Chapter 2 - THE VOICES OF THE DEAD
Nobody moved.
Not Clara.
Not Mark.
Not even Brandon.
The little black phone remained in Clara’s hand, warm against her palm.
Then Mark reached for it.
Clara pulled it back.
“No.”
His eyes lifted to hers.
“That was my mother.”
“And my father.”
“I know.”
“Then you understand why I’m not handing it to you.”
Something flickered across his face.
Not anger.
Pain.
It made him look less like the man everyone in Philadelphia feared and more like a son who had just heard a ghost.
Ronald recovered first.
“This is exactly why Henry didn’t trust Carter.”
Mark turned.
“You seem remarkably calm for a man who just heard two dead people talking.”
Ronald’s mouth tightened.
Clara looked at the phone.
The call had ended.
But the screen showed something strange.
Not a phone number.
A filename.
HENRY_EVELYN_03.
Clara stared at it.
“This wasn’t a call.”
Mark stepped closer.
She showed him.
His expression hardened.
“A recording.”
Brandon swore under his breath.
Clara looked at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You keep saying no before anyone asks you anything.”
Lydia rose from her chair.
“We should all calm down.”
Clara laughed once.
It surprised even her.
“For eleven months, I’ve been calm.”
She pointed toward the unsigned release.
“I was calm while you told me Dad left debts. I was calm while you treated me like I couldn’t understand my own inheritance. I was calm while Brandon threatened me.”
Her eyes went to Ronald.
“And now somebody planted a phone in my bag containing recordings of my dead father.”
She looked at Lydia.
“I’m done being calm.”
Mark held out his hand.
“May I see the phone?”
This time Clara gave it to him.
He examined the device without opening anything else.
“Cheap prepaid model. No service information displayed.”
Ronald gave a bitter smile.
“You’re suddenly a technician?”
“No.”
Mark looked toward one of his men outside.
“But I employ people who are.”
Ronald’s smile vanished.
Clara noticed Brandon edging toward the hallway.
“Where are you going?”
He stopped.
“Bathroom.”
“Sit down.”
He stared at her.
For once, Clara didn’t look away.
Brandon sat.
Mark tapped the screen.
There were six audio files.
Henry_Evelyn_01 through 06.
Clara swallowed.
“Play the first one.”
Mark hesitated.
“Clara—”
“Play it.”
He did.
Static filled the room.
Then Henry’s voice.
“If you’re hearing this, something has gone wrong.”
Clara closed her eyes.
She could picture her father at the kitchen counter, sleeves rolled up, coffee going cold because he always forgot to drink it.
Then another voice.
Evelyn Carter.
Mark’s mother.
“Henry, stop talking like you’re already dead.”
A chair scraped in the recording.
Henry chuckled.
“You always hated my sense of humor.”
“I hated that you used humor when you were scared.”
Mark’s jaw tightened.
Clara looked at him.
“You recognize her?”
“Yes.”
One word.
Barely audible.
The recording continued.
Evelyn said, “If Mark ever learns about Daniel, it needs to come from the box. Not Ronald. Not Thomas. The box.”
Mark stopped the recording.
“Daniel who?”
Nobody answered.
Then Lydia made the mistake of looking at Ronald.
Mark saw it.
“So you know.”
Ronald’s shoulders lowered.
“Daniel Bennett.”
Clara’s heart stumbled.
“My uncle?”
Henry had once had an older brother.
Daniel Bennett.
Clara knew almost nothing about him because Daniel had died before she was born.
Mark stared at Ronald.
“What does Clara’s uncle have to do with me?”
Ronald looked at him with something that almost resembled pity.
“That answer is exactly why Henry hid the box.”
Clara felt cold.
Mark’s voice dropped.
“Was Daniel my father?”
Ronald said nothing.
That silence answered too much.
Mark stepped away from the table.
For the first time since he entered the house, he seemed genuinely unsteady.
Clara remembered Henry’s warning.
Mark Carter doesn’t know who his real father is.
But something bothered her.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at her.
“The recording said the truth had to come from the box.”
She pointed at Ronald.
“So why are you giving us the answer now?”
Ronald’s face changed.
Clara felt the pieces shifting.
“You want Mark to believe Daniel was his father.”
Mark looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because somebody wants us focused on that instead of what was actually in the box.”
Silence.
Mark’s eyes sharpened.
Then he nodded once.
“Exactly.”
Brandon suddenly stood.
“I’m leaving.”
Mark’s man appeared in the doorway.
Brandon stopped.
Clara turned on him.
“You went to the farm tonight.”
“I drove them.”
“You entered the barn.”
“Yes.”
“Did you take the box?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Brandon looked at Lydia.
Lydia closed her eyes.
“Tell her.”
Brandon’s face went red.
“We found the wall already open.”
Clara stared.
“What?”
“When we got there, the panel had been cut.”
Ronald snapped, “That’s enough.”
Brandon rounded on him.
“No. You said nobody else knew.”
Clara’s pulse quickened.
“Knew what?”
Brandon pointed at Ronald.
“He told us Henry hid records that could prove Lydia’s husband had money tied up in the old freight partnership. Mom thought there might be something showing our family was owed money.”
Lydia’s eyes filled, but her voice remained controlled.
“My husband died believing Henry cheated him.”
Clara had never heard that.
“You thought Dad stole from Uncle Peter?”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
“So you tried to make me sign away everything?”
Lydia flinched.
“Ronald said the release would prevent years of litigation.”
Mark picked up the papers.
“No. It would give Ronald control of Clara’s claims.”
Lydia slowly looked at Ronald.
“What?”
Ronald said nothing.
That was the second reversal of the night.
Lydia hadn’t written the trap.
She had allowed herself to become part of it.
Clara wasn’t ready to forgive her.
But for the first time, she understood why.
Mark’s man entered carrying a small electronic device.
“Mr. Carter.”
He held up the black phone.
“This never received a call.”
Clara frowned.
“Then how did it ring?”
“Scheduled playback. Somebody loaded the files onto it and programmed the first one to launch at a specific time.”
Mark looked toward Ronald.
“So the dead didn’t call us.”
“No.”
The man tapped the phone.
“And these files have been edited.”
Mark went still.
“Edited how?”
“Spliced together from different recordings.”
Clara felt anger replace grief.
Someone had taken her father’s voice and rearranged it.
“Can you recover the originals?”
“Maybe.”
He connected the phone to another device.
A moment later, a hidden folder appeared.
Inside was a photograph.
Not the barn.
Not the black box.
A little boy, perhaps six years old, standing beside Henry.
The boy had dark hair.
Serious eyes.
And around his neck hung a silver St. Christopher medal.
Mark reached unconsciously beneath his shirt.
When his hand emerged, he was holding the same medal.
Clara stared at him.
“You’ve had that all your life?”
“My mother gave it to me.”
The photo had a date handwritten along the bottom.
Thirty-five years earlier.
Mark turned it over digitally.
There was writing on the back.
Henry’s handwriting.
Daniel’s son. Evelyn made me promise.
Mark stopped breathing.
Then Clara noticed the corner of the photograph.
Another person had been deliberately cut out.
Only one hand remained visible.
On its wrist was an expensive gold watch.
Ronald’s watch.
The same one he was wearing now.
Clara slowly raised her eyes.
Ronald looked down at his wrist.
May you like
And for the first time that night, he looked afraid.
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