Chapter 14 - The Voice on the Recording
Dad had always been good at making things sound like someone else's fault.
"She drove me to it," Dad had said after slamming a cabinet door. "If she'd only listened." Harlan's words felt like the same excuse in a nicer suit.
Mom switched off the news. "We won't watch him argue with a camera," she said. "He'll have his chance to answer questions under oath."
Leah brought us a recording the next morning, not to play for me but for Mom to identify a voice. I asked to stay. Mom said no at first. Later she explained what she'd heard. It was a conversation investigators recovered from one of Ryan's phones. He'd told a caller that he could 'make Sarah give up the names' if they stopped asking politely.
"The other man?" I asked.
"Dale Mercer. The one who came to the house."
"Did Dad know he was dangerous?"
Mom looked at me for a long moment. "He knew enough to keep his visits secret. He knew enough to hide your school schedule in a storage unit. I won't make excuses for him anymore."
Nolan told us Ryan's attorney had asked for a reduced sentence in exchange for cooperation. It didn't erase the kitchen attack. State prosecutors were pursuing that case separately, and the protection order would remain in effect.
A week later, agents recovered the contents of a shredded shipping envelope from the storage unit. A technician reconstructed part of a memo showing Harlan had authorized payments after the fire to conceal work orders. It wasn't a complete confession, but with bank records and Arthur's copy, it made the case stronger.
Mom stared at the printed memo. "Lena told me there would be a trail," she said.
At the bottom was a handwritten instruction to 'remove the original door logs.' The line bore the initials of Harlan's chief operations officer, a man named Calvin Drew.
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Nolan's phone buzzed with the latest warrant return. Officers had reached Drew's home that morning.
He was gone, and his suitcase was still on the bed.
