“This was different,” she said. “It was a song, not a noise.” Grabbing the scrap paper with the notes she’d put on her desk, she played a few chords, then started singing.

“Stop!” His jaw was clenched, and he gripped her guitar so tightly that it seemed like he would snap it in two.

Lara’s eyes shot up to see he was shaking and pale.

“Where in the hell did you hear that?”

“I just told you,” she said, her eyes wide. She wasn’t expecting this type of reaction. “I was cuing your album—”

“Not that song, Lara.” He cut her off, his voice raised and edgy, like it had been when she was a child swimming out too far in the pool. “That song doesn’t exist, not anymore.”

Lara stopped strumming. “I… I… told you. I cued up ‘The One I Left Behind’ and when I did, I heard this several times.” She pointed to the tabs on her paper for emphasis. “I tried to get a tape recorder, but I’d forgotten to get fucking batteries. I thought I might be able to get the notes down on the guitar, so I hauled this into the studio. The weird thing is that when Melissa came to relieve me at ten, the song was gone.”

Jason ran his hands through his hair. “It can’t be.”

“Can’t be what?” Lara put the Fender back in its cradle. “What is it?”

“Peter.” He lowered his eyes. “You’ve been hounding me since Todd split, asking me all the time about Peter Beaumont. Well, if you heard that song, then you heard Peter Beaumont. We didn’t record that song, Lara. That song lives only in my memories.” He pointed to his temple. “At least it did.” Jason shot up and pulled a copy of Tending from the record library. “Was this the album?” There were multiple copies around the studio, but she’d specifically used that library copy.

Lara nodded.

“You sure?” He tapped the album cover frantically.

“I always grab the library copy, never your personal one.”

He walked over to the spare turntable that sat in their office. This set had a smaller channel mixer hooked up to it, nothing like the elaborate one in the studio. She watched her father flip the turntable dial into cue and place the record on the platter. He guided the arm over track three, pulled the lever to lower it, then pushed the START button, stopping the record as the beginnings of a song formed. Twisting the record slowly, he began to rewind it on the turntable.

The room was quiet as they both waited to hear.