Chapter 7: The Voice Behind the Camera
The original USB lay on Rebecca’s kitchen table between Christina and me. She had plugged it into her laptop, but kept one hand beside it, as if the drive might still be taken from her.
“Not the video,” she said. “There’s an audio file. The voices are buried under a lot of noise.”
Rebecca set a mug beside her, though Christina didn’t touch it. I stood across the table, watching my daughter turn the laptop toward herself and put on a pair of headphones.
For a few seconds, nothing came through but a low hiss. Christina adjusted a slider, tried again, then leaned closer to the screen.
“Wait.”
She took off one earbud and held it out to me. The sound was thin and distant, but the voices were unmistakable.
Claude spoke first.
“The buyer needs proof Jonathan agreed.”
My stomach clenched. Christina’s eyes stayed on the screen.
Florence answered, calm as if they were discussing a dinner reservation. “The papers have his signature.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“It will be enough.”
Claude lowered his voice. I heard a rustle, then his words came clearer.
“If they ask me, I can’t say he approved the sale unless—”
“Unless you want to explain why you gave me his samples,” Florence cut in. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
Christina paused the file.
For a moment the kitchen was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator motor shudder to life.
Then she looked at me. “He knew.”
I had no answer that would make the words less true.
She started the recording again. Florence’s voice returned, smooth and almost bored.
“When the money comes through, you’ll have enough to clear your debts. You said that was what you needed.”
Claude said something I couldn’t make out.
“I’m not asking you to be brave,” Florence said. “I’m asking you to finish what you started.”
Christina stopped the file. Her hand remained on the trackpad, but her fingers had gone still.
The recording didn’t tell us what Florence had on Claude. It didn’t tell us where she’d gone with the original packet. But it gave shape to his fear. He hadn’t merely handed her a few old signatures and looked away. He had helped build a lie and expected to be paid when it worked.
Rebecca reached for the laptop.
“I’ll make copies,” she said. “More than one.”
Christina nodded. She didn’t look relieved. Neither did I.
“I told myself he’d been careless,” I said. “That Florence had convinced him you were mistaken.”
“You told yourself what was easiest.”
The words landed without anger. That made them worse.
I pulled out the chair beside me but didn’t sit. “You tried to warn me.”
Christina gave a small, tired laugh. “I tried to make you look at what was in front of you.”
“And I told you that you resented her.”
“You let her tell you I resented her.”
I stared at the grain of the tabletop. There was a pale scratch in the wood, a crooked line that disappeared beneath Rebecca’s laptop. “I was afraid if I believed you, I’d have to admit I’d chosen the wrong person. And I was afraid of another fight tearing the family apart.”
“It was already tearing us apart.”
“I know.”
“No,” she said. “You know now.”
I looked up. The bruise near her temple had faded at the edges, but it still darkened the skin. I wanted to say I was sorry for that, too, but the apology felt too small beside the evidence on the screen.
“I was wrong to make you prove it before I listened,” I said. “I’m not asking you to forgive me tonight. I’m telling you I understand that my choice helped leave you alone with her.”
Christina’s gaze held mine for a long moment. Whatever she saw in my face, it didn’t soften hers.
“Then don’t turn this into a story where you’re the hero because you finally listened.”
“I won’t.”
She lowered her eyes to the laptop. “Good.”
A faint sound came from the next room: a blanket shifting, then the soft, uncertain steps of a child who’d woken somewhere unfamiliar. Leo appeared in the kitchen doorway, hair flattened on one side and a small family photograph clutched against his chest.
Rebecca moved toward him. “Hey, sweetheart. Did you have a good nap?”
He blinked at the laptop, then at Christina. “Is the bad lady still coming?”
“No,” Christina said. She opened her arm, and Leo crossed the room to her.
He climbed into her lap and pressed the photograph against her sweater. His eyes had gone heavy again, but his brow furrowed as he tried to place a thought.
“Grandpa,” he said.
“I’m right here.”
“Florence said the house would be somebody else’s soon.”
Christina’s arms tightened around him. I felt the words strike somewhere deeper than fear of a sale. Leo had heard the plan in a room where the grown-ups thought he was only a child, and now he was carrying it between houses like another thing he had been asked to protect.
“You don’t have to remember everything for us,” Christina murmured. “You can rest.”
He leaned against her, still holding the photograph. I didn’t tell him the house was safe. I couldn’t promise what we hadn’t secured.
Rebecca returned to the laptop. “There are more files.”
Christina shifted Leo carefully so he could keep his head against her shoulder, then bent over the screen. The audio folder sat open. Beneath it was a directory that hadn’t appeared in the first list, its name spelled out in capital letters: MARGARET PRESCOTT.
Christina’s breath caught.
“What is it?” I asked.
May you like
She didn’t answer. She clicked the folder.
A single file appeared. Beside its name was a date from five years earlier—well before Florence had entered my life. My daughter went pale as she read it.
