Chapter 3: The Voice From Six Years Ago
I kept the phone pressed to my ear and turned away from Detective Hara.
"Who is this?" I said quietly.
"It's Aunt Ruth."
I hadn't spoken to my father's sister since the Christmas she and Dad screamed at each other in the kitchen and she left without finishing dinner.
I was twenty-three.
She had called me twice after that.
I hadn't called back.
I didn't know why.
I think I was afraid of what she might say.
"How did you get this number?"
"Your assistant.
I told her it was urgent." A pause.
"I've been watching the news alerts.
The fr@ud investigation.
Claire, I need you to listen to me very carefully.
Your father has been using your identity for longer than fourteen months."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"How much longer?"
"Since you were nineteen."
The vineyard lights blurred at the edges.
I sat back down on the stone bench.
"That's ten years," I said.
"Yes."
Detective Hara stepped closer.
"Ms.
Claire, is everything all right?"
I held up one finger.
She stopped.
"Ruth, why are you telling me this now?"
"Because I tried to tell you before and your mother intercepted it.
Three years ago I mailed you a letter with copies of the original documents.
She called me the next day and told me if I ever contacted you again she would tell everyone in the family that I had stolen from your grandfather's estate." Ruth's voice was steady, but only just.
"I was afraid.
I shouldn't have been.
I'm sorry."
I stood up slowly.
Through the window, Mom was still holding Madison.
Dad was speaking quietly to the officer, his back to me now, one hand in his jacket pocket.
"Ruth, I need you to send me everything you have."
"I already did.
An hour ago.
Check your email."
I pulled the phone from my ear and opened my inbox with my thumb.
There was a new message from an address I didn't recognize — a temporary account, the kind you create and then abandon.
The subject line read: *For when you're ready.*
Twelve attachments.
I looked back through the window.
Dad turned at that exact moment, as if he felt me watching.
His eyes found mine through the glass.
He looked away first.
"Ruth," I said.
"Don't go anywhere tonight."
"I won't," she said.
"Claire — be careful.
Your father is very good at making people feel like they're the problem."
I knew that.
I had spent twenty-nine years learning it.
I walked back to Detective Hara and handed her my phone, the email still open on the screen.
"I think," I said, "you're going to want to see this."
She looked at the twelve attachments.
Then she looked at me.
"How long have you had this?"
"About forty seconds."
She called someone.
I didn't catch the name.
But she turned away from me and spoke in a low, fast voice, and two minutes later a second detective crossed the parking lot at a pace that wasn't quite running.
Inside the vineyard, Dad watched them approach the door.
His hand came out of his jacket pocket.
May you like
Empty.
Whatever he had been reaching for, he had decided against it.
