Chapter 2 - THE RECORDING THAT CAME FIRST
At the hospital, the nurse cut my uniform off with blunt scissors.
I watched the torn black fabric slide into an evidence bag and felt a ridiculous wave of grief. It was the only uniform I owned. I had purchased it secondhand when the mansion hired me, hemming the sleeves myself at my kitchen table while my father made jokes about my crooked stitches.
"I can get another one," I whispered.
"That's not the problem tonight," the nurse said kindly.
The cut on my neck required seven stitches. My knee was badly sprained, though the scans showed no fracture. A bruised rib made breathing painful, and the doctor told me I would need rest and follow-up care. She also asked whether someone had attacked me. When I said yes, she explained that I could speak privately with a hospital advocate.
I had spent thirteen hours afraid to make a single phone call. Suddenly there were people asking what I wanted, whether I felt safe, and who should be allowed into my room.
That was almost harder to understand than the pain.
A detective arrived shortly after midnight. She wore a navy coat over a white shirt, and rain shone on her short black hair.
"Lena Ortiz," she introduced herself. "Chicago Police. Are you up for a few questions, Ms. Flynn? You can ask me to stop at any time."
I nodded. The advocate, a woman named Tessa, stayed beside the door at my request.
Detective Ortiz opened a notebook. "Why did you take the memory card?"
"I heard a recording of Mr. Caruso saying he ordered an attack. I knew he wasn't upstairs. I looked in the guest suite and saw Mr. Kane cutting different sound clips together."
"What made you believe the recording was false?"
"The words didn't belong in the same conversation. One clip had traffic noise. Another had a clock chiming. Mr. Kane kept moving them until they sounded like one sentence."
She wrote that down. "Did you alter the card?"
"No. I put it in my apron."
"Did you view it anywhere after removing it?"
"No. I was afraid someone would find me."
"That's useful to know. Our technicians will examine it without making assumptions about what it proves."
I told her about the metal latch, the staircase, the crutch, and Serena's threat. When I finished, my voice had gone hoarse.
"Is it true Daniel Reyes was killed six months ago?" I asked.
"Yes. His homicide remains open."
"Mr. Caruso thought someone attacked Daniel because Daniel worked for him."
"We're investigating several possible motives," Ortiz said. "I can't share everything. But you should know that being willing to testify may put you under pressure. We'll talk about precautions before you leave."
She did not promise that nobody could hurt me. I appreciated that more than a false guarantee.
After she left, I called my father.
"Ruby?" His voice sounded thick with sleep. "It's after midnight."
"I know. I'm okay."
"That has never been the first thing you say when you're okay."
I closed my eyes. "I had an accident at work. The doctors are helping me."
"Which hospital?"
I told him. He breathed carefully into the phone. Since his stroke, speaking for long periods exhausted him, but he made every word count.
"Is someone with you?"
"A hospital advocate."
"Good. Tell the truth, kiddo. The whole truth."
It was the same thing he'd said when I was nine and broke our neighbor's garden fountain. Back then the worst consequence had been mowing a lawn. Tonight I wanted to climb through the telephone and sit beside him in our small apartment.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I promised.
At two in the morning, Marco arrived with an attorney named Ada Price. He stayed outside while she introduced herself. Ada was in her forties, with a gray streak through her dark hair and shoes that looked made for walking, not impressing anyone.
"Mr. Caruso asked me to offer you independent legal representation," she said. "You don't have to accept. He won't receive our conversations, and he cannot direct my advice. You may choose another lawyer."
"I can't afford a lawyer."
"Then we'll discuss how fees can be covered without making you dependent on his decisions. That's a conversation for daylight. Tonight, I want you to know you don't have to sign anything a household employee puts in front of you."
I looked at her. "Are they going to fire me?"
"That's a question we'll deal with carefully. You may also decide not to return."
The idea stunned me. My job had felt like the only bridge between my father and losing our apartment. I hadn't imagined I had the right to walk away from it.
After Ada left, my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
DANIEL DIDN'T DIE BECAUSE OF THE EDITED VIDEO.
A second message followed.
ASK ABOUT THE BLUE LEDGER.
I showed both messages to the nurse, who called Detective Ortiz. The detective asked me not to reply or delete them. She arranged to preserve the phone data.
"Do you recognize the number?" she asked.
"No."
"Don't try to trace it yourself."
I promised. I had learned what happened when I tried to handle danger without help.
The next morning, sunlight touched the hospital wall in narrow yellow rectangles. My father arrived in a wheelchair pushed by his rehabilitation aide, Mr. Bell, and nearly cried when he saw my stitches.
"You told me it was an accident," he said.
"I told you I was hurt at work. I was scared."
He held my uninjured hand. "You don't have to make the truth smaller so I can bear it."
I told him enough for him to understand. He didn't interrupt until I mentioned the memory card.
"Your mother would have done something equally stubborn," he said.
"She would've used a less expensive golf club."
He laughed, then winced at his own laughing. For a minute we were simply father and daughter again.
Around noon, Enzo came to the hospital. He had traded his ruined suit for a charcoal sweater and dark trousers. Without the room full of employees watching him, he seemed less like the man whose name people whispered and more like a person who had not slept.
"May I come in?" he asked from the doorway.
My father looked at him steadily. "Are you her boss?"
"I was, yesterday. Today that's her decision."
"Then come in. But don't ask her to be brave for your sake."
Enzo accepted the instruction with a nod.
He placed a small paper bag on my bedside table. Inside was a new notebook and a pen. Not diamonds, not an envelope full of money. A notebook.
"Ada said writing down what you remember may help," he explained. "Only if you feel up to it."
I looked at him. "Did they find Victor?"
"Not yet. The police recovered some production invoices, and they're checking the time the editing project began. I also spoke with Daniel's widow."
"How is she?"
"Tired of having men bring her theories instead of answers."
His honesty made something twist in my chest.
"And Luca?" I asked.
Enzo glanced at my father, then sat down in the chair by the window.
"Luca is four years younger than me. He handled the numbers when our father was alive. Eighteen months ago, he accused our partners of stealing from the port division. I accused him of stealing instead. We said things you can't erase. He left Chicago."
"You never looked for him?"
"I did. But I wanted to find him to prove I was right. Not to ask whether he'd been telling the truth."
He rubbed his forehead. "Daniel was the only person still speaking to both of us."
"Maybe the editor used Luca's name because Luca was supposed to be blamed first," I said.
Enzo looked up. "That's what worries me."
He went quiet when a television across the hall reported a late-night search of North Coast Creative's office. Investigators had obtained warrants in connection with suspected evidence tampering. A reporter showed an exterior shot of a glass building with yellow police tape at the entrance.
"I'm not asking you to trust me," Enzo said eventually. "Not because I own the house. Not because you worked for me. I'm asking you to keep making your own decisions, with your lawyer and the detective."
"I want Daniel's daughter to know what happened to him."
His jaw tightened. "So do I."
After he left, I opened the notebook. I wrote every detail I could remember about Victor's desk: a yellow folder, headphones, two coffee cups, a silver hard drive, and a paper calendar with Saturday circled in red. Then I remembered something else.
When Serena attacked me, Victor had shouted, "Don't damage the master. We still need the original." He hadn't meant the memory card. He'd been reaching toward a narrow metal drawer beneath his laptop stand.
I drew the drawer in my notebook and called Ortiz.
"That may help," she said. "The suite is being searched with permission and a warrant covering the relevant devices."
At four that afternoon, she called again.
"We found the drawer, Ruby. It had been emptied. But someone left a label inside."
"What did it say?"
"REYES AUDIO — HOLD FOR LUCA."
My fingers tightened around the phone.
"Does that mean Daniel recorded something?"
"It means somebody labeled a drawer that way. We have to establish what it held."
There was a soft knock at the door. A nurse brought a vase of white lilies, saying a courier had delivered them without a sender's name.
Between the stems lay a pale blue envelope.
Inside, written in careful block letters, was a single sentence.
THE DRIVER KEPT THE FIRST COPY WHERE HE KEPT HIS LAST PAYCHECK.
May you like
I stared at it until the words blurred.
Someone knew I was in the hospital. Someone had been close enough to send flowers. And whoever they were had just pointed me toward a place Daniel Reyes might have hidden the truth before he died.
