Chapter 16 - A Voice That Wasn't Mine
The recording made me feel as though somebody had climbed inside my body and stolen my mouth.
Park stopped the audio before it finished.
"It's a manipulated recording," she said. "We have the raw source clips and inconsistencies our examiner identified. We're preserving both."
I recognized pieces of my real voice. One phrase came from a birthday video. Another was taken from a voicemail I'd left Vanessa after a fight. Ricardo had cut and assembled them into something I had never said.
"They wanted people to think I agreed to give Lily up."
"That's one reasonable inference," Park said. "We'll let the evidence establish the purpose."
A second recording contained Vanessa's own unmistakable voice. She coached someone through a script about a frightening, neglectful father. When the other person hesitated, she said, "It doesn't have to be true. It has to sound true the first time."
By afternoon, officers had located Ricardo at a bus station north of the city. He attempted to leave through a service exit when they approached. They arrested him without anyone getting hurt.
He asked for a lawyer and refused to answer substantive questions. That was his right. His bag, however, contained receipts and devices that investigators sought authority to examine.
Park told me the arrest had not ended the danger. Vanessa remained missing. Her car had been found behind an empty retail building, wiped clean of anything that might show where she went next.
I spent the evening checking the locks at Rosa's apartment, even though a patrol car was already nearby.
Lily watched me from the sofa.
"Do you think she'll find us?"
"We're making a plan so she can't take you," I said. "And I'll tell you the truth if anything changes."
Just then Rosa's doorbell camera sent an alert.
May you like
A woman holding an official-looking folder stood outside the apartment.
She was wearing Vanessa's wedding ring.
