THE POLICE TOOK HER AWAY FROM THE PARTY—BY MIDNIGHT, THE MAFIA BOSS HAD SURROUNDED THE STATION

On Friday morning, the piano classroom at St. Bridget stood empty. Sister Madeleine had canceled lessons, notified parents, and arranged for the children to stay with their families while authorities assessed the threat. Rosalyn knew it was responsible. She still hated it. Her students had done nothing wrong, and once again they were the people paying the price.

Mara had sent the threatening message to investigators along with screenshots and technical information she could preserve. She also helped the center review its privacy procedures and explained why they should avoid sharing more details publicly. Elias offered private security. This time he asked first, and the director accepted uniformed guards for the building's entrances during the immediate concern, coordinated with local authorities and without weapons visible around the children.

“You're getting better at asking,” Rosalyn told him.

“Slowly,” he replied.

Neither of them smiled.

The city's redevelopment committee was scheduled to consider a major waterfront land transfer that afternoon. The proposal promised jobs, luxury apartments, and public green space. Its supporting documents treated the old Harborside site as a cleaned industrial parcel, with no unresolved environmental hazards. Voss's companies stood to profit from the transfer. If the vote went through, an entire chain of records and liability might be buried beneath new construction.

Rosalyn wanted to attend the hearing. Mara cautioned that the old fire case and the current redevelopment process had separate legal questions. A public speech would not replace expert analysis or official testimony. But residents had the right to address the committee, and the proposal's safety assurances were plainly relevant to people living nearby.

At the hearing, Rosalyn sat between Sister Madeleine and a neighborhood organizer named June Alvarez, whose parents had lost their grocery store during an earlier redevelopment. Elias watched from the back beside Emmett, not pretending he had no role in the businesses being discussed.

Harlon Voss arrived with two attorneys and an assistant carrying a leather briefcase. He wore a charcoal suit and a sympathetic expression for the cameras. When he noticed Rosalyn, he paused. Then he sat in the front row as though she were an unexpected inconvenience.

The committee chair opened public comment after the developer's presentation. Several residents asked about traffic and rent. A civil engineer questioned outdated soil data. Voss's consultant assured everyone that all appropriate reviews had been completed.

Rosalyn approached the microphone with the folded copy of Helen Quinn's note in her hand. Her voice trembled once, at the beginning. Then she spoke about a music cooperative that had stood on the same ground thirteen years earlier, about two children who had escaped a fire, and about families who deserved honest information before homes were built over an old industrial storage site.

“I am not here to tell you which company should earn the most money,” she said. “I am asking you to confirm the safety of the land before you decide what happens to the people who will live on it.”

A committee member asked whether she had technical evidence. Rosalyn acknowledged that she did not have complete testing records and that counsel was helping examine newly discovered documents. She requested an independent review and preservation of historic permits. She resisted the temptation to claim more certainty than she possessed. Her testimony would be stronger because of that restraint.

Then Harlon Voss asked to speak.

He expressed sympathy for survivors and called the fire a tragedy unrelated to the modern development. He also warned the committee against accepting what he described as “emotionally powerful but unverified allegations.” He did not mention her name, yet every person in the chamber knew whom he meant.

June Alvarez leaned toward Rosalyn. “He's using nice words to call you a liar.”

“I know.”

The chair announced a recess. In the hallway, a reporter from a local paper approached Rosalyn and introduced herself as Talia Brooks. Unlike the television crews at the station, Talia asked detailed questions about the fire report and the children's current safety. Rosalyn gave her Mara's contact information and agreed to an interview after the documents could be checked.

“Why come forward now?” Talia asked.

“Because he recognized me at that gala,” Rosalyn said. “I think he was afraid I would speak.”

“You weren't planning to.”

“No. I just wanted to teach music.”

During the recess, Mara received a call from Celeste Moreno's lawyer. Celeste was willing to provide the hotel's security-vault records through the proper process, but the hotel's director had suddenly placed her on administrative leave. A supervisor had allegedly told her to sign a new account of the necklace's disappearance. She refused.

“Can she prove the original record is authentic?” Mara asked.

“She has a copy of the system export and a witness who saw the move,” the lawyer replied. “We need to preserve the source before someone changes it.”

Mara sent urgent requests. The hotel could not simply erase its own liability by editing the history, but records could be lost, and time mattered.

Back in the hearing room, an unexpected witness stood. He was an elderly retired fire inspector named Arthur Dempsey. His hands shook as he adjusted the microphone. He said he had examined a warehouse fire in the harbor district years earlier and had challenged the official finding of an electrical fault. His concerns about chemical storage and blocked exits were not included in the final report.

Voss's lawyer rose to object to an allegation outside the agenda. The committee chair reminded everyone that public comment was not a trial, then asked Dempsey to identify the documents he was referring to.

“I kept copies,” he said. “Because when a building burns, paper burns too.”

Rosalyn felt the air leave her lungs.

The committee voted to postpone the land transfer pending a more complete safety review. It was a narrow procedural decision, not a finding that Voss had committed a crime. Yet the developer's face looked as though a door had slammed shut.

Outside, Voss passed Rosalyn beneath the courthouse steps.

“You've made a mistake,” he said quietly.

She looked at him. “Then you should have no trouble proving it.”

That evening, Arthur Dempsey called Mara and said someone had entered his garage. Nothing valuable was taken. Only the locked cabinet containing his old fire files had been opened.