Chapter 6: Everything Regan Recorded
She had forty-one minutes of audio.
She had started recording in the car on the way to the hospital, when my mother had leaned toward my father in the front seat and said, in a voice she thought was low enough, "If they test the cup, we say Patricia acted alone."
Regan had been in the back seat.
Earbuds in.
Eyes forward.
Recording.
Daniel listened to the first three minutes with his eyes closed.
Then he opened them and looked at me.
"I need to call our lawyer," he said.
"It's almost ten o'clock."
"I know." He was already dialing.
I looked at Regan.
She was sitting in the chair Dr.
Reyes had used, knees together, jacket still on.
She looked tired and very young and completely certain of what she had done.
"Why?" I asked her.
She knew what I meant.
"My mom told me what they did to her," she said.
"When she refused to sign.
They froze her out.
Told everyone she was unstable.
Spread it through the whole family that she'd had a breakdown." She paused.
"She hadn't.
She just said no to them.
That was enough."
"I didn't know it was that bad."
"You weren't supposed to." Regan looked at her phone.
"They're good at making sure people only know what helps them."
Daniel stepped back in, phone still to his ear.
He held up one finger.
"Marcus.
I know.
I'm sorry for the hour." He turned slightly away.
"We have a situation.
I need you at County General.
Yes, tonight.
Bring whatever you need to take a formal statement and handle evidence transfer." A pause.
"It's more than the assault.
Bring everything."
He hung up.
Looked at Regan.
"Can you send me that recording right now?"
"Already sent it to three places," she said.
"Same as the video.
You can have a copy but you're not the only one holding it."
Daniel looked at her for a moment.
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"You're going to be fine," he said.
It didn't sound like small talk.
It sounded like a fact he was confirming.
Regan almost smiled.
Detective Carver came back in at ten-forty.
She had a different energy now — focused, faster, the way people move when something has broken open.
"We've been in contact with Patricia Holt," she said.
"She's cooperating."
My mother's voice came through the curtain immediately.
She had been closer than any of us realized.
"That's a lie.
Patricia wouldn't—"
"Ma'am, I need you to stay in the waiting area."
"She's my sister.
She wouldn't say anything without talking to me first—"
"Mrs.
Holt has been speaking with us for the last thirty minutes," Detective Carver said.
Her voice was even.
"She provided a full list of what she supplied and when.
She also provided text messages."
Silence.
Then my mother's voice, stripped of everything: "Those are private."
"They were," Detective Carver said.
"Please sit down."
I heard my mother sit.
Through the gap in the curtain I could see her hands in her lap.
They were shaking.
Not the way they shook when she cried.
A different kind of shaking.
Detective Carver turned back to me.
"We're going to need the green tin you mentioned, if it's still in your home.
Can your husband arrange access tonight?"
"Yes," Daniel said.
"We're also going to need a formal statement about the trust document.
Specifically about who told you the amendment had been filed and when."
I looked at Daniel.
"Uncle Roy told us," I said.
"He called us himself.
Said the amendment was done, everything was in order, Ella was included in the permanent distribution."
"When was this call?"
"Six weeks ago."
Detective Carver made a note.
"Has anyone from your family mentioned Roy Callahan in the last few hours?"
The name landed differently now.
Roy Callahan.
Not just Uncle Roy.
"My sister was on the phone with him," Regan said from the corner.
"Outside.
About twenty minutes ago."
Detective Carver looked at her.
"Did you record that?"
Regan unlocked her phone and held it out.
Detective Carver took it with both hands, like something that needed to be handled carefully.
"I'm going to need you to come with me," she said to Regan.
"Your mother is in the building?"
"Waiting area.
She won't leave without me."
"Good.
Let's go find her."
They left together.
The curtain swung closed.
Daniel sat beside me.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
"Roy wrote the original trust," I said.
"Yes."
"He also wrote the amendment."
"Yes."
"What if he didn't?" I said.
"What if the amendment was never real?"
Daniel looked at the curtain.
His hand tightened around mine.
"Then Ella was never in the trust," he said.
"And everything that happened today—"
"Was to stop something that hadn't happened yet."
The monitor beeped.
Ella moved.
May you like
A slow, rolling shift that pressed against my palm.
"Or," Daniel said quietly, "to make sure it never could."
