Chapter 5 - MY MOTHER'S SECOND PHONE
The phone was old, cheap, and cracked across one corner.
“I bought it at a drugstore before I came down,” Mom said. “My regular phone kept dying.”
I waited.
Her hands trembled as she unlocked it.
“Bonnie has been saying strange things for days. About you. About the house. About Donovan.”
“What kind of things?”
Mom opened the voice recorder.
The first clip was forty-seven seconds long.
Bonnie’s voice filled the room.
“Once Taylor loses her temper in front of the right person, everything gets easier. Caden only needs temporary custody at first.”
A man answered.
Marcus.
“Temporary becomes permanent if the record supports it.”
My lungs locked.
Mom whispered, “They were in the breakfast room. They thought I was outside.”
The next recording was worse.
Caden: “I don’t want to take Donovan from her.”
Bonnie: “Don’t be stupid. You don’t need to take him forever. You need leverage.”
Marcus: “If Taylor controls the money, custody gives you bargaining power.”
There was a long pause.
Then my husband said, “And the mansion?”
Bonnie laughed.
“We make sure it becomes part of the settlement.”
I sat down.
The room tilted for a second.
My mother grabbed my hand. “Taylor, I’m sorry.”
“No.” I swallowed hard. “I needed to hear it.”
There was one final clip.
Marcus said, “The text screenshots are easy. The harder part is building witnesses.”
Bonnie answered, “Leave that to me.”
The recording ended.
Priya’s voice came through the speakerphone, calm but urgent.
“Back up everything. Three copies. Cloud, encrypted drive, and one physical copy off-site.”
I did exactly that.
For the first time since coming home, fear stopped controlling the room.
Evidence did.
Then my company’s chief financial officer called.
“Taylor, we have a problem.”
“What happened?”
“A wire request came through thirty minutes ago for two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars.”
“I didn’t authorize a wire.”
“I know.”
“Who did?”
He hesitated.
“The request carries Caden’s digital approval token.”
May you like
My husband did not work for my company.
He should never have had that token.
