Chapter 12 - THE DEVICE IN OUR WALL
Investigators searched the house from top to bottom.
They found the first microphone behind an electrical outlet in my office.
The second was beneath the kitchen island.
The third was inside the nursery.
That one nearly made me lose control.
Someone had been listening while Amy fed our son.
While we argued.
While Frederick cried at night.
While my wife told herself things were going to get better.
Agent Collins stopped me from ripping it out.
“It’s evidence.”
I stared at the tiny device.
“That was beside my son’s crib.”
“I know.”
Amy walked out of the room.
I found her sitting on the stairs.
She was crying without making a sound.
I sat beside her.
“I failed you.”
She shook her head.
“Connor.”
“I should have listened.”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised me.
She wiped her face.
“You should have.”
I nodded.
“I know.”
“But you’re listening now.”
That mattered.
Not enough to erase the past.
Enough to begin rebuilding something.
Investigators traced the devices to Samuel Pike.
Pike disappeared before they could question him.
Then Victor disappeared too.
His office was empty.
His house was empty.
His phone went dead.
Teresa remained in Nashville.
Her lawyer insisted she knew nothing about Victor’s whereabouts.
Nobody believed her.
That evening, I received a call from an unknown number.
Victor’s voice came through.
“You need to stop pushing.”
I recorded everything.
“You stole from me.”
“You don’t understand your mother.”
“I understand enough.”
“No.”
Victor sounded almost amused.
“Teresa thinks she built you.”
“She thinks everything you became was something you owed her.”
“That doesn’t explain you.”
He was silent.
Then he said something strange.
“I never said Teresa was working for me.”
The line disconnected.
I immediately called Agent Collins.
She listened to the recording.
Then she looked at me differently.
“What if your mother wasn’t recruited by Victor?”
“What are you saying?”
“What if she recruited him?”
That possibility sounded absurd.
Until investigators examined Teresa’s old bank records.
Large cash deposits began appearing years earlier.
Before Victor’s known fraud operation.
Before Amy.
Before Frederick.
Before my company had become valuable.
Then Collins found a name linked to my father.
Robert Bradley.
My father had died twelve years earlier from what everyone believed was financial stress followed by a fatal heart attack.
But six months before his death, he had accused someone of stealing money from the family business.
That person had been Teresa.
May you like
My mother.
TOBE CONTINUED
