Chapter 24
Ethan read the transcript over my shoulder.
“Who recorded this?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you recognize the wording?”
“Ryan’s mother used to say I was too trusting to understand business.”
“That doesn’t prove it was her.”
“No.”
He looked at the file list.
“There are metadata details.”
“What?”
“Each document was created or modified on different dates. Some were copied from hospital archives. Others came from private accounts.”
“Can you tell who assembled them?”
“Not from this laptop.”
He removed the flash drive carefully.
“I know someone who can examine the files without altering the originals.”
“Your company’s investigator?”
“My attorney.”
“I don’t want to give this to a lawyer yet.”
“Then keep it. We can make a copy.”
I nodded.
For the first time since the SUV had stopped beside the road, I felt a small sense of direction.
Not safety. Not certainty.
But direction.
My phone vibrated.
Ryan.
I answered before I could change my mind.
“What do you want?”
His voice came through strained and impatient.
“You need to come back.”
“No.”
“You left with documents that belong to my family.”
“I took my own suitcase.”
“My mother says there was a flash drive.”
I said nothing.
His breathing changed.
“Madeline, listen to me carefully. You don’t understand what you’ve found.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can’t do that over the phone.”
“You could have explained it eleven years ago.”
“That isn’t what this is about.”
“Isn’t it?”
He was quiet.
I could hear traffic in the background and the faint sound of a woman speaking somewhere near him.
The mistress.
Perhaps she was already living in our house.
“Did you know you were infertile?” I asked.
The silence that followed answered before he did.
“Madeline—”
“Did you?”
“It was complicated.”
“No. It was a medical fact. Did you know?”
“My doctors weren’t certain.”
“You had a test.”
“I had several tests.”
“And you let me believe my body was the reason we couldn’t have children.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. Your mother said it for you.”
“She was upset.”
“She was protecting the family.”
“She was trying to help.”
“By blaming me?”
Ryan’s voice hardened.
“You’re emotional. You’re not thinking clearly.”
The familiar dismissal hurt less than it once had.
“I am thinking more clearly than I have in eleven years.”
“Where are you?”
“That’s no longer your concern.”
“You’re carrying my child.”