Chapter 6: What Dani Saw on Her Father's Phone
Dani remembered it was a Sunday.
She knew because her father always left his phone on the kitchen counter on Sundays while he cooked, which was the only day of the week he cooked, and she had reached past it to get to the cabinet above and the screen had lit up with the preview.
She hadn't meant to read it.
But the words were right there.
*She won't fight back if it happens in front of everyone.
Family witness is protection, not risk.*
"I thought it was about something at work," Dani said.
"My dad does financial stuff for people.
I thought it was about some business thing.
A dispute.
I didn't—" She pressed her fingers against her mouth.
"I didn't think it was about her."
Agent Reyes was typing steadily.
"Do you know who sent that message?"
"The name in his phone said Roy-B.
Like a contact name.
I don't know who that is."
"Roy-B," Agent Reyes repeated.
She looked at the detective.
The detective was already on her radio.
I looked at my husband.
He looked back at me.
Roy-B.
My uncle's name was Roy.
My father's name was Bernard.
Roy.
B.
"My father," I said quietly.
"Roy-B is my father.
Bernard.
That's what my uncle calls him.
Has called him since they were children."
Agent Reyes stopped typing.
"Your uncle sent that message to your father."
"Yes."
She turned the laptop so I couldn't see the screen and typed for a long time.
Dani was sitting very still beside me.
She had her hands folded in her lap and she was staring at the floor in the way people stare when they are trying to reorganize everything they thought they knew about their life.
"Dani," I said.
She looked up.
"You didn't do anything wrong.
You didn't know.
And what you just told us — it matters.
It matters more than you know."
She nodded.
Her chin was trembling.
"My dad is going to—" She stopped.
"Your dad is going to face the consequences of what he chose to do," my husband said.
"That is not your fault and it is not your responsibility."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"He told me last night that if I gave the police the video, he would tell everyone I staged it.
That I set it up on purpose to hurt the family.
That I was jealous of—" She stopped again.
Swallowed.
"He said no one would believe a teenager over the whole family."
My husband crouched down so he was at eye level with her.
"He was wrong," he said.
"Do you hear me?
He was wrong about that."
The detective came back in.
"We've located your sister," she said to me.
"She's at the address you gave us.
She's refusing to come in voluntarily.
Her attorney has advised her not to speak to police."
"She already has an attorney," my husband said flatly.
"Retained this morning.
Same firm your uncle used for the probate petition." The detective paused.
"We're moving to compel.
Given the bl00dwork results and the new testimony, we have enough."
Our attorney arrived forty minutes later.
His name was Gerald Fitch and he had handled my grandmother's estate for eleven years and he walked into the room looking like a man who had been expecting a call like this for a long time.
He shook my husband's hand.
He shook mine.
He looked at Dani and introduced himself gently and asked if she had her own representation.
She didn't.
He made a phone call.
A colleague of his — a woman named Petra Walsh who handled juvenile witness cases — would be there within the hour.
Then Gerald sat down, opened his briefcase, and placed a document on the bed beside me.
"I need you to look at this," he said.
"This is the probate court filing your family submitted eleven months ago.
I've been through it this morning." He tapped the corner of the page.
"There is a second signature on the petition.
Below your mother and your uncle."
I looked.
The handwriting was small and neat and I had seen it on birthday cards and grocery lists and permission slips my entire childhood.
My father's signature.
And below his, a fourth.
I didn't recognize it.
"Who is that?" I said.
Gerald looked at me steadily.
"That is the signature of the attorney who filed the petition on their behalf," he said.
"An attorney who, until eight months ago, was employed by my firm."
The room went very quiet.
"He was dismissed," Gerald said.
"For reasons unrelated to this matter, we believed at the time.
I am no longer confident that is true."
My husband looked at him.
"You're telling us someone inside your firm may have helped them do this."
Gerald didn't look away.
"I'm telling you I don't know yet.
And I intend to find out."
He closed his briefcase.
"In the meantime," he said, "the trust is intact.
The petition was denied.
Your daughter's inheritance is protected.
What we are dealing with now is the criminal matter, and on that front, I want you to let Agent Reyes and the detective do their work." He looked at me.
"Your only job right now is to rest and keep that baby safe."
I nodded.
He stood to leave.
At the door, he paused.
"There is one more thing," he said.
"Your mother called my office this morning.
Before the warrant.
Before any of this."
"What did she say?"
"She asked me how much it would cost to have the trust overturned on appeal." He held my gaze.
"She didn't know I was already on my way here."
He left.
The door swung shut behind him.
And my phone — still in the evidence bag on the windowsill — lit up again.
A different number this time.
May you like
The message was two words.
*Forgive her.*
