“Remove her,” he said.
The woman looked toward him.
“I only need three minutes.”
Marcus stepped away from the microphone, but his reply still carried through the silent hall.
“You were told not to come.”
A murmur passed through the audience.
Reporters raised their cameras.
Julian studied the woman.
There was something familiar about her, although he could not remember where he had seen her.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She looked at him with an expression that contained neither admiration nor fear.
“My name is Ana Wren. I worked at North Valley Emergency Communications on the night of the avalanche.”
Theo’s right hand tightened around his left wrist.
Julian felt the movement.
Marcus quickly approached the front of the stage.
“Miss Wren was a junior radio operator,” he explained. “She was dismissed after repeatedly making unsupported accusations about the rescue operation.”
“I resigned,” Ana said.
“After you violated procedure.”
“After someone erased a recording.”
The atmosphere inside Winter Hall changed.
The guests stopped whispering.
Julian stepped down from the platform.
“What recording?”
Marcus moved between him and the audience.
“This is neither the time nor the place.”
Ana lifted the damaged metal box.
“This receiver was recovered from the old communication room beneath the eastern wing. The restoration crew found it sealed behind a collapsed wall six months ago.”
Marcus stared at the box.
His face remained composed, but one of his hands slowly closed into a fist.
Ana continued.
“The main system was destroyed, but this unit contained an independent magnetic recorder. Most of the audio was badly damaged. I spent five months rebuilding it.”
Julian looked at the burned casing.
“Audio from the avalanche?”
“Yes.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
Ana’s gaze shifted toward Marcus.
“Because the foundation obtained the receiver before the police could examine it.”
Marcus gave a sharp laugh.
“That machine is a piece of wreckage. Any recording it contained would be meaningless.”
Theo suddenly moved.
He raised one hand and tapped his fingers against the wooden railing beside the stage.
Four slow taps.
A pause.
One tap.
Another pause.
Four more.
Ana turned toward him.
Theo repeated the pattern.
Four.
One.
Four.
Ana’s expression changed.
She set the metal receiver on the floor and opened her violin case.
The security officers stepped forward.
Julian raised his hand.
“Let her continue.”
Ana removed a dark wooden violin. Its surface was scratched, and one edge had been repaired with a thin strip of lighter wood.
She placed it beneath her chin.
Then she played three quiet notes.
The first was low.
The second rose sharply.
The third seemed to hang in the air without resolving.
Theo stopped tapping.
Ana played the notes again.
Theo’s breathing became faster.
Julian watched him closely.
“Theo?”
His son stared at the violin.
Ana added a fourth note.
A deep, trembling sound escaped Theo’s throat.
It was not yet a word, but it was the first sound Julian had heard him make in four years.
Several guests gasped.
Julian forgot the cameras, the concert, and the hundreds of people surrounding them.
He stepped toward his son.
“Theo, what is it?”
Theo’s lips moved.
Nothing came out.
Ana lowered the violin.
“Celeste used those four notes as a tuning signal,” she said. “Whenever she tested the emergency radio, she played them into the microphone.”
Julian looked at her.
“My wife was a pianist.”
“She also helped design Winter Hall’s acoustic warning system. She tested it personally.”
Marcus moved toward the receiver.
“That is enough.”
Ana stood between him and the device.
“Why are you afraid of a broken radio?”
“I am protecting this family from a cruel performance.”
“No,” Ana replied. “You are protecting yourself from a voice you thought had disappeared.”
Marcus’s expression hardened.
He signaled to security.
Julian stepped into their path.
“No one touches that receiver.”
“Julian, listen to me.”
“I have listened to you for four years.”
Marcus glanced toward the television cameras.
“This recording has not been authenticated.”
“Then let everyone hear it,” Julian said. “Let them decide whether it deserves an investigation.”
Ana carried the receiver onto the stage.
A technician examined the cables and connected the old machine to the hall’s sound system. Static burst from the speakers.
The audience flinched.
The sound faded into a low electrical hum.
Ana adjusted a dial.
For several seconds, there was only broken noise.
Then a woman’s voice appeared beneath the static.
Faint.
Distant.
Terrified.
“North Station… this is Winter Relay…”
Julian stopped breathing.
Even through the distortion, he recognized Celeste.
The voice he had heard in dreams.