Chapter 10: Arthur Let the Recording Finish Before Anyone Touched It
The police chief’s paper plate lay face down in the grass, its edge pressed into a smear of sauce. Beyond it, the black SUVs stood at the estate gates with their doors open, dark shapes interrupting the bright afternoon. Richard remained beside me, still holding the papers with Lily’s signature visible across the lower page. He had stopped smiling. The investigators had not taken the documents from him, but their attention had made them impossible to dismiss.
I kept my hands at my sides.
The impulse to reach for the papers was strong. I wanted to pull them away from Richard, fold them into my jacket, and put distance between those pages and every lie they represented. But the investigators were watching the documents already. Moving them would only give Richard another claim to make, another way to turn my anger into his defense.
My name is Arthur, and I was Lily’s father.
I had come to the estate carrying an encrypted phone and the knowledge that my daughter’s cracked phone was somewhere in the backyard, still doing the work she had trusted it to do.
The investigators spread out without hurry. One moved toward Richard and the papers. Another looked across the barbecue area, studying the tables, the serving trays, and the scattered chairs. The chief remained several paces away, staring at the fallen plate. The outdoor noise had thinned to a low mechanical hum from the arriving vehicles and the faint movement of people beyond the gates.
Then I saw the phone.
It rested beneath the edge of a low table near the barbecue, half-hidden by the tablecloth. Its cracked screen faced upward. A thin red indicator pulsed against the damaged glass. The phone trembled whenever someone’s foot struck the ground nearby, then settled again without stopping.
Lily was not there, but the phone made her absence impossible to ignore.
Richard noticed where I was looking. His grip tightened around the papers. He shifted one foot toward the table, not enough to seem like a decision, only enough to place himself between the phone and the nearest investigator.
I moved first, stepping sideways into his path.
He stopped.
No one spoke. The silence held the shape of the choice between us. If Richard bent toward the phone, the investigators would see it. If I touched it, I might disturb the recording before it was observed. So I stood still and let the device continue.
The red indicator pulsed again.
Richard looked from the phone to the investigators. His face had lost its color, but he kept the pages raised as if the signature could still protect him. The papers fluttered once in the warm air. The chief’s gaze dropped to them, then lifted toward the SUVs.
I pressed the encrypted phone against my palm. It remained dark. I did not need to make another call. The one already in progress had carried the confrontation farther than any argument could have carried it.
An investigator reached the edge of the barbecue area and stopped where the cracked phone was plainly visible. He did not touch it. His attention settled on the screen, then on Richard, then on the papers in Richard’s hand.
Only after that did my encrypted phone ring.
The sound was small, almost ordinary. Richard flinched. I answered and held it to my ear.
“Is the subject still on location? Yes, and he just gave us everything.”
The red indicator continued pulsing while the words crossed the space between the phone in my hand and the phone beneath the table. Richard heard them. So did the investigators. The same recording that had captured his confidence was still running through the end of the exchange.
May you like
I looked down once more. The indicator remained active.
An investigator positioned himself beside the table, ready to stop it under observation. I kept my hands away from the cracked phone. The next movement belonged to him, but the evidence was still recording for one more breath.
