Isabel agreed to speak with Daniel later that evening at a location chosen by investigators.
He expected to see a terrified woman who wanted nothing further to do with the case.
Instead, she arrived with a bruised elbow, a cup of coffee, and a list of questions.
Her brother Mateo sat beside her.
He was younger than Daniel expected and had the long, precise fingers of someone who worked with small tools.
“Did anybody get into the water?” Isabel asked immediately.
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
“Were the chemicals secured?”
“The police checked the equipment area.”
“Did the hook touch the filter line?”
“I don’t think so.
”
Isabel took a breath and looked at Mateo.
“I told you they would use a pool.”
Mateo’s face tightened.
“You also told me you weren’t going to confront them alone.”
“I didn’t,” Isabel replied.
“They found me at the bus stop.”
Daniel had no idea what to say.
He finally settled on the simplest truth.
“I’m sorry this happened at my house.”
Isabel looked at him steadily.
“It happened because Gideon knew I would keep an appointment.”
“And because Carol gave him access,” Daniel said.
“Yes.”
Isabel set down her coffee.
“I want you to understand something about Carol.”
Daniel waited.
“I have repaired her fountain twice for free,” she said.
“She used to bring me iced tea when I worked on your pump.”
“She complained about you parking near her mailbox.”
“She complained about everybody.”
Isabel gave a tired smile that disappeared quickly.
“But I never believed she would agree to hurt me.”
CHAPTER FIVE — THE THIRD KEY
Mateo placed a photograph on the table between them.
It showed the missing viola resting in a dark blue velvet case.
The wood glowed warmly under the workshop lights, and the instrument’s scroll curled inward like a question mark.
“I built the bridge and repaired the neck,
” Mateo explained.
“The student who owned it is named Lily Barnes.”
Lily was sixteen and played in a municipal youth ensemble.
Her mother cleaned offices at night, and her father drove a school bus.
A retired conductor had commissioned the instrument for her after hearing her perform on a borrowed viola.
The theft delayed her conservatory audition because her substitute instrument was too small for her hands.
“People keep calling these thefts property crimes,” Mateo said.
“They were stealing months of somebody’s life.”
Daniel thought about the nearly empty pool behind his house.
He asked why Price would take so many risks over instruments whose sale could be traced.
Isabel answered with an explanation that made the scheme uglier.
Price did not sell most instruments immediately.
He stored them in private climate-controlled lockers and had their identifying marks altered by a specialist.
Some buyers were collectors who preferred not to ask questions.
Others were intermediaries who promised to resell instruments overseas.
Instruments from schools could be passed off as estate donations because their inventories were inconsistent.
And the people who owned them were often musicians who could not afford lengthy legal disputes.
“He chose houses where someone was traveling,” Isabel said.
“He knew their schedules because the owners told him when to service the pool.
”
“I told him when I would be away,” Daniel admitted.
“I know.”
Isabel looked uncomfortable.
“I checked your garage yesterday without entering it.”
“Why?”
“Because Gideon asked me whether you kept a piano there.”
Daniel frowned.
“I don’t.”
“He asked twice.”
Mateo sat forward.
“Did somebody in your family own a piano?”
“My mother had one years ago.”
“Was it a small upright?”
“Yes.”
Mateo exchanged a look with Isabel.
“What color?” he asked.
“Dark walnut.”
“Did it have two brass pedals?”
“It had three, but the middle one never worked.”
Isabel shook her head.
“Then he probably confused you with another Reed.
”
Daniel felt the explanation did not fit.
His mother had sold the piano when she moved into assisted living, five years before his pool company ever knew him.
Price might have been asking about valuables for another burglary.
But why ask specifically about a piano that no longer existed?
Ortiz joined them and listened to the account.
“Price visited a storage facility yesterday under a false name,” she said.
“We think he is consolidating goods before moving them out of state.”
“Then we need to find the facility,” Mateo replied.
“We have leads.”
“How many people are helping him?” Daniel asked.
Ortiz did not pretend to know.
“More than Carol and Raymond, certainly.”
She paused before adding another detail.
“We recovered three duplicate gate keys from the abandoned maintenance van.”
Daniel looked at the photograph of his house on the table.
“One of them could open my side gate.”
“We haven’t tested them yet.”
“How did they get copies?”
Isabel closed her eyes.
“Blue Current kept backup keys for premium clients.”
Daniel remembered paying an extra fee for emergency service during holidays.
The arrangement had seemed sensible when his pool heater froze one winter.
Now it meant somebody could access his yard when he was sixty miles away.
“I am changing every lock,” Daniel said.
Ortiz nodded.
“That would be wise once we finish examining the gate.”
The conversation ended when a second investigator entered carrying a photograph of a red instrument case.
It had been recovered from a charitable donation center that morning.
Inside was a flute belonging to a middle-school music teacher.
A handwritten donation card claimed the case came from a woman named Caroline Price.
“That isn’t Carol,” Daniel said.
“No,” Ortiz replied.
“It’s Gideon’s sister.”
Isabel stared at the image.
“She works at the airport freight depot.”
Ortiz nodded slowly.
The investigation had just acquired a possible route for the stolen instruments to leave the country.
CHAPTER SIX — CAROL’S FRONT ROOM
The following morning,
Carol’s house was quiet for the first time Daniel could remember.
There were no complaints shouted over the fence, no bins dragged across the sidewalk, and no notes stuck beneath windshield wipers.
A patrol officer stood near the porch while investigators waited for a locksmith.
Carol had agreed to let investigators examine the living room and kitchen, but she refused to discuss the bedroom she kept locked.
Ortiz arrived carrying a formal search authorization covering the rooms and outbuildings connected to the deliveries.
Daniel watched from his side of the street as workers opened the side garage.
Inside, a stack of flattened instrument cartons leaned against a lawn mower.
A layer of dark velvet fibers coated the floor beside a metal worktable.
It was difficult to believe that the tidy elderly woman who criticized his recycling habits had allowed a sorting station in her home.
Carol sat on her porch with an officer and stared at the boxes being carried out.
When Daniel approached, she rose abruptly.
“You told them where to look,” she accused.
“I didn’t know there was anything to find.”
“You always thought you knew everything about me.”
“I thought you disliked my pool.”
Carol glanced at the patrol officer.
“I do dislike your pool.”
Daniel waited for the familiar complaint about noise or landscaping.
Instead, Carol looked toward a small framed photograph visible through her open door.
It showed a young man beside a delivery truck, smiling broadly while holding a set of keys.
“That’s my son, Andrew,” she said.
Daniel knew Andrew had worked in moving and storage.
He had seen the younger man visit Carol on holidays, usually leaving within an hour.
“Is he involved?” Daniel asked.
Carol’s eyes filled with an anger that seemed aimed at herself.
“Gideon hired him to move equipment.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“He said pool covers, heaters, things too heavy for regular vans.”
“And when did you learn what the shipments really contained?”
Carol looked down.
“When Andrew came home with a violin case and couldn’t explain why a pool company needed it.”
Andrew had worked for Price as a contract driver for nearly a year.
At first the jobs were ordinary transfers between warehouses and residential properties.
The pay was good enough that he could replace the transmission in his aging truck.
Then the work shifted toward night deliveries, sealed cartons, and instructions to avoid using the main entrances of storage facilities.
He confronted Price after finding a name written inside a cello case.
Price told him the contents had been seized from customers who refused to pay their invoices.
Andrew believed the explanation until a woman appeared at the depot asking for her missing instrument.
Price ordered Andrew to move the remaining cases immediately.
Andrew refused, and Price threatened to report him as the thief.
“He said every shipment was in Andrew’s name,” Carol explained.
“He said the police would believe a driver before they believed a businessman with fifty employees.”
Daniel did not know whether Carol was describing a real threat or an excuse Andrew had given her.
He asked why she had not contacted the police.
“Because Andrew told me he had already signed forms that weren’t true,” she replied.
“He was afraid he would lose everything.”
“So you let stolen instruments pass through your garage.”
“I thought I could keep them here until he found a way out.”
“And then you helped Gideon set a trap for Isabel.”
Carol recoiled as though the sentence had struck her.
“He said she planned to ruin Andrew.”
Daniel’s voice remained low.
“You saw the hook, Carol.”
“I didn’t put the hook there.”
“You carried the boards.”
“I thought it was supposed to frighten her away.”
Daniel glanced at the police officer, who made no attempt to stop the conversation.
“You cannot turn a swimming pool into a trap and then decide which parts you meant.”
Carol pressed a hand against the porch railing.
For once, she offered no immediate insult.
