Chapter 14: Out of Context

The link came through at breakfast, and Harrison played it on the kitchen table with the volume all the way up.

The headline said ASHDOWN'S COAT GIRL SECRETLY RECORDED FAMILY CALLS.

Under it was a photo of me from the sleet, with my hair stuck to my face.

Then a voice came out of the phone, and it was Sylvia's.

"I won't have that girl at my table. Not that one. Not ever."

Harrison stopped the file.

Nobody in the kitchen said anything.

Sylvia sat with both hands folded on the head of her cane, looking at the phone.

"That's me," she said.

"Mom."

"That's my voice, Harrison. Play the rest."

He played the rest of the article instead, reading it aloud in a flat voice.

A source close to the family said Ms. Malloy had been taping Mrs. Ashdown's private phone calls for years to prepare a claim on the family fortune.

I laughed, once, because it was so stupid.

"I've never taped anyone in my life," I said. "I don't even own a recorder. And I never had your mother's number."

"They know that," Harrison said. "It doesn't matter. Nobody reads past the picture."

"Who is the source?"

Sylvia lifted her eyes to mine.

"A girl who spent twelve years on my telephone," she said. "I called her every Sunday. Sometimes twice."

My stomach turned over.

"Lorna recorded your calls."

"She always had her phone going. She said it was to keep notes." Sylvia's mouth went thin. "I took it for dedication."

"Lorna's voice memo," I said. "In her kitchen. The one that cut off after a hundred years."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Hid Me for Twelve Years, Now the City Knows My Name from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.