Chapter 4: The Voice on the Recording
The third recording started with the sound of a door closing.
Then Vanessa's voice, lower than usual, like she was trying not to be heard in another room.
"She cried again tonight.
I told her it was her own fault."
A man's voice answered.
I didn't recognize it.
"How much longer do we have to wait?"
"Until the paperwork is done.
Then it doesn't matter what she says to him."
"And the kid?"
"She's five," Vanessa said.
"She'll forget."
I stopped the recording.
Vanessa was standing on the other side of the table.
She hadn't moved.
But her hands, which had been crossed over her chest, had dropped to her sides.
"Who is that?" I said.
"You're taking it out of context."
"What paperwork, Vanessa?"
She said nothing.
"What paperwork?" I said again.
"It was a private conversation."
"In my house.
On a recording my nine-year-old stepson made because he was frightened for my daughter." I set the tablet down.
"What were you filing?"
She pulled out her own phone.
"I'm calling my lawyer."
"You said that already.
Go ahead." I didn't move.
"But before you do, I want you to know that I've already sent copies of all eleven recordings to my email.
And to my sister's email.
And to a folder in the cloud that you don't have the password to."
Her thumb stopped moving on the screen.
"So whatever you were planning," I said, "whatever paperwork was almost done — it's not going to go the way you expected.
Because I came home early."
She put the phone face-down on the table.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then she said, "You don't understand what it's been like.
Living in someone else's house.
Raising someone else's child."
"Lily is my daughter."
"She's not mine."
"No," I said.
"She's not.
And you made sure she knew it every single day."
Vanessa's eyes moved toward the hallway.
Toward the closed bedroom door.
"Mason loves her," she said, almost quietly.
"Whatever you think of me, Mason loves that little girl."
"I know he does.
He protected her.
Which is more than you did."
Something moved across her face then.
Not guilt exactly.
Something closer to the recognition that a door had closed and she had not gotten through it in time.
"I need to know what paperwork you were filing," I said.
"I need to know who that man is.
And I need to know tonight."
She picked up her phone again.
"Then you'll need to wait for my lawyer," she said.
She walked to the bedroom — not Lily's room, not Mason's room, but ours — and closed the door behind her.
I stood in the kitchen alone.
The food was still on the table.
Lily's empty plate.
Mason's half-finished one.
The dinner roll that had started all of it, sitting at the edge of Lily's placemat, small and accusing.
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
May you like
*She said you wouldn't be home until eight.
Change of plans?*
