Chapter 2 - Brett Already Knew Why It Mattered
I took Olivia into the library first.
Everything else could wait.
She was still crying, and soup had soaked through the front of her dress. I wrapped her in a blanket and waited until her breathing settled.
Then I placed the recorder on the table.
“Where did you find this?”
“Upstairs.”
“Where upstairs?”
“In the bird room.”
The old guest room.
Mara used to stay there whenever she brought Olivia to family gatherings.
Nobody had used it much since she died.
“How did you find it?”
Olivia looked toward the library door.
“Brett showed me the loose wood.”
Before I could ask more, someone knocked.
Brett stood outside.
No arrogance now.
He looked terrified.
I let him in.
He stared immediately at the recorder.
“Grandma’s gonna be mad.”
“She already is.”
His eyes filled.
“I wasn’t supposed to show Olivia.”
“Why did you?”
He shrugged helplessly.
“She said her mom never left her. Grandma says she did.”
My jaw tightened.
“So you wanted to prove Olivia wrong?”
Brett nodded.
He had expected the recorder to contain something ugly about Mara.
Instead it contained Mara warning me about Eleanor.
That explained why Brett had become angry before dinner.
Why he humiliated Olivia.
He had been defending the version of the past Eleanor had taught him.
Then Brett said something more important.
“Grandma’s been looking for that thing for years.”
I stared at him.
“How do you know?”
“She used to ask Calvin if he’d checked the bird room again.”
“How long?”
“Since Aunt Mara died.”
I looked at the recorder.
“So Eleanor knew it existed.”
Brett nodded.
Then lowered his voice.
“She said if anyone ever heard the last recording, everything from that night would start again.”
The fragment I had played wasn’t the last recording.
There was something else on the device.
May you like
And Eleanor had spent three years making sure nobody heard it.
---
