Chapter 8 - THE RECORDING
The recording had been made by Tyler, the delivery driver.
His phone had been running in voice-memo mode after he realized batteries might die before rescuers reached us.
He had recorded nearly three hours.
The city had already collected the file.
Someone had sent me only forty-two seconds.
I listened to them again.
Valerie’s voice.
Confident.
Almost amused.
“Alex will come for me.”
Then another woman.
“How do you know?”
“Because he always does.”
The next part was quieter.
“I could call him at three in the morning and he would leave her bed.”
My stomach twisted.
Someone whispered, “That’s awful.”
Valerie answered.
“No.”
A pause.
“That’s history.”
I stopped the audio.
Mark’s jaw tightened.
“You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”
“But I needed to.”
I forwarded the file to Captain Torres.
Then I called Tyler.
His number had been on the incident list.
He answered after two rings.
“Lucy?”
“How did you know?”
“The news.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For recording everybody.”
“Don’t be.”
His voice lowered.
“There’s more.”
I sat down.
“What?”
“Valerie talked a lot before she collapsed.”
“About Alex?”
“Yes.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“She said he told her he wasn’t happy.”
That hurt.
Not because I believed Alex had been happy.
But because unhappiness discussed with an ex becomes its own kind of betrayal.
“What else?”
“She said the baby changed things.”
“My baby?”
“I think so.”
I closed my eyes.
Tyler continued.
“She said Alex would never leave you while you were pregnant.”
My throat went dry.
“And after?”
“She said she could wait.”
The silence stretched.
Then Tyler said something that changed the shape of everything again.
“Lucy, I don’t think she was just bragging.”
“What do you mean?”
“She sounded like they had a plan.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“What plan?”
“I don’t know.”
He hesitated.
“But she said something about a house.”
“What house?”
“She said, ‘Once the house closes, everything gets easier.’”
Alex and I were not buying a house.
We already owned one.
A narrow brick home in Lincoln Square that I loved.
Then I remembered his laptop.
Two weeks earlier, I had seen a real estate website open.
I asked if he was looking for investment property.
He laughed.
Said one of the guys at the station was buying.
I believed him.
Again.
I called my mother.
“Can you go to the house?”
“I’m already there feeding your cat.”
“Open Alex’s desk.”
Silence.
“Lucy.”
“Please.”
Three minutes later, she called back.
“There’s a folder.”
“What kind?”
“Real estate.”
My skin went cold.
“Whose name?”
Pages moved on the other end.
Then my mother stopped.
“Lucy.”
May you like
“Whose name?”
“Alex Davis and Valerie Mercer.”
