They Stole My Songs

Chapter 11

Victor Sterling did not raise his voice. That was the first thing I learned about what "cleanly" meant.

He sent sentences. By Monday morning they were circulating through industry trades, entertainment websites, and dozens of commentator accounts that had all published identical talking points within the same hour. The narrative was uniform: the disgruntled receptionist had faked her claims. The notebooks were convenient forgeries, because any art student with a bottle of tea could age paper over a weekend. The concert incident had been a publicity stunt, the desperate gambit of an employee who spent three years stealing from the company song library and was now trying to rebrand the theft as an artist's grievance.

Sterling Records issued a formal statement expressing regret over the public confusion, noting that outside counsel was reviewing legal options while the label continued its long tradition of supporting emerging talent.

My sister called before I finished reading the third article. "Don't open the comments," she said, her voice shaking on the line.

She had already read them. It took them less than a weekend: an anonymous account had posted my home address. Not simply the street number or the block, but the unit: four flights up, the one that smells of other people's cooking, accompanied by a photograph of my front door that I had never taken. In the replies, hundreds of accounts debated whether I should be sued into bankruptcy, while a smaller, vicious group posted the times the front entry gate remained unlocked.

Elena's instruction came by text two minutes later: Do not move. Do not post. A threat is also evidence, and evidence is our business now.

I followed orders. I locked the deadbolt, pulled the kitchen blinds closed, and made tea that I left to turn cold on the counter. I watched the notifications on my locked phone screen multiply like numbers on an electric meter, understanding Victor Sterling's strategy: he did not need to send private security to my building when he could turn the entire internet into an eviction notice.

The email arrived at 11:47 that night.

There was no sender name and no subject line anyone would search for. Attached to the message was a single scanned PDF, tilted slightly across the margin the way paper sits when an operator feeds a sheet into an optical flatbed scanner at the end of an evening shift.

I recognized the document before the thumbnail expanded to full scale.

It was the cover memo I had typed during my second month at Sterling Records, printed on the cream letterhead the front office had discontinued that spring. The message was short:

Dylan — attaching the new one. Bridge still wants work, but she's honest now. — M.

Behind that memo, stapled to the cardstock, was page one of "Neon Heart." My handwriting covered the lines, with my date penned into the upper margin and the pale ring where I had set a coffee mug on the demo-room upright piano.

Last Tuesday, Sterling had told the world my pages were forged. Their own filing cabinets had been holding the originals for three years.

I slid down against the cabinets and sat on the kitchen linoleum; the floor seems to be where my life happens now. I stared at the coffee mark until my vision blurred, then forwarded the message directly to Elena's inbox without adding a single character of explanation.

Elena called my mobile in four minutes.

"Where did this file come from?" she asked. On her end of the connection, I could hear cabinet drawers sliding open and files landing on wood.

"It came to my private address," I said. "No message. Just the attachment."

"Then somebody inside that building has a conscience, or a grudge, or an insurance policy." Elena's voice was fast and sharp. "Maya, look at the letterhead. This is their own paper, their discontinued stationery, and their internal date stamp. Dylan Cross can tell reporters that your personal notebooks are fakes, but Sterling cannot claim their own routing memo is a forgery without explaining why it sat in their system for thirty-six months."

Elena traced it the way she did everything: without asking the building's permission. The document scanner had embedded an equipment serial code and a routing header in the PDF metadata: an old machine assigned to copyright administration, the windowless filing office on the fifth floor that handled registry entries. Elena ran the device code through two calls to former colleagues, eventually reaching a retired human resources director who owed her an old professional favor from a divorce settlement in 2016.

"Walter Hines," Elena told me the following afternoon. "Sixty-one years old. He worked registrations, session filings, and mechanical licenses for Sterling for nineteen years. He took early retirement fourteen months ago—and you only take early retirement from that department when your initials are on something you cannot live with."

The official studio logs arrived two days later through Elena's filing. Requested, not stolen, which in her world was heavier artillery. Session logs were the functional diary of the facility, logged hour by hour by second-shift engineers who had no personal stake in the credits:

Maya Reed delivers demo. Maya Reed delivers revision. Then, days later, sometimes weeks: Scarlett Vale, vocal session.

The order never varied. Across dozens of entries spanning thirty-six months, the sequence remained unbroken.

"The logs don't prove you wrote them," Elena said, spreading the printed spreadsheets across the Formica table of a late-night diner. "The logs prove the sequence, and sequence kills the dream story. Songs do not travel backward in time, Maya. Not even hers."

That evening, Walter Hines called the office number Elena had left on his home recorder. Elena put the call on the speakerphone on her desk. Walter spoke in a dry, deliberate voice, measured like someone stepping along an unlit hallway. He agreed to provide a sworn affidavit detailing the registration paperwork, but he refused to deal exclusively with legal counsel.

His single condition was not financial compensation, and it was not legal protection. He insisted on meeting me directly, in person, before signing any paperwork.

Elena reached to press the mute button to negotiate, but I put my hand over hers, leaned over the desk, and spoke into the microphone.

"I will meet you, Mr. Hines," I said. "Tell me where to be."

There was a pause on the line before the old man answered.

"There's a song," Walter said, his voice dropping low. "One they took that you don't even know about. And I won't tell a lawyer what it is, Miss Reed. I'll tell you. You're the one who's owed the hearing of it."