Once the memory returned, pieces of Victor Hale appeared everywhere.
Not clear enough to build a biography.
Fragments.
A man at one of Dad’s summer gatherings.
A silver watch.
A voice that sounded amused even when he was asking serious questions.
The smell of expensive cologne.
A scar above the eyebrow.
I remembered him kneeling beside Chloe and me while adults talked on the patio.
He asked which twin was older.
Chloe proudly answered, “Me, by seven minutes.”
He laughed.
“Seven minutes can decide a fortune.”
We had no idea what he meant.
Dad heard.
I remember his expression changing.
“Victor.”
One word.
Not loud.
Victor immediately stood.
At the time I thought Dad was annoyed because we were interrupting grown-up conversation.
Now the memory felt contaminated.
Detective Shaw requested old family photographs.
Alan searched his phone.
Mom sat with both hands around a paper cup she had not drunk from.
Eventually she said, “There are albums at home.”
“No one touches anything there without investigators clearing it,” Shaw replied.
Mom nodded.
She had stopped arguing with authority.
I wondered whether obedience was easier for her than courage.
Rebecca Sloan paced near the window while listening to another recording through headphones.
Every few minutes she wrote something.
Finally she removed the headphones.
“David suspected Victor had recruited Edric as an intermediary. The recordings suggest the relationship reversed later.”
“What does that mean?” Chloe asked.
“Edric may have begun working for Victor and eventually acquired leverage over him.”
“The passport?”
“Possibly.”
“Why would Edric keep a fake passport with Victor’s name?”
“Because identity is leverage when someone is hiding.”
I thought about Edric’s talent for controlling people.
Maybe Brenda was not the only person whose secrets he collected.
“What did Victor want?” I asked.
Rebecca pointed toward Dad’s letter.
“The evidence.”
“After two years?”
“It may expose money still hidden.”
Alan frowned.
“Or people.”
Rebecca nodded.
“That too.”
Detective Shaw returned from the corridor.
“We have more information on Edric.”
Mom looked up.
“What?”
“His fingerprints match a man named Eric Kane.”
I stared.
“That’s almost the same.”
“Yes.”
“Who is Eric Kane?”
“Former private investigator. Security contractor. Charged twelve years ago in connection with unlawful surveillance and witness intimidation.”
Alan swore.
“Convicted?”
“Charges were dismissed when the primary witness disappeared.”
“Victor?”
“Unknown.”
Chloe gave a tired laugh.
“So Edric changed one letter and kept living?”
“Essentially.”
“Subtle.”
Shaw ignored the sarcasm.
“Eric Kane later becomes Edric Kaine on employment and property records.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Possibly.”
Mom stared at the floor.
“He told me Edric had legal trouble because of a client.”
Rebecca’s voice sharpened.
“And you married him anyway?”
“He said he had been falsely accused.”
“Brenda, at some point you need a new sentence.”
Mom flinched.
I almost smiled despite myself.
Rebecca put the headphones down.
“There is one recording we haven’t played for you.”
The room changed.
Detective Shaw looked toward Chloe and me.
“It was recorded the night you were injured.”
My stomach twisted.
I remembered pieces of that night too clearly already.
Dinner.
Edric drinking.
Mom crying in the downstairs study.
Chloe pulling me into our room and whispering that she had found something.
Then footsteps.
The door opening.
Edric seeing what she held.
After that, movement and pain.
“What did Chloe find?” Shaw asked.
My sister’s eyes widened.
“You remember?”
She looked at me.
“Part of it.”
I waited.
“The painting.”
“What?”
“The thing inside.”
My heart jumped.
“You found the second key?”
“No.”
She touched her bruised temple.
“I found something taped inside the frame.”
Alan leaned forward.
“What?”
“A memory card.”
The room went still.
I searched my memory.
Then something returned.
Chloe standing beside our dresser.
A tiny black square in her palm.
“I forgot,” she whispered. “After he hit me, everything around that part is fuzzy.”
“Where is the card?” Detective Shaw asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Edric take it?”
“Maybe.”
“What did you do when you found it?”
“I put it in Dad’s old laptop.”
My pulse quickened.
“The one in the attic?”
“Yes.”
“We thought it was broken.”
“It booted.”
“What was on the card?”
Her eyes filled with frustration.
“I only saw folders. Names. Dates.”
“Did you open anything?”
“One video.”
Rebecca moved closer.
“What video?”
“Dad.”
The word emptied the room.
I stared at Chloe.
“You saw Dad?”
“On the computer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to.”
She looked miserable.
“That’s when Edric came in.”
Fragments collided inside me.
Chloe calling my name.
Me stepping into the bedroom.
The laptop on the floor.
Edric in the doorway.
His face.
Not angry at first.
Terrified.
Then furious.
“That’s why,” I whispered.
Detective Shaw looked at me.
“Why what?”
“That’s why he attacked her.”
The violence had never been random.
Edric had discovered Chloe accessing something Dad hid.
The hidden phone had captured the room.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
Shaw placed the tablet on the table.
“Do you want to hear it?”
Chloe nodded.
So did I.
The recording began at 8:42 p.m.
Our own voices emerged.
Mine farther away.
Chloe whispering to herself as she struggled with the laptop.
Then a soft electronic chime.
She said, “Come on.”
A pause.
Then Dad’s voice.
I stopped breathing.
Even through distortion and distance, there was no mistaking him.
“Girls, if you found this—”
The recording cut beneath a louder noise.
Footsteps.
A door.
Edric.
“What are you doing?”
Chloe answered, “Nothing.”
“What’s on the computer?”
“School.”
“Move.”
“No.”
The recording became painful to hear.
A chair scraped.
Chloe shouted.
I entered.
My voice: “Get away from her.”
Then Edric.
“Give it to me.”
Chloe said, “Dad left it.”
Silence.
When Edric spoke again, his voice was almost unrecognizable.
“Where did you find that card?”
“Why?”
“Where?”
“You knew about it.”
A loud impact.
Mom made a small sound beside us.
I kept listening.
I wanted to stop.
I needed not to.
My recorded voice shouted at him.
Then a second impact.
Chloe cried out.
Furniture moved.
Edric swore.
And then something happened I did not remember.
Mom entered the bedroom.
Her voice was sharp.
“Stop!”
Edric yelled, “Get out.”
“No.”
“Brenda.”
“I said stop.”
I looked at Mom.
She was crying silently.
The recording continued.
Edric said, “She found it.”
“What?”
“The card.”
Mom’s breathing was audible.
Then she whispered, “David’s?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“Give it to me.”
I turned toward her.
“You knew.”
Mom shook her head.
“Not what was on it.”
On the recording Edric said, “Why?”
Mom answered, “Because you’re going to kill them.”
The room went cold.
Edric laughed once.
“Don’t be dramatic.”
“You said Hale won’t leave witnesses.”
Silence.
My blood seemed to freeze.
Victor did not merely want money.
He wanted the evidence gone.
And apparently witnesses with it.
Edric lowered his voice.
“Give me the card.”
Mom replied, “No.”
I stared at her.
This was not the woman I remembered from those seconds.
My own memory had become fragmented by pain.
I remembered Mom appearing.
I remembered Edric shouting.
I remembered being dragged.
I had not understood what she did.
The recording told us.
Mom said, “Girls, run.”
Then chaos.
Chloe cried out.
I shouted.
Footsteps.
A crash.
The recording muffled as something covered the phone.
Edric’s voice rose.
“Where’s the card?”
Mom screamed, “I don’t have it.”
“You took it.”
“No.”
“Brenda!”
Another crash.
Then Mom said something so quietly the microphone barely captured it.
“I gave it to Faye.”
Everyone in the hospital room looked at me.
I stared at my mother.
“What?”
She covered her mouth.
Memory arrived in a flash.
Mom grabbing my wrist.
Her fingers pressing something beneath the bandage I had already wrapped around a scrape from earlier that day.
Not a card.
Something smaller.
She whispered in my ear.
Don’t let him see.
Then Edric pulled us apart.
I had forgotten.
I looked at the bandage now covering the same wrist.
The original dressing had been removed in the emergency department.
My heart began hammering.
“Where are my clothes?”
Detective Shaw stood.
“What?”
“The clothes I wore last night.”
“Evidence storage.”
“My old wrist wrap.”
Shaw understood.
She called immediately.
Chloe looked at Mom.
“You gave it to Faye.”
Brenda nodded.
“I thought if he searched me, he wouldn’t find it.”
“You could have told police.”
“I was afraid Edric had people inside the department.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca’s face tightened.
“Victor used compromised investigators years ago.”
“So she may not have been completely paranoid,” Alan said.
“That doesn’t excuse anything else,” Chloe replied.
“No.”
We waited for the evidence officer.
Every minute seemed absurdly long.
Eventually a sealed bag arrived.
Inside were my jeans.
Shirt.
Socks.
The fabric wrist wrap I had been wearing before the hospital replaced it.
Detective Shaw put on gloves.
She examined it without opening seams.
“There’s something inside.”
My mouth went dry.
A technician photographed the wrap.
Then cut one edge carefully.
A tiny object slid onto a sterile tray.
Not the memory card.
A second brass piece.
Nearly identical to the component inside Dad’s envelope.
Alan stood.
“That’s the key.”
Mom started crying harder.
I looked at her.
“You had it.”
She nodded.
“Where?”
“Edric’s safe.”
Every person stared.
“You opened his safe?”
“Months ago.”
“How?”
“I watched the combination.”
“What else did you see?”
“The fake passport. Papers. That brass piece.”
“You knew it belonged to Dad?”
“I recognized the symbol.”
“What symbol?”
She pointed.
Etched into the metal was a shape I had not noticed before.
Two overlapping circles.
Dad used to draw it on birthday cards to us.
Twin moons, he called them.
“I took it,” Mom said. “I didn’t know what it opened. I only knew Edric shouldn’t have it.”
“And hid it where?”
“In a sewing box.”
“For months?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I kept waiting for a moment when I could get you both out.”
Chloe’s expression hardened.
“There were hundreds.”
Mom bowed her head.
“I know.”
That answer no longer healed anything.
But the brass piece on the tray changed one fact.
Mom had resisted Edric before the hospital.
Too little.
Too late.
But not never.
Detective Shaw had both pieces photographed and aligned without connecting them.
They fit perfectly.
A narrow slot formed along the center.
Rebecca leaned closer.
“That isn’t just a key.”
“What is it?”
“A hardware authentication device.”
“For what?”
She looked at Dad’s letter.
“The thing David locked behind the trust.”
Alan called Rebecca’s office.
A secure laptop arrived less than an hour later.
The combined key connected through an adapter.
A password prompt appeared.
Only one hint was displayed.
SEVEN MINUTES.
Chloe and I looked at each other.
Her birthday claim.
Seven minutes older.
Dad had used it in passwords before.
We entered our birth date followed by 0007.
The screen unlocked.
One encrypted directory appeared.
No folders.
No client names.
Just a single video file and a text document labeled READ FIRST.
Rebecca insisted on copying the data before opening anything.
Detective Shaw agreed.
The process felt endless.
Finally Rebecca clicked the text document.
One sentence appeared.
If you are reading this, Victor Hale is still alive, and someone close to my family has almost certainly helped him reach you.
Below that:
Do not trust appearances. Victor has used substitutes before.
Chloe inhaled sharply.
The man at the hospital.
A substitute.
Dad had anticipated that too.
Rebecca opened the video.
Dad appeared on screen.
Older than in my favorite memories.
Tired.
Sitting in his study.
For a moment neither Chloe nor I could speak.
Then the recorded David Morgan looked directly into the camera.
“If my daughters are seeing this,” he began, “then I failed to finish what I started.”
My eyes filled.
Dad continued.
“Victor Hale is not the most dangerous person in this story.”
Detective Shaw leaned closer.
Dad said:
“The person you need to fear is the man who convinced Victor he was working for him.”
A photograph appeared beside Dad.
Younger.
Cleaner-shaven.
But unmistakable.
Edric.
Dad’s voice continued.
“His real name is Eric Kane.”
Detective Shaw glanced at us.
“He was never Victor’s employee in the ordinary sense. He infiltrated Victor’s network while working for another party. Then he began blackmailing everyone involved.”
Rebecca whispered, “Jesus.”
Dad continued.
“Kane has copies of financial evidence. Victor has copies of Kane’s criminal activity. Each can destroy the other.”
Then Dad said the sentence that made Mom grip the edge of her chair.
“Kane has also been cultivating Brenda.”
Mom sobbed.
“He knows she is vulnerable because of what Victor persuaded her to do. If I am gone, he may approach her as a protector.”
I could not look at her.
The video continued.
“If that happens, he will eventually come for this archive.”
Dad looked directly at the camera.
“He cannot access it without both daughters reaching eighteen and authenticating together.”
That explained everything.
Why Edric did not simply steal the trust years earlier.
Why he needed us alive.
Why he needed signatures.
Why he intensified control near our birthday.
Then Dad’s expression changed.
“If Kane realizes he cannot control them, he may decide the evidence is worth more than their safety.”
The hospital room seemed to lose warmth.
Chloe whispered, “That night.”
Yes.
Edric saw the memory card.
He realized Dad’s evidence might be reachable without his plan.
And suddenly keeping us compliant no longer mattered as much as controlling what we found.
Dad ended the video with instructions.
Give the archive to Rebecca Sloan.
Give law enforcement copies.
Do not negotiate with Victor.
Do not negotiate with Eric Kane.
Then, softer:
“Faye. Chloe. None of what adults did around you was your responsibility.”
My vision blurred completely.
He smiled.
The old smile.
The one I had forgotten until that moment.
“And Chloe, being seven minutes older still does not make you the boss.”
My sister made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Detective Shaw’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed almost instantly.
“What do you mean released?”
Alan stood.
“Who?”
Shaw held up a hand.
She listened.
Then said, “Lock down the residence. Alert patrol. I want his vehicle flagged now.”
She ended the call.
My stomach tightened.
“Edric?”
She looked at us.
“No.”
“Then who?”
“The man from the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Officers stopped his vehicle ten minutes ago.”
“And?”
“He gave them identification.”
“As Victor?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Shaw’s face went hard.
“A federal investigator.”
Rebecca froze.
“That can be verified.”
“It was.”
“Then who is he?”
Detective Shaw looked toward Dad’s frozen image on the laptop screen.
“He says his name is Daniel Mercer.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But Alan reacted.
“Oh God.”
“What?” Chloe demanded.
Alan looked at us.
“David knew a Daniel Mercer.”
“Who was he?”
“An investigator assigned to Victor Hale’s case.”
My pulse sped up.
“So he’s helping us?”
Alan’s face said no.
Detective Shaw’s phone buzzed with a new message.
She read it.
Then looked at Brenda.
“Mercer told the officers he wasn’t searching for the girls.”
“What was he searching for?”
“The access key.”
Mom went pale.
Shaw continued.
“And he says Eric Kane stole it from him twelve years ago.”
One Comment on “PART 8 – The Last Recording Before Our Birthday Captured Brenda Making a Choice, and It Finally Explained Why Edric Attacked Chloe That Night”