So much for bullet holes. We were at the police station for over an hour, giving our statements and explaining what happened to the police. According to them, there is no active organized crime group in the area that they are aware of, not since they broke up Silverenn's crime ring in the 70s. No reports, no sightings, no suspicious activities, nothing.

They promised to look into the two men who were in our apartment, but they suspected they were just common criminals. After all, we do live in a seedy part of town. The police even wondered if they were former exes, or boyfriends pranking us, but we assured them that neither of us have dated recently, nor had relationships end on bad terms. They concluded that it would be best to go home, see if anything is missing, and report any stolen items. Other than that, unless the robbers break into another home or attempt to pawn the items, there's nothing they can do.

In the end, Emi and I plop into the seats in the car. Too frightened to go home and too exhausted to think, we drive to the nearest supermarket and fall asleep in the parking lot.

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The sun shines behind my eyelids. A car revs in the distance, jolting my eyes open. The parking lot is now full of cars and people milling about with shopping carts. Emi stirs at the same time as me, brushing my shoulder as she stretches her arms back. Her eyes open, and her placid expression drops into despair.

"I was hoping last night was a bad dream," she says.

If only it were just a dream. But it isn't. After all, it isn't normal to wake up in a supermarket parking lot. Last night did happen.

"I'm just glad I brought my purse," I say.

Panic flashes across Emi's face. She whips from side to side until her hand lands on her purse, which is wedged between her seat and the door. A sigh of relief rushes from her.

"This is awful," Emi says.

"And you'd think the police would do a little more to help," I say. We both sit in silence, squinting into the sun. "Want to go home?"

"No way. The police may be right that the intruders were just robbers, but I don't want to take that chance. How much money you got?"

I remove my wallet from the outer pouch of my viola case and open it. "Three dollars and a credit card. You?"

"Twenty dollars and a credit card," Emi sighs. She shakes her head slightly, staring at the steering wheel. "Darn. We don't even have the six-hundred bucks we were promised for last night's performance." Emi's eyes suddenly widen. "Wait, we totally forgot about Martin!"

"You think he got the money?" I ask.

"No, but if those people really were in the mafia, they wouldn't have let him walk out alive."

"You're right." A wave of panic sweeps through me. I was never super close to Martin, but I don't want anything bad to happen to him, especially if it's because I got too embroiled in this treasure hunt.

"I'm calling him." Emi whips out her phone and dials his number. Time pauses as his phone rings, and rings, and rings.

The receiver picks up. There's a faint crackle on the other end, then: "hello?"

Martin's voice. I feel myself practically collapse in relief.

"Martin, are you okay?" Emi asks.

"Yes. Who's this?"

"Emi."

"Ah. Right."

There's several silent beats over the line. Typical Martin.

"Did... did you get the money for the gig?" Emi asks.

"Money?"

"Yes, money. We did a gig last night."

"Right."

"So, the money. Six-hundred dollars?"

"No." I can practically hear the frown in Martin's voice, the wheels slowly turning in his head. "No, I think they said something about mailing it to us?"

"Did you give them your address?" Panic rises in Emi's voice.

"No. Should I have?"

"No!" Emi and I exclaim in unison.

In the background, I hear a faint beeping sound. "I need to practice now. See you... sometime."

The call ends.

If that conversation were with anyone else, I'd think that someone were impersonating whoever I was supposed to be speaking with. The only exception to that is Martin.

"Well, he sounds like his old self," Emi says, slipping her phone inside her slack's pocket. We're still in our concert attire from last night. "But why would the mafia let him go?"

A frown creases my brow. I pull out my phone, typing into the search bar: "do amfia till kill peopele?" I scroll through the results, clicking on a few articles.

"According to what I'm reading, the mafia don't kill as much as they used to. Murders attract a lot of police attention, increasing the chance of their activities being discovered. Considering that the police weren't even aware of a mafia group in the area, it's likely that they've just gotten smarter about how they knock people off. So potentially, if they killed us at the concert venue and then dumped our bodies somewhere, that would entail more investigation than staging our murder as a robbery gone wrong outside our apartment."

"But what about Martin?" Emi asks. "You really think they would let him walk out? He might go and tell the police!"

I blink at Emi for a second. "Emi, we're talking about Martin. During the entire concert, he barely interacted with anyone, including us. Anyone with two eyes could see he was in his own, musical universe. More than likely, they figured it would attract less attention to let him leave if he doesn't know anything, rather than trying to cover up a murder."

Emi considers this. "But would they take that chance? Martin could've been pretending."

"Well, maybe they're still monitoring him. Watching his car. Seeing if he goes to the police. Seeing if he contacts the police."

"Like, monitoring his phone?"

"Look, I don't know what tools the mafia have at their disposal. All I'm saying is that it's possible that they released him but are still keeping tabs on him in case he becomes a threat. Or..."

"Or what?"

I swallow. "Or maybe they're planning a more natural murder for him right now. Just in case, you know? Something less suspicious than three bodies dumped in a lake somewhere after being hired to play at a concert organized by the crime ring itself."

We're both quiet for a moment.

"We... need the police," Emi finally breathes.

"Except they don't believe us."

"Maybe there is no threat. Maybe we're overreacting to everything."

Again, silence descends between us.

"I want a granola bar," Emi says after a moment. "We need some food to think."

"Want to go home?"

"Heck no." Emi's seatbelt slides away from her. "Let's just get some food in here."

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I find a ham and cheese croissant and a dark roast coffee for brunch. It's past eleven, so I can't really call our meal breakfast. Emi and I slide into a booth in an eating area on the side of the grocery store. My sandwich is warm in my hands, fresh out of the microwave. Cheese stretches from the center until it snaps, and I savor the salty flavor along with the crunch of the flaky pastry.

Emi digs her spoon into a strawberry yogurt, sprinkled with a cinnamon chewy chunk granola bar. They were out of chocolate chewy. She takes a sip of coffee, rubbing her hands around the sides as if to warm herself. I do the same and try to enjoy the bitterness like her. It doesn't work.

We eat in silence for a few minutes before my phone starts to buzz on the table. The screen lights up with a phone call.

The ID is unknown.

Steeling myself, I accept the phone call, tapping the speakerphone button.

"Hi?"

"We will find you," a deep voice says on the other side. "Either you bring the sheet music to Silverenn's old warehouse, or we'll fetch it ourselves."

"How did you get this number?"

The line goes dead.

I swallow, placing my phone back down on the table. I reach for my coffee, but the liquid is only bitter on my tongue. My fingers fumble for another sugar packet. When I look up, Emi's face is paralyzed in fear.

"We have to go to the police," she says. "Maybe now they'll take us seriously. That is proof enough that our lives are in danger."

"You really think they'd believe us? Think about it, people get anonymous calls all the time. The police may think we're faking things, or just overly paranoid. We have no proof the phone call even happened, or that someone threatened us." I shake my head. "They really have their operation down. No text or written message sneaked into our pockets; no proof of contact. They know how to stage things so the police suspect a robbery and won't help. They've essentially isolated us so that we have two options, comply or die."

Emi groans. "We're in way over our heads."

We're silent long enough for her to finish half her parfait and for me to reach the last bite of my croissant. I'm drinking more coffee when a thought crosses my mind.

"You know, Emi, there may be a way to convince the police that they need to help us."

"Oh?"

"If we find the treasure then..."

"No! No more treasure. That's what got us into this mess in the first place."

"But think about it," I say. "But if other people want the scores, that means the treasure is probably real." I lean back against the ripped, leather booth. "We just need to reach it first."

"Bad idea."

"Rich idea."

Emi sighs, crumpling her granola bar wrapper in her palm.

"Look," I continue, "If nothing else, we might have enough money to hire bodyguards." Emi scoffs. "I'm just saying."

"Why don't we just turn over the music sheets?" Emi says. "If that's what they want."

"But don't you see? They want us to go out to their warehouse, a secluded location, where they can kill us and dispose of our bodies. I hate to say it, but finding the treasure may be our best bet for getting the police on our side." Emi doesn't look convinced. "What? Do you have better ideas?"

"I can't stand that you're right," she grumbles. "I just... there's got to be something else we can do."

"When you think of what it is, let me know. In the meantime, we should start analyzing the next clue."

Emi doesn't move from her seat. "This just... feels like a bad idea."

"Hey, it's cheaper than—"

"Shopping. Yes, I know."

We finish eating and dispose of our trash before returning to the car. I remove Silverenn's music from my viola case and flip through the pages until I find one whose title begins with the letters 'b' and 't.'

"The next one is 'Bright Transformation,'" I say, showing her the music. "Burn the first and read the rest. The chords left will pass the test. We need to get rid of the first of something. Maybe we omit the first measure?"

Emi squints at the music. "We need to mark the chords," she decides. "It'll probably be easiest using the piano accompaniment."

I pull a pencil from my viola case and write each chord name above the measures. I evaluate the combinations of notes in the accompaniment part, determining which chord the notes are a part of. Altogether, the chords seem pretty typical in comparison to Silverenn's other pieces. It starts on the root chord of F, and there aren't too many chords that are out of place for the F major key.

When we're done, we're left with a long line of gray scribbles.

F-C-A-B-F-B-A-G-E-F-F-E-F-D-G-F-E-F-F-C-F-A-B-F-F-B-A-F-G-F-F-E-F-E-D-F-G-E-C-A-B-F-B-A-G-F-E-F-E-F-F-F-D-G-F-E-F

Emi and I stare down at the letters between us. A long silence passes.

"What are we even looking for?" Emi asks.

"I... don't even know anymore." My eyes flick to Silverenn's sheet music, resting on my leg. "Burn the first and read the rest. The chords left will pass the test. We could try removing the first measure."

The remaining sequence is no prettier to look at.

B-A-G-E-F-F-E-F-D-G-F-E-F-F-C-F-A-B-F-F-B-A-F-G-F-F-E-F-E-D-F-G-E-C-A-B-F-B-A-G-F-E-F-E-F-F-F-D-G-F-E-F

"Does 'bage' mean anything to you?" I ask. "Could be 'badge' if a 'd' were added."

Emi shakes her head. "I see BFF. Fed. Cab. Bag. Triple F. Could that be a riddle?" She pulls out her phone, searching up triple F. "I see firefighter dolls, a distributing company, a philanthropy group... but nothing that seems like it would relate to Silverenn."

"The first line, not counting the first measure is B-F-B-A-G-E-F."

"You know what? I have a feeling we're supposed to rearrange the letters to form a phrase," Emi says. She sets her phone down and stares down the chord sequence again.

Burn the first and read the rest. The chords left will pass the test.

"Maybe we're not supposed to omit the first measure," I say. "I mean, it's a logical first step, but Silverenn isn't logical."

"F-C-A-B," Emi murmurs. "F Cab?"

Silence settles over the car. I read over the chords, trying to rearrange the letters. It doesn't work.

Finally, I turn my attention back to the first line of the music. F-C-A-B-F-B-A-G-E-F. That's the first phrase within the piece. Cab is framed by two fs, is that a riddle? What's a cab between two fs? I shake my head, thinking harder. Cabf, bagef.

Cabbage? A laugh spills from me. Oh, the things you can spell in music.

"What's so funny?" Emi asks.

"The opening kind of spells 'Cabbage,'" I say. "If you take out the fs, of course."

"Wait, the F chord is tonic, the first chord in F major," Emi says. She pulls Silverenn's letter from the folder. "Burn the first and read the rest. We need to get rid of the F chords."

I subtract the remaining Fs in the next phrase. "So the beginning spells Cabbage and Edge." When I continue to skim the chords, I realize that those two words are spelled continually throughout the piece with only F chords thrown in between.

"Cabbage Edge!" Emi's face lights up, though I'm still confused.

"What's that?"

"It's a nearby town."

"Why's it called Cabbage Edge?"

Emi shrugs. "Must've had a lot of cabbages at one point."

"So Silverenn wants us to go to Cabbage Edge, huh?" I slip the music score back inside my viola case's outer pocket. "Might as well head there now, since we can't go home."

Emi sighs, looking out the window. "Cerise, are you sure that's wise?"

"Look at it this way. We know there's a treasure, otherwise other people wouldn't be after it. The police won't help us unless we have tangible evidence. And we're broke and could use the money. That's three reasons. Now match that with reasons why we shouldn't continue searching."

Emi shoves her key into the ignition. "We might die."

"We might die either way at this rate. But I'd much rather die a millionaire than with three dollars in my pocket."