Chapter 5 - THE MESSAGES
I had changed my phone number only once in the last four years.
Aunt Diane knew both numbers.
She also knew enough about my schedule, my job, my apartment, and my relationship with Noah to create messages that sounded believable to anyone who did not know me.
That was what frightened me most when Marissa showed me the copies attached to the guardianship petition.
The fake messages were not dramatic.
They were ordinary.
They sounded tired.
They sounded impatient.
They sounded exactly like the kind of thing a court might believe an overwhelmed twenty-three-year-old sister would write.
I’m working all weekend.
I can’t keep changing my schedule for him.
You’re the guardian, Diane.
Please stop asking me to take him.
I need space from all of this.
The last one had supposedly been sent at 11:48 p.m. on a Tuesday in April.
I remembered that Tuesday.
I had spent it at Noah’s school science night.
I had pictures.
I had bought him a hot dog from the school fundraiser table.
We had stood beside his poster about erosion while he explained riverbanks to me for twenty minutes.
Diane had been there too.
She had taken the picture of Noah and me together.
I pulled it up on my phone.
The timestamp read 7:16 p.m.
Marissa leaned closer.
“That helps.”
“It proves I saw him that day.”
“It helps prove the overall representation may be false.”
“May be?”
“I have to use careful language until we verify the records.”
I understood why.
I still hated the words.
Noah watched us from the bed.
His leg was now in a temporary splint, elevated on pillows while he waited for the reduction procedure.
He looked exhausted.
I did not want him listening to a discussion about forged messages that described him as a burden.
I walked closer to the bed.
“Do you want headphones?”
He shook his head.
“I want to know.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
That answer mattered.
He was choosing.
I nodded.
Marissa turned the tablet toward me again.
“There are eighteen screenshots in the petition packet.”
“Can you send them to me?”
“I can provide copies through the case process.”
“Can the police get the originals?”
The officer, whose name was Officer Grant, answered.
“With legal process, potentially.”
I looked at him.
“They’re fake.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you.”
“Then why does this sound like nobody can do anything?”
“Because proving a digital record was fabricated is different from believing it was fabricated.”
I hated that answer too.
He continued.
“The screenshots may have been made from a contact saved under your name, from a second phone, from an editing program, or from an account that imitated yours.”
“So we prove which one.”
“That’s the goal.”
Noah spoke quietly.
“She has another phone.”
Everyone turned toward him.
He looked uncertain under the sudden attention.
Marissa softened her voice.
“Who has another phone?”
“Aunt Diane.”
“What kind?”
“Old one.”
“Where does she keep it?”
“In her desk sometimes.”
Diane’s desk sat in the downstairs study.
She kept the door locked when she was not using it.
I had assumed it was because she handled payroll records for the dental office where she worked.
Now every locked door in that house felt different.
“Have you seen her use it?” Officer Grant asked.
Noah nodded.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Calls?”
“Sometimes.”
“Messages?”
He nodded again.
“Did she ever use it around you?”
Noah rubbed his fingers against the blanket.
“She used it when she took pictures of my worksheets.”
My eyes moved to him.
“What worksheets?”
“The sentences.”
The room went silent again.
Marissa sat beside the bed.
“Noah, you mentioned writing sentences before.”
He looked at me, then at her.
“Yeah.”
“Did your aunt photograph them?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you know why?”
“She said she needed proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That I was difficult.”
My stomach turned.
Officer Grant asked whether the papers still existed.
Noah shook his head.
“She threw them away after pictures.”
“Every time?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“There’s a box.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“What box?” I asked.
He looked toward the door even though Diane was gone.
“In the garage.”
“Where?”
“Above the freezer.”
The same shelf he had fallen from.
I felt a slow chill move through me.
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were trying to get it down when you broke your leg.”
He nodded.
“Did she tell you what was inside?”
“No.”
“Why did she need you to get it?”
“She said she couldn’t reach because her shoulder hurt.”
I knew Diane had no shoulder injury.
At least none she had ever mentioned.
Noah stared at the blanket.
“When it slipped, it opened a little.”
“What did you see?”
“Papers.”
“What kind?”
“Some had my name.”
Marissa and Officer Grant exchanged a look.
Officer Grant stood.
“I’m going to contact the investigating unit.”
I looked at him.
“Can you go to the house?”
“Not without consent, exigent circumstances, or the appropriate legal authority.”
“She left here saying she was going there to get documents.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
The implication hit all of us at once.
If there was evidence in that house, Diane had a head start.
I reached for my phone.
“What are you doing?” Marissa asked.
“Calling Mr. Alvarez.”
“Who?”
“The neighbor who saw Noah on the porch.”
Officer Grant shook his head.
“Do not ask him to enter the house.”
“I won’t.”
I found the number from an old neighborhood group chat and called.
Mr. Alvarez answered on the fourth ring.
“Emily?”
“Yes.”
His voice changed immediately.
“Is the boy okay?”
“We’re at the hospital.”
“Good.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Did Aunt Diane come home?”
There was a pause.
“A few minutes ago.”
My pulse jumped.
“Is she there now?”
“I think so.”
“Please don’t go over there.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Can you see the driveway?”
“Yes.”
“What is she doing?”
I heard a curtain move near his phone.
“She backed her car into the garage.”
My chest tightened.
“Backed it in?”
“Yes.”
“She never does that.”
“No.”
“What can you see?”
“Garage door is up.”
He paused.
“She’s carrying boxes.”
I looked at Officer Grant.
His expression sharpened.
“What kind of boxes?”
“Plastic storage bins.”
“From the garage?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“One so far.”
Then Mr. Alvarez said something that made Officer Grant reach for his radio.
“Emily, she just brought down the box from above the freezer.”
I closed my eyes.
“Is it open?”
“No.”
“Where is she putting it?”
“In the trunk.”
Officer Grant stepped into the hall while speaking into his radio.
Marissa stood beside him.
Mr. Alvarez lowered his voice.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“I have a camera on the back of my house.”
I remembered the small black camera above his patio light.
“It catches part of Diane’s porch.”
My heartbeat changed.
“How much?”
“The chair.”
I sat down.
“Mr. Alvarez, please save everything from today.”
“I already did.”
I covered my mouth with one hand.
He continued.
“And Emily?”
“Yes?”
May you like
“This was not the first day he was tied there.”
