Chapter 6 - The Recording
The audio was cleaned overnight.
Detective Alvarez brought Ethan into a secure room the next morning.
Rachel was not present.
Neither was Lily.
Alvarez placed headphones on the table.
“You don’t have to hear this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“It may be disturbing.”
“That’s my wife on the tape.”
Alvarez nodded.
Ethan put on the headphones.
Static.
A click.
Then a man’s voice.
“Session six. Subject R-17. Age nine years, four months.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
Rachel had been nine.
The same age Lily was now.
A child’s voice answered.
“Can I go home?”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Rachel.
“Soon,” the man said.
“I want my mom.”
“You’ll see her afterward.”
“Where’s Claire?”
“She’s watching.”
“No, she isn’t.”
“Rachel, look at the light.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Look at the light.”
“No.”
A slap.
Ethan tore off the headphones.
“What the fuck?”
Alvarez remained silent.
“They hit her.”
“Yes.”
“She was nine.”
“Yes.”
“Who is the man?”
“We believe Samuel Vale.”
Ethan stood and paced.
“What was this place?”
“The Whitaker Cognitive Development Center operated as a private pediatric behavioral clinic for approximately six years.”
“Owned by Marlene?”
“Partially funded by her family.”
“What did they do to children?”
“We’re still reconstructing it.”
Ethan pointed at the headphones.
“That isn’t therapy.”
“No.”
“What was Rachel doing there?”
Alvarez slid a document across the table.
Guardianship authorization.
Signed by Marlene Whitaker.
The child’s name was Rachel Anne Whitaker.
“Your wife was enrolled in a memory-conditioning trial.”
Ethan stared.
“What does that mean?”
“Repeated exposure to sedatives, suggestion, sensory triggers and guided recall.”
“Why?”
“Officially? Treatment for traumatic memory.”
“Unofficially?”
“We don’t know.”
“Rachel didn’t have trauma at nine.”
Alvarez looked at him.
“Maybe she did.”
Ethan sat.
The detective continued.
“Claire appears to have worked at the center before becoming a nurse at St. Matthew’s.”
“Rachel said Claire wasn’t really her aunt.”
“Records support that.”
Ethan looked up.
“What?”
“Marlene and Claire had different parents.”
“Half sisters?”
“No.”
Alvarez paused.
“They weren’t related.”
Ethan stared.
“Then why did Rachel call her Aunt Claire?”
“Claire appears to have been a close associate of Marlene’s family.”
“So Marlene lied about that too.”
“Yes.”
“What about Whitaker?”
“Claire changed her surname.”
“To match Marlene?”
“It appears so.”
“Why?”
“We’re trying to determine that.”
Ethan put the headphones back on.
The tape continued.
Vale asked Rachel to describe “the basement.”
Rachel began crying.
“I don’t remember.”
“Your mother says you do.”
“No.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“I saw Daddy.”
Ethan froze.
Rachel’s father, Thomas Whitaker, supposedly died when Rachel was six.
Heart attack.
At least that was the story Ethan knew.
On the tape Vale continued.
“What was your father doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t.”
“What was in his hand?”
Rachel whimpered.
“A bag.”
“What color?”
“Black.”
“What was inside?”
“I didn’t see.”
“What did your mother tell you?”
“She said Daddy went away.”
“What did you see?”
Silence.
Then Rachel whispered:
“Mom pushed him.”
Ethan stopped the recording.
His mouth went dry.
“Rachel saw something happen to her father.”
“Possibly.”
“Marlene had Vale erase it.”
“Possibly.”
“Stop saying possibly.”
Alvarez leaned forward.
“Ethan, a child’s manipulated memory from twenty-seven years ago is not courtroom evidence of murder.”
“It’s evidence of something.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to Thomas Whitaker?”
“His death certificate says cardiac arrest.”
“Body?”
“Cremated.”
“Autopsy?”
“No.”
“Who signed the death certificate?”
Alvarez slid another page toward him.
Ethan read the physician’s name.
Dr. Samuel Vale.
The same man.
The same researcher.
The same supposedly dead scientist.
Ethan looked up.
“Jesus Christ.”
Alvarez’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
He stood.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
May you like
“Someone just entered Rachel’s room using a staff badge.”
Ethan bolted into the hallway.
