Chapter 2 - The Voice Recorded Behind the Wall
No one spoke after Rachel’s voice came through the music player.
The police officer holding her loosened his grip only enough to place her in a chair.
Dr. Shaw stopped the recording.
Emma stared at her mother.
“What did he survive?”
Rachel shook her head.
“It is not what you think.”
“What happened to Dad?”
“Emma, you are injured. You should rest.”
“You told us he died instantly.”
“He did.”
The officer beside the door identified himself as Detective Marcus Cole from the family violence unit.
He placed the music player inside a clear evidence bag.
“We will need a complete copy of everything stored on this device.”
Emma’s panic returned.
“No.”
Cole looked at her.
“It may contain evidence.”
“If Gareth sees the recordings, he’ll know where I made them.”
“Gareth is being detained.”
“He always gets out.”
Cole’s expression remained patient.
“This time there are officers, medical evidence, and two witnesses.”
“My mother always changes her story.”
Rachel flinched.
Lydia made a faint sound from the second bed.
Emma turned immediately.
Her sister’s eyelids fluttered.
“Lydia?”
Dr. Shaw moved to her side.
“Do not try to sit up.”
Lydia opened her eyes only halfway. Her breathing became faster when she saw Rachel.
“Lock the door,” she whispered.
“It is locked,” Dr. Shaw assured her.
Lydia looked toward Emma.
“The player?”
“They have it.”
“Not Mom.”
Rachel began crying again.
“Lydia, please.”
Lydia turned her face away.
Detective Cole separated Rachel from the twins and took her into an interview room. Gareth was placed in a guarded hospital office until detectives could question him.
Dr. Shaw remained with Emma while nurses prepared Lydia for additional scans.
“Your sister’s condition is serious,” she said. “But she is stable.”
Emma nodded, though tears blurred her vision.
“Did he do this often?”
Emma looked toward the locked door.
“Almost every day.”
“Your mother knew?”
“She watched.”
The answer came without emotion because Emma had repeated it silently for months.
“She sometimes told him when we broke rules.”
“What rules?”
“Closing our bedroom door. Whispering after ten. Eating without permission. Looking at him when he was angry. Not looking at him when he was angry.”
Dr. Shaw’s face hardened.
“Why did you start recording him?”
“Because Lydia stopped remembering things.”
After one beating, Lydia woke unable to recall an entire afternoon. Gareth convinced her she had attacked him first.
Emma realized memories could be broken as easily as bones.
She began using the old music player.
It could record audio even with the screen damaged. She hid it inside walls, beneath laundry baskets, and behind books.
One recording captured Gareth threatening to kill them.
Another captured Rachel coaching the twins on what to say if teachers asked about bruises.
The most important recording had been made three weeks earlier.
Emma hid the device behind a loose vent cover in Gareth’s office.
She heard him speaking with Rachel.
Daniel Reed, the twins’ father, had supposedly died in a highway accident four years ago.
But Gareth said Daniel should have died the first time.
Rachel answered that the girls could never know he survived.
“What happened after that?” Dr. Shaw asked.
“Gareth found the loose vent.”
“Did he find the player?”
“No. I moved it before he searched.”
That night, he beat Lydia for refusing to tell him what Emma had hidden.
The hospital door opened.
Detective Cole returned carrying a laptop.
“We made a forensic copy.”
He pressed play on the recording.
Gareth’s voice filled the room.
“Daniel was alive when they pulled him from the car.”
Rachel answered.
“You said the second report would solve everything.”
“It did until his nurse started asking questions.”
“What nurse?”
“The one who disappeared.”
Rachel’s voice dropped lower.
“And what happens when Emma and Lydia turn eighteen?”
“They sign the guardianship papers.”
“They will refuse.”
“Then the court declares them unstable, and I control the trust.”
Emma’s stomach turned.
Their eighteenth birthday was eleven days away.
Cole stopped the recording.
“What trust?”
Emma shook her head.
She had never heard of one.
A nurse entered carrying a sealed envelope found inside Lydia’s torn blue sleepwear.
Gareth had missed it when he brought them to the hospital.
The envelope was addressed to Emma and Lydia in their father’s handwriting.
The paper inside contained only one sentence.
If Gareth ever takes you to a hospital, ask for Amelia Shaw.
Everyone looked at the doctor.
Dr. Shaw’s face lost its color.
“I have never met your father.”
Then she turned the letter over.
May you like
On the back was a photograph of Amelia standing beside Daniel Reed twelve years earlier.
Continue to the next part: Dr. Shaw must explain why the twins’ father knew her long before Gareth entered their lives.
