Chapter 8: Thirty-One Letters
The recording reached Carver within the hour.
By the following morning, Forsythe had filed a motion arguing that the call was a private conversation recorded without consent.
Carver's supervisor told Ryan that the legal question was being reviewed, but that the content of the call had been noted and would be part of the case file regardless.
"She tried to bribe us into silence," Ryan said, on the phone with Carver.
"That has to mean something."
"It means something," Carver said.
"Whether it's admissible in the form you recorded it is a separate question.
But it tells us who we're dealing with, and it tells us she's worried."
"Is that enough?"
"The letters are enough," Carver said.
"I want you to understand that.
Forsythe can argue about Noah's credibility all he wants.
But thirty-one letters in her own handwriting, over a period of two years, describing in detail what she called her private lessons — that is not something he can explain away."
Ryan relayed this to me word for word, sitting at the kitchen table, his coffee untouched in front of him.
"What happens now?" I asked.
"She's been formally charged.
The case goes to the DA.
Carver said they're also looking at two other families — families whose children spent time with Diane through a church group she ran in the nineties."
I sat down.
"Other children," I said.
"They don't have evidence yet.
They're making contact."
We sat with that for a moment.
"Noah called this morning," Ryan said.
"Before you were up.
He wanted to know how Lily was doing."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him she slept through the night.
That she asked for pancakes.
That she's been carrying around that stuffed rabbit she got from the nurses." He paused.
"He laughed.
He said that was a good sign."
"It is a good sign."
"He also said—" Ryan stopped.
Looked at his hands.
"He said he slept through the night too.
He said it was the first time in longer than he could remember."
I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine.
"Ryan.
What she did to him.
What she almost did to Lily." I stopped.
"None of that is on you."
"I know."
"Do you?"
He looked up.
"I grew up in that house," he said.
"I was right there."
"You were a child too."
"I was older than Noah."
"You were still a child.
And she was very careful about what she let you see." I kept my hand on his.
"She chose Noah.
She chose Lily.
She made choices.
Not you."
He didn't answer right away.
Outside, through the kitchen window, the neighbor's dog was barking at something in the yard.
A normal sound.
A Tuesday morning sound.
"I keep thinking about that question Lily asked," he said finally.
"About secrets.
If Grandma says something is a secret, do I have to keep it."
"I know."
"She was asking us to help her.
She didn't know how to ask directly, so she asked that."
"Yes."
"And we—" He stopped.
"We didn't hear it," I said.
"We hear it now."
He turned his hand over and held mine.
The trial date was set for eight months later.
Forsythe filed three separate motions before it began.
All three were denied.
On the morning the proceedings started, Noah sat beside Ryan in the courthouse hallway, both of them in dark jackets, neither of them speaking much.
I sat on Ryan's other side.
At one point Noah looked down the hallway to where Diane was seated with Forsythe, her posture perfect, her hands folded.
"She looks exactly the same," he said quietly.
"She is exactly the same," Ryan said.
May you like
Noah nodded slowly.
"That's why we're here."
