Chapter 10 - Lauren's Voice.
Kevin answered on the first breath.
"Mr. Morrison?"
"Yes."
"This is Aaron Patel from Hudson Digital Forensics."
Kevin stood and moved toward the window.
"Did you recover the phone?"
"Partially."
The word made his chest tighten.
"What does that mean?"
"The device itself won't boot reliably, but we were able to image most of the internal storage."
Kevin looked at Jordan.
"Voice recordings?"
A pause.
"Yes."
Kevin closed his eyes.
"How many?"
"Seven intact audio files and three partial files."
His hand shook.
"Dates?"
"Several in the month before the collision."
"The night of October eleventh?"
Aaron hesitated.
"There is one recording timestamped 7:58 p.m."
Kevin stopped breathing.
"Send it."
"Mr. Morrison, our normal process—"
"Send it now."
"I need you to understand the file is damaged."
"Send it."
"There may be content you're not prepared to hear."
Kevin looked at his sons.
Jordan was watching him.
Justin had awakened.
Annie sat between them.
"I've spent fourteen months not hearing it."
His voice steadied.
"Send it."
The file arrived three minutes later.
Kevin did not play it immediately.
He took the boys downstairs.
He made cocoa because he needed something ordinary to do with his hands.
Annie did not ask whether he wanted company.
She simply remained.
At 11:24 p.m., Jordan and Justin fell asleep on the living room sofa beneath Lauren's old blue blanket.
Kevin carried them upstairs one at a time.
Jordan woke briefly when Kevin lifted him.
"Are you staying?"
"Yes."
"Till morning?"
Kevin hesitated only because he felt the weight of how many mornings he had already missed.
"Till morning."
Jordan closed his eyes against Kevin's shoulder.
After both boys were asleep, Kevin returned to the study.
Annie stood in the doorway.
"Do you want me to go?"
Kevin looked at the audio file on his laptop.
"I don't know."
"That's okay."
"You keep saying that."
"Because you seem surprised when you're allowed not to know something."
Kevin almost smiled.
Then his eyes returned to the screen.
"Stay."
Annie sat across the room.
Kevin pressed play.
Static filled the speakers.
A scraping sound.
Rain.
Then Lauren's voice.
Kevin stopped the recording instantly.
His entire body recoiled.
It had been fourteen months since he heard her voice anywhere except old videos.
Those videos belonged to birthdays and vacations.
This voice belonged to the night she died.
Annie did not move.
Kevin pressed play again.
Static.
Then Lauren spoke.
"Kevin, I don't know if I'm going to send this."
Her voice sounded tired.
Not frightened yet.
Just tired.
"You aren't answering, and I know you're probably in that meeting."
A child murmured in the background.
Lauren said something softly to him.
Then she continued.
"I'm taking the boys home."
Kevin gripped the edge of the desk.
Diane had told the truth.
Lauren had turned around.
"I was angry when I left."
Rain hammered the car roof.
"I'm still angry."
A small laugh escaped her.
"I'm trying to say that without turning this into another argument you aren't even here to have."
Kevin closed his eyes.
Annie looked down at her hands.
"I need you to understand something."
Lauren's voice grew quieter.
"I don't want your money."
"I don't want another house."
"I don't want the boys to have a trust fund big enough to buy a small country."
Kevin let out a strangled laugh through tears.
That sounded exactly like her.
"I want them to know what your face looks like when they tell a bad joke."
"I want them to know whether you take sugar in your coffee."
"I want them to remember you sitting on the floor, not just leaving for another airport."
Kevin bent forward.
The words matched the letter.
The truth had not changed because Lauren had died before saying it to his face.
"And I want you to stop acting like being needed is an interruption."
Kevin covered his eyes.
Then the recording shifted.
A horn sounded somewhere in the background.
Lauren inhaled sharply.
The audio distorted.
Kevin opened his eyes.
"What was that?"
Annie leaned forward.
The recording continued.
"The rain is awful."
Lauren sounded more alert now.
"I'm getting off at the next exit."
Jordan's voice could be heard faintly.
"Mommy?"
Lauren answered him.
"I'm okay, baby."
Another horn.
Closer.
Kevin's heart slammed against his ribs.
Then Lauren said the sentence he had spent fourteen months unconsciously waiting to hear.
"Kevin, if you hear this later, none of this means I stopped loving you."
His face crumpled.
"It means I need you to come back to us while we're still here."
A violent burst of static filled the speakers.
The recording cut out.
Kevin stared at the waveform.
"That's it?"
Annie did not answer.
He pressed play again from the final twenty seconds.
Static.
Horn.
Lauren.
While we're still here.
Static.
End.
Kevin shoved back from the desk.
The chair struck the wall.
He paced once, then twice.
"She was coming home."
Annie nodded.
"Yes."
"She wasn't coming to find me anymore."
"No."
"She turned around."
"Yes."
Kevin pressed both hands against his head.
"Then why was she still on the Saw Mill?"
Annie looked at him.
"Wasn't that the route home?"
Kevin stopped.
"Not from Diane's house."
He opened the accident map.
Diane lived east of the parkway.
Lauren should have taken local roads north.
Instead, the crash happened several miles south of the exit toward Manhattan.
If she had turned around before 7:58, the location made no sense.
Before calling anyone, Kevin opened a folder he had not touched since the week after the funeral.
ACCIDENT - FINAL.
The title itself made his stomach tighten.
He had labeled it final because he believed conclusions were a form of mercy.
Inside were photographs from the scene.
He had never looked at most of them.
Annie moved toward the door.
"You don't have to stay for this."
Kevin spoke without looking up.
"I know."
She stayed anyway.
Kevin opened the first image.
Rain-slick pavement.
Emergency lights.
Lauren's damaged SUV against the guardrail.
He closed it immediately.
His breath became shallow.
"I can't."
Annie did not tell him he could.
She did not tell him to be strong.
She simply said, "Then don't."
Kevin stared at the closed file.
That permission changed something.
He opened the written scene diagram instead.
Lines and arrows replaced twisted metal.
Data was easier.
He followed Lauren's route with his finger.
He marked the timestamps from her calls.
7:24.
7:31.
7:36 to Nathan.
7:52 to Diane.
7:58 voice recording.
8:09 collision.
For years, Kevin had been praised for noticing patterns other people missed.
He wondered bitterly how much easier patterns were when they did not have faces.
Kevin enlarged the map.
His mind shifted into the analytical mode that had built his company.
"The call to my mother ended at 7:52."
He pointed.
"The recording starts at 7:58."
Annie came closer.
"Could she have meant turning around later?"
"Maybe."
Kevin pulled up the police report.
The collision occurred at 8:09 near Exit 7.
He read the witness statements again.
A delivery driver.
A commuter.
A woman in a gray sedan.
Kevin stopped.
"What?" Annie asked.
He pointed to one paragraph.
Witness three reported observing Morrison's SUV slow abruptly near the right lane approximately one minute before the collision.
The witness believed another vehicle may have merged closely in front of the SUV.
Kevin frowned.
He remembered the official conclusion.
The truck crossed the median after hydroplaning.
The possible merge had been considered unrelated.
Annie read over his shoulder.
"Does that matter?"
"Probably not."
Kevin hated the uncertainty of his own answer.
He scrolled farther.
The witness name had been redacted in the copy sent to the family.
But there was a supplemental note.
Witness contacted family representative after interview.
Kevin's pulse changed.
"Family representative?"
Annie looked at him.
"Your mother?"
Kevin grabbed his phone.
It was after midnight.
He called anyway.
Diane answered on the second ring.
"Kevin?"
"Who was the witness in the gray sedan?"
Silence.
The silence told him she knew exactly what he meant.
"Mother."
Diane's voice changed.
"Where did you get Lauren's phone?"
Kevin went cold.
He had not told her the phone existed.
"How do you know about the phone?"
Diane did not answer.
And suddenly, the mystery was no longer only about what Lauren had said before she died.
It was about who had known there was something left to hear.
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