anything, and I built that whole damned car. Alex will just have to take it from there on his own. That was kind of the point.”
I bolted up in bed, covered in sweat. The clock read three in the morning. Blue light bathed the room. I wasn’t completely sure I was alone.
Unlike most dreams, this one didn’t fade as my eyes adjusted to the sensation of “awake.”
But I knew this. Alex wasn’t going to stop until he talked to his brother. It didn’t matter what the younger Mackenzie needed to discuss with Ian, I had to arrange a meeting. A real meeting, unless I was going to let him hack up the piano. The problem was going to be talking Dec into playing along and not killing myself in the process.
I grabbed my phone.
Chapter 32
Annie
Insomnia and I were old friends. In truth, insomnia was a friend of all performers. But even when I had been deep in rehearsals, my sleep was rarely interrupted by a piece of music repeating in my head.
Now, ever since I arrived in St. Hilaire, I found myself falling asleep, but waking up an hour or two later, when I would hear the Prelude playing relentlessly.
I stretched, then regretted it. My arms had begun to ache with any movement, which meant I was only playing with my fingers instead of my whole body. Tense muscles were the penalty for bad form.
Still, I got out of bed and grabbed my keyboard and headphones. I stretched again. I would play. Not the Prelude and not the Tchaikovsky, but some of the show tunes I had learned for the Union Station performance.
I began the medley from Porgy and Bess, but my fingers slipped over the keys as if someone had greased them. Lightning flashed against the curtains, and I allowed myself a minute to sit and stare out the window.
Why had I kissed Dec? Where had the courage to do that come from? I had no regrets, but it felt like a kiss that only could have happened in a strange place like this. As if there was something in the air giving me permission, making me bold.
I tried the medley again.
The notes sounded wrong. My keyboard could not be out of tune, so it had to be my playing. I slowed down. Started over, with no luck. Slammed my hands on the keyboard and winced at the discordant mess that blasted into my ears.
In the back of my mind, the Prelude played on. I closed my eyes and tried to focus. Knowing I was going to find the rest of the Prelude and then hopefully win the Hull, made everything clearer. Weeks ago, I would have been appalled at the arrogance, the pure absurdity of the idea. But now, here, it felt right. It was right, in a way. I knew I would succeed as certainly as I knew my life was about to change. As certainly as I knew that kissing Dec was the right move. Russ said I would “find my home” or “go home” or something like that. I did not know where home would be, but St. Hilaire was the right place for now.
I hummed the last few measures of the Prelude’s performance arrangement. Then I added on the measures from the necklace. Then the new measures from the mirror. I was not a proficient singer, but I could carry a tune if forced. Dmitry had even dragged me to karaoke a couple of times.
I repeated the measures, trying out different tempos. Neither the music in my charm nor the music from the window had been notated, and so I hummed at the same speed the known sheet music had ended on, a rallentando, a gradual decrease in speed.
But as I came to the end of a measure, I was sure I had heard a voice.
I hummed the notes again. Then I heard them repeated back as a soft echo.
“Who is there?” I asked.
There was no answer. Perhaps I should have been afraid, but I was not. I hummed the notes a third time. The response came quicker, stronger, and to my delight, kept going.
It carried through the notes I had seen on the mirror and oh, allegro, of course. I saw now, how the piece was coming together. And miraculously the humming continued. Around and around the music spun, the notes were almost tangible.
Sing with me. I’ll show you.
The voice, vaguely familiar, but distorted, came from all sides of the room at once. It picked up the melody at a place I knew well, and I joined in, the two of us carrying on a duet. I noticed changes in phrasing now. Ever so slightly different from how I had been playing, but so much more meaningful.
I wished I could record it or at least write it down, but somehow, I knew I was going to be able to play this from memory. After all, this song had been flowing through me for years.
Dmitry, I thought. Oh, how I wish you were here.
As my first tear fell, the room went silent.
As the second tear fell, I realized that in spite of the gift I had been given, the music was still incomplete. I still had far to go.
As I wiped the third tear away, I gave into the ache in my stomach and the insomnia, and made my way to the piano downstairs.
Chapter 33
Dec
“Why are we here again?” I asked. In truth, we weren’t anywhere in particular. I’d been lying in bed, replaying the kiss with Annie over in my head, when Russ had called and begged me to meet him outside. He picked me up and drove outside the city gates, pulling over near the entrance to a deserted winery, which had closed after blight destroyed their crops last year. Served them right. Harriet had tried to warn the owners, but they’d laughed her off the property.