Chapter 3 - BUNNY HAD BEEN RECORDING EVERYTHING
The recorder contained 114 audio files.
Some were seconds long.
Some nearly an hour.
The oldest began seven months earlier.
Detective Pike explained that the device appeared to be motion-and-sound activated.
Whoever placed it inside Bunny had probably intended to capture conversations around Emma.
The question was why.
We got the first answer from File 003.
Matthew.
And Caleb.
His brother.
Caleb said:
“You’re getting too close too fast.”
Matthew replied:
“I don't have time.”
“For what?”
“Her trust review is in September.”
My heart stopped.
Trust?
I had no trust.
At least none I thought mattered to Matthew.
Caleb said:
“She barely knows you.”
“She likes stability.”
“She has a kid.”
“I know.”
“Kid doesn't like you.”
“She’ll adjust.”
Caleb:
“And if she doesn't?”
Matthew’s voice changed.
“Sarah wants a family more than she wants conflict.”
I closed my eyes.
He had studied me.
Not loved me.
Studied me.
The recording continued.
Caleb:
“You sound disgusting.”
Matthew laughed.
“You introduced us.”
“Because you said you liked her.”
“I do.”
“That doesn't make this better.”
“What did he mean by trust?” I asked Detective Pike.
He looked at me.
“Do you have inherited assets?”
“My grandmother left me a house.”
“Anything else?”
“My father died when I was twenty-four. There was some investment money, but my mother handled most of the estate.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
Mom sat beside me in the interview room.
She looked pale.
“Sarah.”
I turned.
“What?”
“There is a trust.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Your father established one.”
“How much?”
She looked at the detective.
“Current value maybe three million.”
I almost laughed.
Three million dollars was not something you forgot to mention.
“You told me there was enough for Emma’s college.”
“There is.”
“Three million?”
“It has restrictions.”
“What restrictions?”
“You gain full control at thirty-five.”
My thirty-fifth birthday was four months away.
The trust review Matthew mentioned in September.
“How does Matthew know?”
Mom shook her head.
“I don't know.”
But someone did.
The next file provided another answer.
Matthew speaking to a woman.
Unknown.
Female voice:
“Marriage before thirty-five is cleaner.”
Matthew:
“She has a prenup lawyer.”
“Then make sure the prenup excludes premarital trust assets from joint management?”
“She won't.”
“So use the house.”
“What house?”
“Her father’s Connecticut property.”
I stared at Mom.
She closed her eyes.
“There’s another property.”
I whispered:
“You have got to be kidding me.”
She looked ashamed.
“Your father owned lakefront land through a family company.”
“How much?”
“Sarah—”
“How much?”
“Maybe five million now.”
I stood.
“You hid eight million dollars from me?”
“It wasn’t mine to tell you before the age specified.”
“You were trustee.”
“Yes.”
“And Matthew somehow knew.”
Mom looked frightened.
“He shouldn't.”
Detective Pike asked:
“Who has access to trust records?”
“Me. The attorney. The accountant.”
“Names.”
She provided them.
One stood out.
Robert Keane.
Our family accountant.
And Matthew’s godfather.
I knew that.
I had met Robert at dinners.
I never connected him to Dad’s estate.
Matthew had not met me accidentally.
The whole romantic story changed shape.
Our first meeting at Caleb’s charity auction.
The coffee afterward.
The “random” fact that he loved the same old movies.
The patience.
The flowers.
The way he seemed to know exactly when I needed help.
How much had been researched?
The recorder answered painfully.
File 011.
Matthew:
“She responds when you fix problems before she asks.”
Unknown woman:
“She spent years doing everything alone.”
“So I become useful.”
“Yes.”
“Emma?”
“Buy the kid books. Not toys. Sarah cares about education.”
He had bought Emma books on our third date.
I had thought:
He listens.
He had.
Just not to me.
To instructions.
I went to the bathroom and vomited.
When I returned, Emma was coloring with a child-services interviewer in another room.
Mom held my hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t make him do this.”
“No.”
“But I should have told you about the assets earlier.”
“Yes.”
She accepted it.
Then Pike said:
“There’s another category of recordings.”
“What?”
“Emma.”
My heart tightened.
He played one.
Emma was whispering to Bunny.
“Bunny, Matthew said Mommy likes him more.”
Pause.
“I don't think she does.”
Another.
“Bunny, I hide under bed because Matthew mad.”
Another.
“Bunny, Matthew says big girls don't tell everything.”
I started crying.
Then one:
“Bunny, if Mommy marries Matthew, we have to go to his house.”
Pause.
“I don't like his downstairs room.”
Detective Pike stopped playback.
“What downstairs room?”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
Matthew owned a large house outside Hartford.
Finished basement.
Home office.
Gym.
Media room.
I had toured it dozens of times.
“Emma has never been in a downstairs room without me.”
At least, I thought.
Emma’s interviewer later asked her.
She described a small room behind Matthew’s basement office.
A room I had never seen.
“How did you see it?” I asked.
“Matthew showed me.”
“When?”
“Long time.”
“Was I there?”
“You were upstairs.”
“What was inside?”
Emma frowned.
“Boxes.”
“What boxes?”
“One said Sarah.”
My blood turned cold.
“And one said Emma.”
Police obtained a search warrant.
Matthew objected.
Too late.
Behind a bookshelf in his basement office was a narrow storage room.
Inside:
Financial copies.
My trust summaries.
Photographs of me.
Emma’s school schedule.
Copies of my medical insurance.
Printouts of my social-media posts going back eight years.
A timeline of my relationship with Emma’s biological father.
And two labeled archive boxes.
SARAH
EMMA
The Sarah box contained everything from bank records to old photographs.
The Emma box contained drawings.
Hair from a brush.
A copy of her birth certificate.
And DNA test results.
I stared at Detective Pike.
“Why does Matthew have Emma’s DNA?”
He looked disturbed.
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
The result included a paternal comparison.
A name had been redacted on the copy.
But a laboratory reference number remained.
Police subpoenaed the original.
The answer came forty-eight hours later.
The comparison sample belonged to someone I had not spoken to in almost five years.
Emma’s biological father.
Jason Mercer.
And the test said Jason was not Emma’s biological father.
I sat staring at the report.
“That’s impossible.”
Mom whispered:
“Sarah…”
“No.”
Jason and I had been together when Emma was conceived.
There had been no one else.
Unless—
I remembered.
A fertility procedure.
Years of irregular cycles.
One early insemination attempt before Jason and I separated temporarily.
The clinic had said it failed.
Then Jason and I reconciled.
Weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant.
Everyone assumed Jason was the father.
But if he wasn't—
Then whose sample was Matthew comparing?
Detective Pike looked at me.
“We unredacted the second name.”
My hand trembled.
“Who?”
He slid the report across the table.
The biological match was 99.99 percent.
Emma’s father was:
Caleb Whitmore.
May you like
Matthew’s older brother.
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