The cassette player in the bank's private room was old enough that the director had to search the building for one.
When he finally returned with it, my hands were cold.
Nobody wanted to press play.
The label sat between us.
THE NIGHT ANNA DISAPPEARED.
My son looked at me.
“You don't have to listen.”
“Yes, I do.”
Anna sat beside me.
“I want to hear it too.”
Daniel inserted the tape.
The machine clicked.
Static filled the room.
Then came the sound of a hospital corridor.
Footsteps.
A door opening.
A woman's muffled voice.
I closed my eyes.
I remembered that hallway.
Not clearly.
Pieces.
Fluorescent lights.
The smell of disinfectant.
My own heartbeat.
Then a man's voice came through the speaker.
“Make sure the mother never sees the child again.”
I opened my eyes.
Anna's fingers tightened around mine.
The voice wasn't Arthur's.
It wasn't Vale's.
It wasn't my former husband's.
Daniel leaned toward the machine.
“Keep listening.”
A second voice answered.
“The mother is sedated.”
“Good.”
“What about the trust?”
“The trust won't matter if the fourth child is never recognized.”
My breath stopped.
A nurse's voice came through faintly.
“And the father?”
The first man answered.
“He'll believe whatever we tell him.”
My former husband lowered his head.
I looked at him.
He couldn't meet my eyes.
The recording continued.
“Take the baby through the east corridor.”
“Where?”
“Transfer her to the guardian listed on the file.”
My son frowned.
“Guardian?”
Daniel's face had changed.
He knew that phrase.
“That's how Anna disappeared legally,” he said.
The recording continued.
A door opened.
Then another voice.
A woman's voice.
Soft.
Steady.
My blood ran cold.
I knew it.
I had heard it thousands of times.
My mother's voice.
“No.”
Anna looked at me.
“That was your grandmother?”
I couldn't answer.
My mother was speaking on the tape.
“Arthur, this is the last time you do this.”
A man's voice replied.
“You don't understand what your husband discovered.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“He left records.”
“And I secured them.”
“Then why protect the baby?”
My mother's voice became sharper.
“Because she is innocent.”
“She's an asset.”
“She is a child.”
The tape crackled.
Then Arthur spoke.
“You can't protect everyone.”
My mother answered.
“No. But I can protect her.”
The recording stopped abruptly.
Nobody moved.
I stared at the machine.
My mother had been there.
She had known.
She had fought Arthur.
She had tried to protect Anna.
But there was still something I didn't understand.
“Who was the first man?”
Daniel rewound the tape.
He listened again.
The first voice was calm, educated, almost emotionless.
My former husband suddenly whispered, “I know that voice.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Who?”
He swallowed.
“Your father's old accountant.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No. He died twenty years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because I heard recordings of him when I was working with Vale.”
Daniel stared.
“His name?”
My former husband said it.
“Thomas Reed.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But Daniel's expression told me it mattered.
“Thomas Reed was your father's chief financial adviser.”
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared after your father died.”
My oldest daughter looked at the recording.
“So he's the one behind everything?”
“Not necessarily,” Daniel said.
“Then who?”
Daniel pointed to my mother's letter.
“She wrote that Arthur was the doorway. Vale was the operator. Reed may have been the financial architect.”
My son frowned.
“That still leaves someone above them.”
Daniel nodded.
The bank director spoke quietly.
“There is something else on the tape.”
He pointed to the machine.
“Listen after the static.”
Daniel rewound again.
This time we heard a faint sound beneath the conversation.
A telephone ringing.
Someone answered.
Then a man's voice.
“Proceed.”
Two seconds later, the recording ended.
The bank director looked at us.
“That voice may be identifiable.”
“How?”
“Our forensic department can isolate it.”
Daniel nodded.
“Do it.”
Anna looked at me.
“Your mother knew I was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever come back for me?”
I opened the letter again.
There was no answer.
But the red notebook from the safe-deposit box sat untouched.
I opened it.
Inside were dates.
Hospital dates.
Bank transfers.
Names.
And, beside one date, a sentence written in my mother's hand.
I saw her today.*
My heart stopped.
“Anna.”
She looked over.
My finger was on the page.
“The date.”
She leaned closer.
Twenty-four years ago.
Three months after her supposed death.
My mother had seen her.
“She found you,” I whispered.
Anna's lips trembled.
“Where?”
I turned the page.
There was an address.
A pediatric clinic across town.
Daniel recognized it immediately.
“That was your guardian's clinic.”
Anna stared at him.
“You knew.”
“I knew the clinic.”
“But you didn't know my mother saw me there.”
“No.”
The next page contained a note.
Margaret must not know yet. Her husband is still watching her.*
I began to cry.
Not because my mother had hidden Anna from me.
Because she had tried to save both of us.
Anna wrapped her arms around me.
For the first time, I held my daughter without wondering whether she would disappear again.
Then my phone rang.
The caller ID was blocked.
I answered.
Nobody spoke.
Then a man's voice said,
“Stop looking for Arthur.”
I stood.
“Who is this?”
“You already know who I am.”
The line went dead.
Daniel took the phone from me.
“Don't call back.”
“Why?”
“Because that wasn't a warning.”
He looked at the recording.
“It was confirmation.”
“Of what?”
Daniel's voice was barely audible.
“Arthur isn't hiding.”
My son stared at him.
“Then where is he?”
Daniel looked at the photograph.
“At the place where your grandfather kept the original records.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 23: Margaret Finds the House Her Father Never Put in the Family Records, and Inside It Is Proof That Anna Was Protected for a Reason
The Last Call Ended Differently Than Any of Us Expected, and I Finally Heard What My Children Had Been Trying to Tell Me
Part 22 of 30
