CHAPTER 22: A RECORDING IS NOT A VERDICT
Ortiz listened to the cassette with a detective assigned to the harassment complaint.
They asked me to explain where I had found it and whether anyone else had access to the clock case.
I told them everything I could remember.
They made a working copy and arranged to preserve the original.
The detective warned me that the recording might raise questions about authenticity and context.
“It won’t automatically settle every dispute,” he said.
“I understand.”
“But it may help us understand what people knew and when they knew it.”
I asked whether Patricia could be charged for what happened twenty-two years earlier.
He said he could not speculate without reviewing the law and available evidence.
The current acts of damage and possible harassment were separate matters.
That distinction frustrated me.
I wanted one answer that could explain the entire history.
Instead, I was learning that facts arrived in different boxes and belonged to different questions.
Nora told me the tape might also be relevant to Owen’s efforts to stop Patricia from contacting Sophie.
She advised me to provide it through the proper channels.
I agreed.
That evening, I found an email from Laurel waiting in my inbox.
She had written only three paragraphs.
She said Claire had told her about the tape.
She was relieved that someone had preserved the truth about the cabin argument.
She was also frightened of what revisiting the case would do to Owen.
The final paragraph was for me alone.
I know you have spent years asking why I didn’t come home, Daniel.
I am beginning to understand that I should also have asked why you kept waiting for me.
I read those sentences several times.
Then I wrote back that I had never stopped believing she was somewhere in the world.
I told her I had been angry,
but that anger had not erased the love beneath it.
I pressed send before I could revise the message into something safer.
