“Same thing?”
“Not remotely.”
Owen waited.
Mrs. Parker folded her hands.
“He told me he’d written something he wanted me to hear.”
“The song.”
“Apparently.”
“But you didn’t hear it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
She frowned.
“Because I was called away.”
That caught my attention.
“For what?”
“A student was sick. I took her to the nurse’s office.”
“During Thomas’s piece?”
“Just before.”
Owen looked at the handwritten note.
“And when you came back?”
“The performance was over.”
“Did Thomas wait?”
Mrs. Parker’s expression changed.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I assumed he’d decided not to.”
“But he left you that note.”
“He didn’t leave it for me.”
That distinction mattered.
The archived message had been written to someone else.
Don’t tell her why.
Owen read the line again.
“Who was he talking to?”
None of us knew.
The answer arrived three days later.
Daniel Mercer called.
He had gone through another box from his father’s estate after the concert.
