Chapter 8: The Voicemail
He had called at 2:17 in the morning.
I stood in the kitchen in the early light, Noah still asleep upstairs, Mom's door still closed, and I listened to it twice.
His voice was easy.
Relaxed.
Like someone leaving a message about a lunch plan.
*Hey, Claire.
I think there's been some confusion.
Rachel gets emotional sometimes and blows things out of proportion.
I'd really like to sit down and clear the air.
I think if you and I talked directly, we could sort this out.
Call me back.*
He left a number.
I put the phone down on the counter.
Then I picked it up again and called Dennis.
He answered on the second ring.
"I was wondering when he'd surface," he said.
"He called at two in the morning."
"Of course he did.
He knows Rachel talked.
He's trying to get ahead of it."
"What do I do?"
"Don't call him back," Dennis said.
"Not yet.
I want to make some calls first.
I know someone at the county DA's office.
What Rachel described — using a false account of a will to manipulate a family member into financial exploitation of an elderly person — that's not nothing, Claire.
Depending on what Gary actually did, what he said, what he put in writing, there may be something there."
I looked out the kitchen window.
The garden was grey and still in the early morning.
"Rachel said she'd tell me everything she knows."
"Then we need to hear it.
All of it.
Dates, amounts, what he told her, what she told him.
Jess's recording might be useful.
I'll talk to my contact first and find out what we actually need."
"Dennis." I paused.
"He's going to say Rachel was the one who did it.
He's going to put everything on her."
"I know," Dennis said.
"That's why we need to move before he does."
I called Rachel at eight.
She picked up on the first ring, like she'd been waiting.
"He called you," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"Last night."
"He called me too.
He told me to say it was all my idea.
That I'd approached him.
That he'd tried to talk me out of it." Her voice was steady but thin.
"He had it all worked out.
He said if I backed him up, he'd make sure I wasn't charged with anything."
"And if you didn't?"
Silence.
"Rachel."
"He said he had messages that would make it look like I planned everything alone.
That he was just someone I'd dragged into it." A pause.
"He might.
He's careful.
He saves things."
"Do you have anything on him?
Anything he sent you?
Anything with his name on it?"
"I have his number.
I have some messages.
I have—" She stopped.
"I have a voicemail.
From three months ago.
He explains the whole thing.
What we were going to do.
How we were going to do it.
He was drunk when he left it.
He said too much."
I closed my eyes.
"Send it to me," I said.
"Right now.
Before you do anything else."
The message came through four minutes later.
I forwarded it to Dennis without listening to it.
I didn't need to hear it.
I already knew what it would say.
Dennis called back twenty minutes later.
May you like
"Claire," he said.
"This is enough."
