Chapter 3 - What the Open Line Recorded
Anna wasn't dead.
That fact opened a door into a version of Eric's family I had never known existed.
Detective Hale traced the call only far enough to determine it came from a prepaid phone.
But Anna called again that evening.
This time she agreed to speak with police.
Not with me.
Not yet.
I spent my first night away from Eric in a protected family residence with Lily sleeping beside me.
I expected relief.
Instead, every sound made me sit up.
A door closing.
Footsteps.
A man's voice somewhere outside.
Fear didn't disappear just because Eric was gone.
It had learned my body too well.
At 2:13 a.m., Lily cried.
I froze.
That was the worst part.
My own baby's cry frightened me.
Not because of Lily.
Because my mind expected Eric's footsteps.
I picked her up.
"It's okay."
My voice broke.
"You're allowed to cry."
She rooted against me.
I prepared her bottle.
Nobody complained about the formula.
Nobody counted the ounces.
Nobody counted the diapers.
Nobody told a newborn she was expensive.
I fed my daughter in silence and cried into her hair.
The next morning, Hale called.
Anna had given a statement.
She had once been engaged to Eric.
Eight years earlier.
Margaret had told me Eric had only had one serious girlfriend before me.
A woman who died in a car accident.
That woman was Anna.
Except there had been no fatal accident.
Anna had left.
And Margaret had apparently decided that a dead woman couldn't contradict the family's version of events.
"Why did Anna leave?" I asked.
Hale didn't answer immediately.
Then I understood.
"Eric."
"She described controlling behavior that escalated."
My stomach turned.
"Did she report him?"
"She tried."
"Tried?"
"She withdrew the complaint."
"Why?"
"According to Anna, Margaret convinced her that pursuing it would ruin Eric's life."
I closed my eyes.
Same words.
Different woman.
Different decade.
Same mother.
Hale continued.
"Anna eventually moved away. Changed her number. Cut contact."
"Then why was she near my apartment?"
"We haven't established that she was."
"The closet."
"We're investigating."
Later that afternoon, police allowed me to hear part of the emergency recording.
I almost said no.
Then I thought about all the times Eric had told me something hadn't happened the way I remembered it.
I needed reality.
The recording began with Lily crying.
Then Eric's voice.
Then mine.
Then Margaret.
Hearing it from outside myself was horrifying.
Margaret sounded calm.
That was what disturbed me most.
She wasn't screaming.
She wasn't panicked.
She was explaining.
Explaining why I should tolerate fear.
Explaining why Eric's anger mattered more than our safety.
Then came a faint sound.
A click.
A whisper.
"Eric."
I stared at Hale.
He continued playing.
"Don't do this again."
A woman's voice.
Distant.
Muffled.
Then movement.
"That's Anna?"
"We don't know."
"But you think it is."
"We're comparing."
The recording continued.
Then came something I hadn't noticed that night.
A second electronic sound.
A notification.
Not my phone.
Another device.
Inside the apartment.
Hale paused the audio.
"Our technicians believe another phone was recording."
"From the closet?"
"Possibly."
"Where is it?"
"Missing."
I suddenly remembered Eric entering the hallway earlier that evening.
He had disappeared for several minutes.
When he returned, he had seemed even angrier.
"What if Eric knew?"
"Knew what?"
"That somebody was watching."
Hale leaned forward.
"Tell me everything you remember."
So I did.
The locked closet.
Eric checking it.
Margaret once standing near it.
A strange noise I'd heard at night.
The day I'd found a woman's scarf behind a box in the hallway and Eric claimed it belonged to his mother.
Then I remembered something else.
"A key."
"What key?"
"Margaret had one."
"To the closet?"
"I don't know. But once I saw her unlocking something in the hallway."
Hale wrote it down.
That evening, Jenna arrived.
The moment she saw me, she stopped.
Then she hugged me carefully.
"I should've known."
"No."
"You stopped calling."
"I made excuses."
"For him."
"For myself."
She looked at Lily.
"You're coming home with me."
"I can't. He knows where you live."
"Then I'll move."
Despite everything, I laughed.
Jenna had always been like that.
Problems were doors.
She preferred kicking them down.
But the police wanted our location confidential.
So Jenna stayed with us.
Around nine, Detective Hale called again.
They had identified the voice.
Anna.
She had admitted she had been inside the apartment building that night.
But not inside our unit.
"Then how was her voice recorded?"
Hale said nothing.
"Detective?"
"We found something in the wall."
The hole in the closet hadn't been created for watching.
It connected to the neighboring apartment.
Someone had run a tiny microphone through it.
My skin prickled.
"Who lives next door?"
"An elderly man named Walter Greene."
I knew Walter.
Quiet.
Polite.
He sometimes brought packages inside.
"He was recording us?"
"No."
"Then who was?"
Hale exhaled.
"Walter says someone paid him cash for temporary access to his apartment."
"Who?"
"He didn't know her name."
"Her?"
"A woman."
I looked at Jenna.
"Anna?"
"Possibly."
Then Hale added:
"But Walter gave us something."
"What?"
"A storage key."
The person using his apartment had left it behind.
There was a number stamped into the metal tag.
Police traced it to a storage facility six miles away.
The unit had been rented for nearly seven years.
Not by Anna.
Not by Eric.
The name on the rental agreement was Margaret Lawson.
Police obtained access that night.
At 11:46 p.m., Hale called again.
His voice sounded different.
"Rachel, we opened unit 317."
I sat upright.
"What was inside?"
"Boxes."
"What kind of boxes?"
"Records. Photographs. Letters."
I waited.
"And?"
A long silence followed.
Then Hale said:
"Everything appears to be about women Eric dated."
My throat tightened.
"Women?"
"More than Anna."
"How many?"
Hale didn't answer immediately.
Then somebody spoke behind him.
A woman's voice.
"Detective, you need to see this."
Hale moved away from the phone.
I heard paper rustling.
Then silence.
"Detective?"
He came back.
"Rachel."
"What?"
"We found a photograph."
My fingers went cold.
"Of who?"
"You."
I stopped breathing.
"From when?"
May you like
Hale stared at whatever was in his hands.
"Three years before you met Eric."
