She Heard Nothing novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Cut

"Those are mine," I said.

Albert's thumb still hovered over the phone.

"Every word of it. I said all three of those things."

"I only know what I just heard," Albert said quietly.

"Then hear the rest."

"Abby..."

"Somebody cut those lines out of the middle of other sentences." I held up the tin. "The whole recording is on the phones in the chief's pocket. Don't take her word for what I am. Ask for the minutes around it."

He looked at me for a long moment.

The kindness did not come back into his face, but the fear eased a little.

"All right," he said. "Come."

The infirmary was a long gray hut at the edge of the field.

Sabina sat on the edge of a cot inside it, with a paper cup of water she had not touched and a nurse hovering by the door.

She looked up when we came in and went white.

The chief instructor was already there, standing at the foot of her cot, and Lottie slid in behind us and took up a spot by the wall.

"Mr. Pelham," the chief instructor said. "You have something to show me?"

Albert held out his phone.

The chief played Marilyn's three little clips from Albert's phone.

Then he took Sabina's pink phone from his pocket, tapped its screen, and scrolled.

"The saved clips are dated," he said. "Here is the curb behind the equipment shed. Here is the back stair."

He played them whole, one after the other, for Albert.

On the first, I told Lottie I would say something false to an empty room.

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