Barrett took her hand and held it for a moment.His grip was warm and steady.He didn't tell her she would be wonderful, because that would have been unnecessary.He simply held her hand and looked at her with a loving expression, and that was enough.
When Cadie went to the stage, Barrett took a seat in the front row.The room had filled with perhaps forty or fifty people, seated in the rows of chairs and talking in low voices that created a soft murmur beneath the high ceiling.The windows along the upper walls let in the last of the evening light.
Jaxon stood near the stage.He greeted Cadie with a handshake and a warm smile, then turned to the audience.
He spoke briefly and with genuine feeling.He told them about Boone Properties' commitment to restoring Stratton House to its original purpose.He described the covenants that would protect the building in perpetuity, the restoration plan that would preserve the historic architecture while updating the infrastructure to modern standards.He spoke of Celia Ann Stratton and her husband Emory, and of the decades they'd devoted to making the building a center for music and education in Charleston.He promised that their legacy would be honored.
Then he turned to Cadie and extended his hand toward the piano.
Cadie climbed the three steps to the stage and crossed to the bench.The grand piano waited for her, its dark surface gleaming under the overhead lights that Jaxon's team had installed for the evening.She sat on the bench and adjusted her position, feeling the familiar height and angle of the keys beneath her fingertips.The keys were cool and smooth.
She looked out at the audience.The faces were attentive and kind, the faces of people who had come because they cared about the building and the woman who had dedicated her life to it.Cadie did not know most of them, but she recognized a few from the neighborhood and from the music community contacts she had visited during the investigation.They were here for Celia Ann.They were here for Stratton House.And in a way that Cadie was only beginning to understand, they were here for her.
She spotted Barrett in the front row.He was sitting with his hands resting on his thighs and his attention focused entirely on her.What she saw in his expression was pride and love.She was filled with confidence.
Cadie took a breath and turned back to the piano.Then she placed her hands on the keys and began to play.
The music filled the performance hall.The notes climbed toward the high ceiling and spread through the room and resonated against the walls.The sound was rich and full and alive.Cadie played a piece she had been composing in her mind since arriving in Charleston, a melody that had taken shape during her stay.
It was not a sad piece, though it carried sadness in its lower register.It was a blues composition about memory and the resilience of beautiful things.It moved through minor keys and resolved into major ones.The rhythm was steady and grounding, the melody clear.
Cadie played with her eyes closed.She played for her aunt, who'd sat on the same bench and filled this room with music.She played for the students, for the concerts that had been performed on this stage, for the history that lived in the woodwork and the plaster and the worn floorboards beneath her feet.
And she played for herself.She was no longer the piano player who faded into the background when the song ended.She was center stage, alone in the spotlight, and the music that filled Stratton House was her own.
The piece built to its final movement, a passage that was both tender and resolute.Cadie let the last chord ring until the sound dissolved into the silence of the room.She held her hands above the keys for a moment, feeling the vibration fade through her fingertips and into the air.
Then she lowered her hands to her lap and opened her eyes.
The applause was immediate and genuine.The audience rose to their feet, not with the polished synchronization of a concert crowd but the spontaneous warmth of people who had been moved and wanted her to know it.Cadie stood from the bench and looked out at the faces before her.She had not expected to feel so much.She'd told herself that the concert was simple, that it was a farewell gesture and a community event and nothing more.But standing on the stage of Stratton House, where her aunt had taught for a lifetime, the sound of applause filling the room, Cadie understood that she had given something of herself that she had been holding back for years.
She had stepped into the spotlight.She had played her own music.And the people in this room had heard her.
Cadie smiled and pressed her hand to her heart in a gesture of thanks.Then she looked at Barrett.
He was standing with the rest of the audience, not clapping loudly or making a show of his reaction.He was simply standing there with an admiring look that Cadie would remember for the rest of her life.
She stepped down from the stage.
*****
The crowd lingered after the concert.People approached Cadie with kind words and memories of her aunt, and she listened to each one with patience and gratitude.A retired music teacher described the years she had spent teaching alongside Celia Ann and the students they had nurtured together.A neighbor recounted the sound of piano music drifting from the open windows on summer evenings.A young woman said that her mother had studied at Stratton House as a girl and always spoken of it with reverence.
Barrett stood nearby, close enough to be present but far enough to give Cadie space.He spoke with Jaxon Boone about the restoration timeline and shook hands with several people who thanked him for his role in the investigation.He was gracious and understated.Cadie noticed that he deflected any praise by redirecting attention to Sullivan's team or to the evidence that Celia Ann herself had left behind.
Eventually, the crowd thinned.People said goodbyes and walked down the front steps of Stratton House into the mild evening air.Car doors opened and closed along the street, and engines started, and the building grew quiet.
Jaxon was the last to leave.He shook Cadie's hand at the door and told her that the evening had been everything he had hoped for.He extended an invitation to the reopening and said he would be in touch as the restoration progressed.Then he stepped outside, and Cadie watched as he walked to his car and drove away.
The building was silent.
Barrett was leaning against the doorframe of the performance hall with his arms crossed."Walk with me?"
Cadie took his hand and they walked into the performance hall together.The chairs were still arranged in rows, and a few programs that Jaxon had printed at the last minute were scattered on the seats.The stage was empty except for the grand piano.
Barrett led her to the stage.They climbed the steps together and stood beside the piano, and Cadie rested her hand on the instrument's curved edge.The wood was warm from the lights and smooth beneath her fingers.
"That was remarkable," Barrett said.His voice was quiet, as though he did not want to disturb the stillness of the room."Your aunt would have been proud."
