Chapter 5: Her Voice on the Recording
The phone felt heavier in his hand.
"Play it," he said.
"Not like this." Lena's voice was careful.
Controlled.
But underneath it he could hear something that had been wound tight for a very long time.
"I need to be there when you hear it.
I need to see your face."
"Lena—"
"I'm not doing this over a phone call.
I've waited four months.
You can wait two more days."
He almost argued.
He stopped himself.
"Two days," he said.
"I'll be there Thursday morning.
Don't contact Selin before then.
Don't tell her you found the folder.
Don't do anything." A pause.
"Promise me, Evren.
If you confront her before I get there, she'll run.
And we'll lose everything."
He looked at the folder on the table.
At Miriam's steady face.
At Ceren, who was still standing with her arms crossed, watching him.
"I promise," he said.
The two days were the longest of his life.
He went through the motions.
He made Ilaria's meals himself, every one of them, and he stood in the kitchen and thought about every meal he hadn't made.
Every cup of juice he hadn't poured.
Every afternoon he'd trusted someone else to be in that apartment with his daughter.
Selin sent two more messages.
He read them and didn't reply.
The first one said: *We can fix this.
Call me.*
The second one, sent late Wednesday night, said: *You don't know what Lena told me.
You don't know what she is.
Call me before she gets to you first.*
He showed both messages to Ceren, who photographed them without being asked.
Thursday morning, Lena knocked on the door at nine forty-five.
He opened it and they stood looking at each other across the threshold.
She was thinner than he remembered.
There were shadows under her eyes that hadn't been there before.
She was holding a small canvas bag against her side like it contained something breakable.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," he said.
She looked past him into the apartment.
"Is she here?"
"She's in her room.
She doesn't know you're coming."
Lena nodded.
She stepped inside.
She set the bag down on the table carefully, unzipped it, and removed a phone in a clear protective case and a manila envelope.
She placed both on the table.
Then she looked up at him.
"Before I play this," she said, "I need you to understand something.
I left because I was scared.
Not of you.
Of what I'd found, and of what she'd do if she knew I'd found it.
I didn't know how to prove it yet and I was terrified that if I told you without proof, you'd—"
"Think I'd take her side."
She didn't look away.
"Yes."
He pulled out a chair and sat down.
"Play it."
Lena unlocked the phone.
She set it on the table between them and pressed play.
The recording was forty-one seconds long.
The first voice was Lena's — quieter, further from the microphone, asking a question that was almost inaudible.
And then Selin's voice came through clearly.
Confident.
Almost amused.
*"She's not going to get better, Lena.
That's the point.
A sick child keeps him close to home.
A sick child keeps him grateful.
You think I don't know what I'm doing?"*
A pause on the recording.
Then Lena's voice, barely above a whisper: *"What did you put in her food?"*
And Selin, without missing a beat: *"Nothing you could prove."*
The recording ended.
The kitchen was completely silent.
Evren's hand was resting on the table.
He looked at it like it belonged to someone else.
"She knew," he said.
His voice came out flat.
"She knew the whole time."
"Yes."
"She did this on purpose."
"Yes."
He stood up.
The chair scraped back hard.
He walked to the window and stood with his back to the room, both hands pressed against the frame.
Behind him, he heard a small sound from the hallway.
He turned around.
Ilaria was in the doorway in her wheelchair, her rabbit in her lap, looking at the woman sitting at the kitchen table.
Her eyes went wide.
May you like
Her mouth opened.
"Mama?"
