Chapter 5 - THE VOICE ON THE RECORDING
I showed Sebastian the message.
He did not swear.
That was worse.
He stared at the photograph.
“Forward it to security.”
I did.
Then another message arrived.
A voice recording.
Seven seconds.
A woman’s voice.
Lucia.
“Maya, families solve things privately. Don’t make strangers decide what happens to Lily.”
I felt sick.
Sebastian asked, “Have you ever spoken to her?”
“Never.”
“Then she wanted you to recognize her voice.”
“How?”
He looked toward the recorder from his office.
I understood.
The old recording.
“She knows we heard it.”
“Possibly.”
“How?”
He called his security chief.
The answer came twenty minutes later.
Someone had remotely accessed the basement office network during the police interviews.
The login belonged to Veronica.
She had copied the audio archive.
Sebastian looked furious.
“She knew the recordings existed.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
He sat across from me.
“Tell me everything Daniel ever said about his family.”
I tried.
There was not much.
Daniel had described himself as independent.
His father was supposedly gone.
His mother supposedly dead.
No siblings.
No close relatives.
He worked in luxury auto sales.
He always had money but complained about debt.
When I became pregnant, he was terrified.
Not angry.
Terrified.
He begged me to consider adoption.
I refused.
Then he changed.
He became distant.
Started disappearing.
Six weeks after Lily was born, he left.
Sebastian asked, “Did he ever ask you to sign anything?”
My stomach tightened.
“One thing.”
“What?”
“A life insurance form.”
Sebastian went still.
“On Lily?”
“No. Me.”
I had refused.
Daniel said it was responsible planning.
I thought it was weird.
Then I remembered something else.
“He asked for Lily’s birth certificate.”
“When?”
“The week before he left.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.”
Sebastian stood.
“What?”
“My father’s recording mentioned a trust.”
I looked at him.
“If Lily has some trust, I would know.”
“Not necessarily.”
“That sounds ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous.”
He paced once.
“But old-money families are extremely talented at making ridiculous things legally complicated.”
His phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“What?”
He ended the call.
“Daniel filed an emergency custody petition tonight.”
I felt the room disappear.
“What?”
“He claims you endangered Lily by hiding her at work.”
My mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Sebastian continued.
“He included photographs.”
“From today?”
“And others.”
“What others?”
He turned his phone toward me.
Pictures of Lily asleep in the linen room.
Different uniforms.
Different dates.
Someone had been documenting us for weeks.
At the bottom of the petition was a supporting declaration.
Signed by Veronica Hale.
My manager.
Daniel’s aunt.
May you like
The woman who had created the danger they were now using against me.
