Chapter 5: What She Didn't Mean to Say
Patricia called at seven-fifteen.
I read her the sentence from memory.
I had written it down on the back of an envelope at midnight so I wouldn't soften it by morning.
*You can't prove I deleted anything.*
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"She said that."
"Word for word."
"And your response?"
"I told her I hadn't accused her of deleting anything.
I'd only said Emma didn't know about the calls."
"And then?"
"She changed the subject and hung up."
I heard Patricia exhale slowly on the other end.
"That's not nothing, Daniel.
That's not nothing at all." A pause.
"It's not admissible on its own — it's a phone call, no recording, no witness.
But it tells us what we're dealing with.
She knows exactly what she did."
"What do we do with it?"
"We use it to know where to look.
If she deleted voicemails, there may be a record on Emma's phone account.
Carrier logs.
Depending on the plan, there may be data going back over a year." Another pause.
"Is Emma still on Sandra's phone plan?"
I hadn't thought of that.
"I don't know.
Probably."
"Find out.
If she is, Sandra may have had access to the account settings.
That's how you delete voicemails remotely on some carriers.
It's not complicated if you know what you're doing."
Emma appeared in the kitchen doorway in her clothes from yesterday, her hair still flat on one side from sleep.
She looked at me on the phone and went to the refrigerator without asking.
"I'll find out," I said.
"What about the guardian ad litem?"
"I've already put in the request.
Judge Holloway's clerk confirmed she'll appoint one by end of week.
Her name is Miriam Voss.
She's thorough.
She'll want to meet Emma within the next ten days."
"Emma agreed to it."
"Good." A brief pause.
"How is she?"
I looked at my daughter standing at the counter eating an apple she'd found in my mother's refrigerator, wearing yesterday's clothes, in a house that no longer belonged to anyone.
"She's okay," I said.
"She's tougher than she should have to be."
After I hung up, Emma sat down across from me.
"That was your lawyer?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
I thought about how to answer.
Emma was thirteen, not eight.
She had ridden a bus alone to her grandmother's house to find someone to talk to.
She had carried a notebook in her school bag to a custody hearing and made a decision in a courtroom that most adults would have flinched from.
She did not need me to soften everything.
"She thinks there may be a way to show that the voicemails were deleted intentionally," I said.
"Through the phone carrier.
Records of what happened to the account."
Emma set the apple down.
"Mom controls the phone plan."
"I know."
"She knows the password to everything." Emma's voice was careful and even.
"She used to check my phone every night.
She said it was for safety."
"When did that start?"
Emma thought about it.
"After Grandma's funeral.
She said she was worried about me talking to people who might upset me while I was grieving." A pause.
"She meant you."
"Did she say that?"
"Not exactly.
But she took your contact out of my phone.
I noticed because your name disappeared from my recents.
She said you'd changed your number."
I hadn't changed my number in six years.
Emma picked the apple back up.
She took a bite and chewed and looked at the table.
"I want to tell Miriam Voss everything," she said.
"Not just the notebook.
All of it.
The phone.
The things she said about you.
The rules."
"What rules?"
Emma looked up.
"There were rules about what I was allowed to say when I came to see you.
Mom would go through them the night before every visit.
I wasn't allowed to tell you about her new boyfriend.
I wasn't allowed to say I missed Grandma's house.
I wasn't allowed to say I was unhappy." She paused.
"She said if I told you things, you would use them against her in court and I would never see her again."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"Emma," I said.
"Did you believe her?"
She considered the question seriously, the way she considered most things.
"For a while," she said.
"And then Grandma showed me the notebook, and I thought — if Dad was really the way Mom described him, he wouldn't have called forty-one times."
I didn't say anything.
There was nothing to say that the moment hadn't already said.
Emma finished the apple and set the core on the table.
"I need clothes," she said.
"I can't wear this again tomorrow."
"We'll go shopping this morning."
"I don't need a lot.
Just enough for a few days."
"We'll get whatever you need."
She nodded and stood up.
Then she stopped.
"Dad.
She's going to call at eight.
You said she could call at eight."
"I know."
"I don't want to talk to her yet." Emma's voice didn't waver, but her hand found the back of the chair.
"I'm not ready."
"You don't have to talk to anyone you're not ready to talk to."
"She'll be angry."
"That's not your problem to manage."
Emma looked at me for a moment.
Something shifted in her face — not relief exactly, but the absence of a weight she had been carrying so long she had stopped noticing it.
"Okay," she said.
At eight o'clock, Sandra called.
I let it go to voicemail.
At eight-oh-three, she called again.
At eight-oh-seven, a third time.
The fourth call came from a number I didn't recognize.
I picked up.
"Mr.
Ruder." A man's voice, smooth and unhurried.
May you like
"My name is Glenn Archer.
I'm Sandra's attorney."
