Chapter 13 - The Recording
Nina wanted police involved immediately.
I agreed.
For the first time in ten years, I stopped worrying about how anything would look to Lukas's family.
The detective assigned to the harassment report was named Carmen Ruiz.
She listened without interrupting as we explained the forged signature, the guardianship filing, the private transport company, and the threat.
Then she asked the question nobody in the family had expected.
"Do you have recordings?"
I did.
Not of Sunday dinner.
But after that dinner, I had started recording every family call that reached me in Illinois, where one-party consent applied to conversations I participated in.
I played Ingrid's voicemail from two days earlier.
She had switched to German halfway through.
"If Sophia refuses, we make her look unstable. If Evelyn refuses, we remind her what infertility did to her."
Detective Ruiz stopped the recording.
"Play that again."
I did.
Nina watched her face.
"Enough for what?" I asked.
"Enough to start asking harder questions."
By evening, police had requested records from the stabilization company.
Peter Voller stopped answering calls.
Lukas came to my sister's building and waited outside.
I met him in the lobby with Ruiz present.
He looked exhausted.
"Evelyn, please."
"Talk."
"My mother pushed this too far."
"You slept with Sophia."
"I know."
"You signed an affidavit calling me unstable."
He looked down.
"I was scared."
"Of losing company shares."
"Of losing everything I was raised for."
I almost felt sorry for him.
Then he said, "I can give you proof against her."
"Why now?"
His eyes lifted.
"Because Peter is gone."
"Gone where?"
"Nobody knows."
May you like
He pulled a key from his pocket.
"But I know where he kept the original Project Continuity files."
