Chapter 5 - The Woman Behind the Recording
I replayed the recording three times.
The voice never changed.
Neither did the certainty sinking into my stomach.
Judith had spoken to my father after the funeral she organized.
Her grief had been an act.
Ethan asked whether I wanted to stop listening.
“No,” I said.
“I spent six years mourning a lie.”
Walter explained that Dad had feared somebody connected to Sentinel would threaten me if he exposed the altered records.
That could explain why he hid.
It could not explain why my mother made cruelty a family tradition.
I called her from the hotel speakerphone.
She answered before the second ring.
“Are you finished humiliating me?” she asked.
“I have a recording of Dad.”
Silence.
Then a small intake of breath.
“Where did you get that?”
“Is he alive?”
“You don't understand.”
“I understand that you buried an empty coffin.”
“Lower your voice.”
“Answer me.”
Her tone changed, becoming quiet and frighteningly careful.
“If you love your father, stop involving strangers.”
The sentence was enough to tell me she believed Dad might still be alive.
I asked where he was.
She disconnected.
Minutes later, Tyler sent a text.
You have always been selfish, but tonight you went too far.
A second followed.
Mom says you are trying to steal Dad's estate.
I stared at the screen.
The accusation was absurd.
Dad's estate had been settled years earlier, or so I thought.
Ethan noticed the change in my face.
“What's wrong?”
“She's moving the story from shame to money.”
Walter pressed his fingertips against his eyes.
“Daniel warned me she'd do that.”
He produced a final page from his folder.
It was a notarized statement dated six months after the funeral.
Daniel had revoked a power of attorney previously granted to Judith.
His signature appeared beside the stamp.
The document raised more questions than it answered.
If Dad was alive, why had he allowed my mother to control his property?
Why had he never come directly to me?
And why would he trust Walter with a declaration but not his location?
Near midnight, the hotel's front desk called.
A woman had arrived claiming to be my father's nurse.
May you like
She said he had only a few days left.
