Chapter 8 - The Cost of Being Certain
The adviser's name was Peter Armand. Celeste's uncle. He had helped Marianne set up the trust before Lila vanished, then accepted a position advising Eleanor's property companies. Dana remembered him visiting their family kitchen on the afternoon after her father's funeral. He'd spoken gently and offered to handle paperwork. She had thanked him.
Celeste, learning the connection, called Dana in tears. "I didn't know my uncle worked with Eleanor. I grew up hearing he was the man who fixed difficult things."
"I used to think that too."
"Will you tell the police I didn't know?"
"Tell them yourself."
They met investigators separately. Celeste surrendered account correspondence; Dana gave a detailed statement about the day Peter came to the house. Marianne acknowledged her signature on the trust transfer and the advice she'd received. None of it offered the neat satisfaction of one mastermind caught delivering a confession. It looked instead like people with different motives exploiting one family's grief while each insisted somebody else was responsible for the worst part.
Peter's attorney denied wrongdoing. Marco's attorney argued the marriage and guardianship proceedings had been undertaken for Lila's protection. Eleanor refused a voluntary interview. Investigators continued seeking medical, financial, and location records, careful not to promise charges before the evidence supported them.
One afternoon Dana found Lila sitting outside the old family home, looking at the front steps. "I thought I'd feel something when I came back," she said. "I feel like I missed a train and everybody else got to go where they were going."
"I missed you every day."
"That's not the same as your life stopping."
Dana wanted to argue. Instead she sat beside her. They watched a delivery driver carry packages past the same patch of pavement where Lila used to draw chalk stars. Finally Dana said, "You're right. We changed. I don't know who you are now, and I don't want to keep pretending I do."
Lila smiled a little. "I like orange marmalade now. I hate scented candles. I don't like being touched from behind. Those are things."
"I can learn those things."
"And you can let me learn you."
Their first ordinary conversation lasted an hour. Dana told her about the catering business that failed before her wedding planning company succeeded. Lila told Dana she'd spent years reading the same seven novels because those were the only ones allowed in her room. They argued gently about their father's terrible jokes. When Lila laughed, Dana heard the twenty-year-old she remembered and a twenty-eight-year-old stranger at the same time.
The next morning a civil hearing disclosed a more troubling fact. A recording of the old remote guardianship appearance had been retrieved from backup storage. The person's face on the video was obscured by poor resolution. The judge had relied on an attending physician's certification that the person was Lila and could not meaningfully participate. The name beside the certification belonged to Dr. Avery, who now denied making it.
But the voice on the recording did say Lila's name, birth date, and address. The woman answered questions mechanically. Lila listened once and asked that the playback stop.
"That's my voice," she said. "I don't remember being there."
The judge postponed a broader finding while the recording's origin and conditions were examined. It was a cruel complication. For years Lila had wanted someone to believe she was real. Now an old recording of her own voice threatened to make her captivity look voluntary.
May you like
Dana followed her outside, keeping a careful distance. "Whatever the recording says, you still get to tell them what happened."
"I know," Lila answered. "I just wish I could remember why I said yes."
