Chapter 13: The Rest of the Tape

I held out the second earbud, and Mamie took it with two fingers.

She pushed it into her ear and watched the screen instead of me.

I pressed play at the four-minute mark.

Tripp's voice came again, close and pleased. "Mom says once Mamie has the prize, Siri will be too ashamed to fight."

Mamie's mouth went tight.

Then her own voice came out of the recording, low and amused.

"Then I'd better know the storm by heart," recorded Mamie said. "Five and nine. The judge likes weather."

"You're a genius," Tripp said.

"Don't let her find out until it's in print. She'd cry, and then I'd have to hold her."

Far off in the recording a shower pipe shuddered, and my own voice called from the hall.

"Mame? Do you want tea?"

"Yes, please!" recorded Mamie called back, bright and warm. "Coming!"

The memo ended there.

Mamie pulled out the earbud and laid it on the folding table very gently.

"I don't remember saying that," she said.

"You said it," I said.

"I know I did."

Her hand had closed around her car keys, and I saw her knuckles go white.

"My car's outside," she said. "There's a bag in the trunk. I could be in Madison by morning."

"Running."

"My father's lawyers are texting me. Yvonne is texting me. Tripp is texting me." Her voice climbed. "Nobody has asked me what I want."

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