Chapter 6 - THE HUSBAND ON THE SCREEN
“Mark.”
Laura nearly dropped the phone.
Mark looked thinner than he had eighteen days earlier. A bruise darkened one side of his face, but he was alive.
His eyes moved slightly toward the person standing behind him.
“Laura, listen carefully.”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Are you being held?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Reeves pulled the car onto an empty roadside and leaned closer to the screen.
“Ask him something only he would know.”
Laura did not need the suggestion.
“What did you say to me in the elevator before our wedding?”
Mark’s expression changed.
“I said we still had time to escape.”
“And what did I answer?”
“That I had already paid for the cake.”
Laura’s eyes filled with tears.
The exchange had never been recorded or shared.
It was him.
“Why did you let me bury you?”
“I thought it was the only way to keep you alive.”
“You could have told me.”
“If they knew you were acting, they would have used your voice patterns to detect the lie.”
“Who are they?”
Mark looked behind the camera.
“The people who took the Registry away from Daniel Reed.”
“Is Daniel Reed alive?”
“He was when the photograph was taken.”
“Is Celia working with you?”
“No. Do not trust her.”
“What about Owen?”
Mark hesitated.
“Owen thinks he is protecting witnesses, but his escape network is controlled by the same people he is hiding them from.”
Reeves spoke loudly enough for Mark to hear.
“Who planned the crash?”
Mark’s face hardened.
“I did.”
Laura stared at him.
“There was a body in the car.”
“I was told the body belonged to a man who had died without family. I found out later that he had been alive when the Registry selected him.”
Mark closed his eyes briefly.
“I did not know, Laura.”
“Who was he?”
“I’m trying to find out.”
The hand on Mark’s shoulder tightened.
A woman spoke from behind the camera.
“Time.”
Laura recognized the voice.
It belonged to Dr. Celia Ward.
Mark looked directly at Laura.
“Find the copy of the Anniversary Dinner recording that you buried.”
“What copy?”
“The one you promised never to listen to.”
The video ended.
Laura remained frozen.
Reeves turned toward her.
“What did he mean?”
Four months earlier, during their anniversary dinner, Mark had received a call and left the table. Laura had accidentally recorded the conversation through the miniature microphone in his jacket.
When she later reviewed the test recording, Mark asked her to delete the private section.
She had agreed.
But Laura never permanently deleted evidence.
She stored questionable material inside an encrypted archive known only to her. In her profession, burying a recording meant hiding it where no automated search could locate it.
The hidden copy was still inside her apartment.
“The Anniversary Dinner file contains more than Mark’s message,” she said.
“Then we get it before they do.”
Laura and Reeves returned to the city shortly before midnight.
The apartment door was unlocked.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Laura entered the study and opened the encrypted archive.
The hidden recording was gone.
A sound came from the bedroom.
Reeves drew his weapon and moved toward the hallway.
Laura followed.
The bedroom was empty, but a red leather handbag rested on the chair beside the window.
Inside the bag was Celia Ward’s hospital identification card.
There was also a photograph of Laura sleeping in her bed.
It had been taken that morning.
May you like
On the back, someone had written a single sentence.
Tomorrow, she hears the voice she buried.
