Chapter 8 - THE VOICE INSIDE THE ORGANPolice sealed New Hope Chapel before dawn.
Pastor Reed led them to the pipe organ at the rear of the sanctuary. It had been installed in 1923 and rebuilt several times. Its polished wooden casing stretched almost to the ceiling.
“My father said certain records were placed inside,” Reed explained. “I never saw them.”
David looked at him with open disgust.
“You held Lily’s funeral ten feet from the evidence.”
Reed lowered his head.
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew enough to keep quiet.”
Rachel separated them.
Technicians removed the rear panels of the organ. Dust filled the air. Behind the lowest row of pipes, they discovered a narrow wooden compartment.
Inside was a metal cashbox.
Carol recognized it immediately.
“My mother kept sewing supplies in that.”
The box had belonged to Lily’s grandmother, who died two years before Lily disappeared.
Rachel opened it.
Inside were property agreements, photographs and a small microcassette recorder. Beneath them rested an envelope addressed to Carol.
Her hands began to shake.
“Can I read it?”
Rachel examined the envelope.
“It needs to be documented first.”
Carol’s expression hardened.
“Fourteen years.”
Rachel handed it to her.
Carol opened the envelope carefully.
The letter covered four pages.
Mom,
If you find this, Grandpa knows I told someone.
I’m sorry we fought. I said you were weak because you always let him decide what was right. I didn’t understand that you were scared too.
But I need you to believe me now.
Grandpa and Mr. Hale hurt families. They make girls look guilty so their parents will sign things. Deputy Mercer changes the reports.
I helped Nora get out of the room beneath the shed. Grandpa knows somebody opened the window, but he doesn’t know it was me.
I recorded everything I could.
If something happens to me, please don’t let them call me a runaway.
I’m not leaving you.
I’m trying to come back with proof.
I love you.
Lily
Carol finished reading and pressed the letter against her chest.
For several seconds, she stood without making a sound.
Then her knees gave way.
Ethan caught her.
“She knew,” Carol whispered. “She knew I was afraid, and she still came back.”
“You didn’t know what would happen.”
“I sent her there.”
“No.”
“We argued. I told her if she hated my rules, she could go speak to Grandpa.”
Ethan held her shoulders.
“You didn’t send her to die.”
“I sent her to him.”
A noise came from the upper balcony.
Rachel looked up.
A woman stood behind the railing.
Margaret Hale.
She held a small handgun.
“Put the box down,” she ordered.
Officers reached for their weapons.
Margaret pressed the gun against Pastor Reed’s neck. She had entered through the old choir passage and approached him from behind.
“Nobody moves.”
Rachel lowered her hand.
“Margaret, this is finished.”
“My husband spent his life building this town.”
“By destroying families.”
“Families destroy themselves.”
She looked at Carol.
“Your daughter could never stop digging.”
Carol rose slowly.
“She was fifteen.”
“She was arrogant.”
“She was brave.”
Margaret’s jaw tightened.
“She broke into our office. She stole records. She threatened to expose men who had kept this town alive.”
“You burned the shed.”
“I tried to burn the evidence.”
“You locked me inside.”
Margaret’s expression remained cold.
“You were unfortunate enough to be there.”
David moved toward the stairs.
Margaret fired into the ceiling.
Wood splintered above the altar.
“Stay where you are!”
Pastor Reed flinched beneath her arm.
Ethan studied the balcony.
A long velvet curtain hung beside Margaret. Its lower cord extended down the wall near the stairs.
He took one careful step.
The gun turned toward him.
“You look like Lily,” Margaret said. “That same belief that truth makes you powerful.”
“It made her stronger than you.”
“She ended beneath the ground.”
“And you spent fourteen years afraid of her voice.”
Margaret’s eyes shifted toward the cassette recorder in the box.
That was what she wanted.
Ethan moved again.
“Stop.”
“You came here to destroy the recording.”
“Put it on the floor.”
Ethan reached inside the box.
Instead of lifting the recorder, he grabbed a metal ledger clasp and threw it toward the opposite balcony.
Margaret turned at the sound.
David pulled the curtain cord.
The heavy velvet fabric swept sideways, wrapping around Margaret’s gun arm. Pastor Reed dropped and crawled away.
Ethan raced up the stairs.
Margaret fired through the curtain.
The bullet struck the wooden railing.
Ethan reached her as she tore herself free. She swung the gun toward his chest.
Carol struck Margaret’s wrist with the metal cashbox.
The weapon fell onto the balcony floor.
Margaret shoved Carol backward.
Carol crashed against the railing.
Ethan seized Margaret from behind. She fought wildly, driving her heel into his shin and clawing at his face.
Rachel reached the balcony and forced Margaret to the floor.
The gun was secured.
Carol stood over her.
Margaret looked up with hatred.
“Your daughter destroyed everything.”
Carol held Lily’s letter tightly.
“No,” she said. “She revealed what was already rotten.”
The microcassette contained conversations Lily had recorded from outside Hale’s office.
On one recording, Hale ordered Mercer to classify Lily as a runaway if she disappeared.
On another, Harold admitted that Lily had seen the photographs and could not be trusted.
The final recording was Lily speaking alone.
Her voice trembled, but every word was clear.
“I’m afraid to go home. But if I don’t, Grandpa will know I told Nora. I’m going to make one more copy and hide it where Mom sits during church.”
Carol remembered exactly where she had sat each Sunday.
May you like
Directly beneath the organ.
Lily had placed the truth above her mother’s head, hoping one day she would look up.
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