Chapter 5: The Voice on the Recorder
Mother stared at the gray-haired man.
“Dr.
Mercer, you are confused.”
“No, Evelyn.
I have been a coward, but I am not confused.”
Victor Hale caught his arm.
“Do not say another word.”
Dr.
Mercer pulled free and handed the officer a sealed envelope.
“The original result shows a 99.99 percent probability that Roman is Sophie’s father.
The altered report was uploaded from my account after Mrs.
D’Angelo threatened to expose my son’s debts.”
Mother turned to me.
“He is lying to protect himself.”
“Then you won’t mind opening the study.”
She looked toward Victor.
He shook his head once.
The senior officer took the original test.
“The emergency order was based on false evidence.
The child stays with her parents while I contact the court.”
Mother’s heel struck the floor as she stepped back.
“You have no idea what Lucia has done.”
Lucia moved beside me.
“Tell him.”
Mother smiled at her.
“Should I tell him why you signed away your rights?”
Lucia went still.
I looked at her.
“What did you sign?”
“A paper she put in front of me at the lodge.”
“You told me it was a medical release,” Lucia said.
“It states that you abandoned Sophie willingly.”
“You said Roman would be ruined if I refused.”
Mother’s voice softened.
“And you believed me because you knew what he was capable of.”
I flinched.
Lucia saw it.
“She made me watch news reports about you,” Lucia said.
“She showed me photographs of you at parties.
She said you had stopped looking.”
“I never stopped.”
“You stopped asking her.”
The words landed harder than a shout.
Mother watched my face and knew she had found an opening.
“Roman trusted me,” she said.
“That is not a sin.”
“No,” Lucia replied.
“It was your w*apon.”
Ellis returned with an evidence officer.
The brass key turned in a steel drawer beneath my father’s desk.
Inside lay bank statements, copies of Lucia’s letters, a flash drive, and a small digital recorder wrapped in the missing half of the red flannel.
Sophie touched the cloth in her fist.
“Mommy’s blanket.”
Lucia pressed both pieces together.
The torn edges matched.
The evidence officer put on gloves.
“Nobody touches anything else.”
Mother rushed toward the desk.
Ellis blocked her, but she knocked the recorder to the floor and brought down her heel.
The plastic casing cracked.
“You see?” she cried.
“There is nothing.”
The evidence officer lifted the memory card from the broken shell.
“This is intact.”
Mother’s mouth opened, but no sound came.
He inserted the card into a clean reader.
Static filled the study, followed by Lucia’s frightened voice.
“Evelyn, please.
Sophie needs me.”
Then Mother’s recorded voice answered.
“You should have kept your eyes out of my accounts.”
Sophie hid against Lucia.
I stepped between her and the speaker.
The recording continued.
“You moved money meant for the children’s hospital,” Lucia said.
“I moved money that belonged to this family.”
“I’m telling Roman.”
“No.
By morning, Roman will believe you took Sophie and ran.
In a year, he will sign everything I place before him.”
Mother lunged for the reader.
Two officers caught her arms.
Then my father’s voice came through the recording.
“If you can hear this, Roman, your mother has done exactly what I feared.”
I stared at the speaker.
My father had been gone for five years.
Mother stopped fighting.
The recording had been made three years ago, but his voice sounded older—weak, close to the end.
May you like
“There is a second will,” he said.
“And Evelyn must never control it.”
