Chapter 5 - The Last Voice Note
The phone's screen was cracked, its case scorched along one edge. I'd searched for it after the fire. The property office had told me everything recovered from Lena's room was destroyed by smoke and water.
A note in the box read: YOUR SISTER TRIED TO TELL THE TRUTH. LISTEN BEFORE THEY ERASE IT.
Priya wanted to call the police immediately. I photographed the box, the note, and the shipping label first. Then I called Officer Ruiz and asked how to preserve what we'd received. She told us not to delete or change anything, and arranged to collect the device properly. Before she arrived, we were able to see the lock-screen notification for an unsent voice memo. It was dated the night of the fire.
The police later let me hear a copy with a victim advocate present. Lena's voice came through faintly over an alarm.
"Holly, if this sends, please listen. The west door is chained again. Mr. Rusk says it's for the donations. I told him people are sleeping upstairs. If something happens, don't let them call us careless."
There was a crash, then another woman's voice shouting for children to stay low. The memo stopped. I sat with my hands in my lap and cried until I couldn't breathe.
"That's evidence," Ruiz said gently. "But it doesn't tell us who ordered the chain left in place."
The city had reopened aspects of the fire review after the ballroom incident. Yet Beatrice's attorneys were already calling my sister unstable in interviews. A television host claimed Lena had ignored drills. She was gone, unable to answer.
That afternoon, a freelance event photographer named Felix Dunn called. He said he had a second camera angle of the ballroom attack, one the foundation hadn't purchased or controlled. He refused to send it electronically.
May you like
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because someone entered my studio this morning," Felix said. "And what they took wasn't the camera. It was the card case where I keep my backups."
