Daniel repeated the message twice because I thought I had misunderstood him.
“Rebecca for the tape.”
The storage facility felt colder after he said it.
Police officers continued photographing Linda’s archive around us. Evidence tags accumulated on metal shelves. Boxes that had been untouched for years were being opened under fluorescent light, but suddenly none of it seemed important.
Linda had Rebecca.
And she believed we possessed Elena’s recording.
“We don’t have the tape,” I said.
“I know.”
Daniel’s voice sounded frayed.
“Then why would she make that demand?”
Silence.
“Daniel?”
“I need to tell you something.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course he did.
Everyone in this story had one more thing.
Maya heard the change in my voice and stepped closer.
“What?”
I put Daniel on speaker.
He breathed out slowly.
“The tape from the safe isn’t the only copy.”
Elena grabbed the edge of a filing cabinet.
“You copied it?”
“I tried.”
“Daniel.”
“I knew Arthur wouldn’t keep something that dangerous in one place.”
Dad’s voice came faintly through my other phone, still connected from the earlier call.
“What did you do?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I transferred the recording.”
“To another cassette?” Maya asked.
“No. Later. Around 2001, I digitized it.”
The entire room seemed to stop.
“You have a digital copy?” I asked.
“Part of one.”
“Part?”
“The recording was damaged. The original tape had heat exposure and some sections had stretched. I managed to recover most of the first twelve minutes.”
“Where is it?”
Another pause.
“Rebecca has it.”
Elena’s face changed.
“She knows?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Three years.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“You gave Rebecca evidence that her mother committed arson?”
“I gave my wife evidence about the people who destroyed our families.”
“That includes her mother.”
“I know.”
“What did Rebecca do?”
“She listened once.”
“And?”
“She vomited.”
No one said anything.
Daniel continued.
“She wanted to confront Linda immediately. I stopped her.”
“Why?”
“Because Linda would disappear.”
“She disappeared anyway.”
“Yes.”
The exhaustion in Daniel’s voice made him sound twenty years older.
Maya asked, “Where did Rebecca keep the file?”
“Encrypted drive.”
“At the hotel?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“She carries it.”
A bad realization came over me.
“If Linda has Rebecca, she may already have the copy.”
“No.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can.”
“How?”
“Rebecca doesn’t carry the drive somewhere obvious.”
“Where is it?”
Daniel resisted.
“Daniel.”
“In her necklace.”
I remembered Rebecca outside the Sacramento warehouse.
A thin silver chain around her neck.
Small rectangular pendant.
“She has a storage device inside the pendant?”
“Yes.”
“And Linda knows?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But Rebecca may tell her.”
“She won’t.”
“You’re putting a lot of faith in someone who’s being held by her mother.”
“She has survived Linda before.”
Elena looked toward the door.
“What was on the recovered portion?”
Daniel’s answer came quietly.
“Enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To identify Linda.”
“We already know she set the fire.”
“No.”
Daniel paused.
“The tape identifies why she did it.”
Dad interrupted from the hospital.
“You heard that section?”
“Yes.”
“You told me it was destroyed.”
“I lied.”
Arthur laughed once without humor.
“Apparently I taught everyone well.”
Elena ignored that.
“What did I say?”
Daniel’s voice softened.
“You said Linda came into the house before the fire.”
“I remember that now.”
“You said she gave you something.”
Elena’s hand moved unconsciously toward her arm.
“She injected me.”
“Yes.”
“Pike’s drugs.”
“Probably.”
“What else?”
“You said Linda kept asking one question.”
“What question?”
“Where is the second ledger?”
Maya looked at me.
“Second?”
I stared at Elena.
“You never mentioned another ledger.”
“Because there wasn’t one.”
Daniel said, “That’s what Elena told Linda too.”
“Then why ask?”
“I didn’t know until years later.”
“What did you learn?”
Daniel went quiet.
“Victor believed Elena had created a second record containing only the payments Cole made outside the Morales operation.”
Maya understood immediately.
“A private corruption ledger.”
“Yes.”
“So the blue ledger implicated Cole through Victor,” I said, “but a second ledger would prove Cole was running his own network.”
“Exactly.”
“And Linda wanted it.”
“Yes.”
“Because Cole ordered the fire.”
“Yes.”
“Then she was trying to recover evidence for him.”
“At first.”
The final phrase mattered.
“At first?”
Daniel took a breath.
“The recording suggests Linda changed her mind that night.”
Elena looked confused.
“How?”
“You told me Linda said something before leaving.”
“What?”
“I could never tell whether you were quoting her exactly.”
“Tell me.”
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“You said she whispered, ‘If Cole thinks this burns with you, he’ll stop looking at me.’”
Maya frowned.
“Looking at her for what?”
“We never knew.”
Linda had not simply been Cole’s instrument.
She had been afraid of him.
That didn’t make her innocent.
It made the structure more dangerous.
“Where was Rebecca last seen?” I asked.
“Hotel in Sacramento.”
“Cameras?”
“Police are pulling them.”
“Did anyone see Linda?”
“Not yet.”
Jessica stood several feet away, arms folded around herself.
“She won’t take Rebecca somewhere random.”
Everyone looked at her.
“What makes you think that?” Maya asked.
“Victor trained people to use familiar places when they wanted control.”
Elena’s expression sharpened.
“Explain.”
“Somewhere the captive recognizes. Somewhere loaded with history. It disorients you.”
“You sound like you’ve experienced that.”
Jessica’s jaw tightened.
“I have.”
I stepped toward her.
“When?”
“When I was nineteen.”
“What happened?”
“Victor thought I stole documents.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
That surprised no one.
“Where did he take you?”
“A house outside Salem.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“What house?”
“He said it belonged to an old friend.”
“Whose?”
“I never knew.”
“Can you find it?”
“Maybe.”
Jessica took my phone and opened a map.
She searched slowly.
“Forest road. White mailbox. There was an abandoned church nearby.”
Elena leaned over.
“I know that place.”
Jessica looked at her.
“How?”
“Victor used it before you were born.”
“For what?”
“Meetings.”
“With Cole?”
“And Pike.”
“Linda?”
“Later.”
Maya immediately contacted police.
The property still existed.
Ownership had transferred repeatedly between shell companies before landing under a private trust.
The current trustee was a lawyer with historic ties to Raymond Cole.
“That’s enough for surveillance,” Maya said.
“Not enough for entry,” I replied.
“It may be once they connect Rebecca.”
My phone vibrated.
A message from Rebecca’s number.
A photograph loaded.
Rebecca sat on the floor against a paneled wall.
Her hands were bound in front of her.
No visible blood.
Around her neck, the silver chain was gone.
Daniel’s voice came through speaker.
“No.”
He saw it too.
“She took the necklace.”
A second image appeared.
The pendant rested on a wooden table.
Then a message.
This is not the tape.
Linda had opened it.
She knew what Rebecca carried.
Daniel cursed.
Another message followed.
Midnight. Bring Elena’s recording.
“You don’t have it,” I said.
“No.”
“But Linda thinks you do.”
“Apparently.”
Elena stared at the paneled wall behind Rebecca.
“I’ve been there.”
Everyone looked at her.
“The Salem house?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
She pointed at a dark mark in the wood paneling.
“Victor threw a fireplace poker during an argument. It hit the wall.”
Jessica enlarged the image.
A narrow gouge crossed the panel.
“I remember that.”
Elena and Jessica looked at each other.
Two women separated by decades recognizing the same scar in the same room.
Maya spoke first.
“We have location confirmation.”
Police moved quickly after that.
The property was placed under surveillance.
No visible movement.
One car in the detached garage.
Another behind the house.
Thermal imaging suggested at least three people inside.
“Linda, Rebecca, and who else?” I asked.
No one knew.
Thomas remained in custody.
Cole remained hospitalized under guard.
Pike was dead.
The possibilities narrowed.
Elena paced.
“I should go.”
“No,” I said.
“She wants the tape.”
“We don’t have it.”
“She doesn’t know that.”
“So your plan is to walk in empty-handed?”
“My plan is to buy Rebecca time.”
Jessica shook her head.
“Linda won’t believe you.”
“She may.”
“No.”
Elena turned toward her.
“You know Linda better?”
“I know Victor’s methods. Linda learned from him.”
Jessica’s voice was firm.
“If you go in with nothing, she’ll test you immediately.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
Jessica looked at Daniel’s image of the pendant.
“We make her believe we found the original.”
Maya stared.
“With what?”
“The cassette from Unit 314.”
“It’s in evidence.”
“Then another cassette.”
“You want to bluff.”
“Yes.”
Elena shook her head.
“She’ll recognize it.”
“Not from across a room.”
“And if she demands playback?”
Jessica’s expression did not change.
“Then we need an actual recording.”
Daniel spoke through the phone.
“I can make one.”
I looked at the speaker.
“From what?”
“The recovered digital audio.”
“You said Rebecca had the drive.”
“I have a backup.”
Everyone stared.
Even Maya looked offended.
“You have another copy?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“My attorney has it.”
Maya narrowed her eyes.
“You have an attorney other than me?”
“You’re Arthur’s attorney.”
“Fair.”
“How fast can you get it?” I asked.
“An hour.”
“Do it.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Ethan.”
“What?”
“There’s something on the recording you haven’t heard.”
“That sentence no longer frightens me.”
“It should.”
Elena went still.
“What is it?”
Daniel answered her.
“You named someone else who was in the house before Linda.”
My mother’s face lost color.
“Who?”
“Arthur.”
Dad’s voice came from my second phone.
“I was never inside that night.”
Daniel replied quietly.
“Elena said you were.”
No one spoke.
Dad was the first.
“She was drugged.”
“Yes,” Daniel said.
“But she recognized you.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Maybe.”
“Daniel.”
“I’m telling you what’s on the tape.”
The silence between them stretched across decades.
Then Dad asked, “What exactly did she say?”
Daniel answered.
“She said, ‘Arthur came back for the papers. He told Linda where Ethan was sleeping.’”
My body went cold.
I stared at Elena.
She looked horrified.
“That isn’t true.”
Dad’s voice hardened.
“No. It isn’t.”
“Then why would Mom say it?”
No one answered.
The recording we were about to use as bait did not merely implicate Linda.
It accused my father of helping her on the night our house burned.
Click here to continue reading: PART 18: The Damaged Recording Accused My Father of Betrayal, Until One Missing Minute Revealed Someone Had Manipulated My Mother
My Father Had Never Asked Me for Money Until He Appeared at My Door With a Deadline
Part 17 of 35
