Under a canopy of string lights on the flagstone terrace sat a nine-foot, ebony black Steinway Model D concert grand. It had been tuned that morning by a specialist from New York. It was meant to be the centerpiece of the evening, played by Arthur Whitfield, a Juilliard graduate. But Arthur had canceled at 4:15 that afternoon with severe food poisoning.
Trent had demanded a replacement within hours, but every worthy pianist was booked. By 7:00 PM, the $100,000 instrument sat utterly empty. Trent handled the failure the way he handled any problem he couldn't buy his way out of: he ignored it, turning up the background music and repositioning the lights to cast the piano in shadow.
Yet, it sat there, gleaming and waiting. Trent couldn't stop glancing at it, a bitter reminder of the one room in his father's world where he held no key. Grant Ellison loved classical music, but Trent couldn't play a single note. The gap between what Trent could buy and what he could actually do sat heavy in the summer air.
Six months before that night at the Ellison estate, Phoebe Brooks woke up in the backseat of a 2004 Honda Civic parked behind a laundromat on Kensington Avenue. The windshield was fogged with her own breath. She wiped it with her sleeve, checking her cracked phone: 4:41 AM. She had exactly nineteen minutes before the laundromat owner would rap his broom against the glass—the silent signal that her safe harbor hours were up.