Chapter 6 - THE TAPE UNLOCKED
We drove for forty minutes in absolute silence, save for the hum of the engine and Lily’s soft, rhythmic breathing in the backseat. Grace kept her eyes glued to the rearview mirror, checking every pair of headlights that appeared behind us until we finally pulled into the parking lot of a 24-hour diner off Interstate 5.
The bright fluorescent lights of the diner felt like a sanctuary. We sat in a deep vinyl booth in the back corner, away from the windows.
Grace laid the locked iPhone and the blue ledger on the table between us.
"Ethan’s phone is locked with a six-digit passcode," I said, staring at the dark screen. "If we guess wrong too many times, it will wipe the drive."
"He uses his birthday," Grace said quietly. "Or his mother's."
"No," I realized, remembering how obsessed he was with the estate. "Try the date we signed the trust papers. October 4th. 100492."
Grace typed the numbers in. The phone vibrated twice, and the home screen unlocked.
We immediately opened the video gallery. There, in the deleted folder, was the unedited three-minute clip from the bathroom.
Grace pressed play.
We watched the scene unfold again, but this time, with the diner's quiet surroundings, we turned the audio volume to maximum.
The video played through Amanda setting up the phone, placing Lily in the water, and stepping away. Then came the muffled voice from the hallway outside.
Ethan: "Make sure the angle catches the hands leaving the tub."
Amanda: "I know how to do it, Ethan. Just stay out of sight until she comes in."
Ethan: "If Nora doesn't come in within two minutes, I'll send Grace in. Either way, we get the footage of the baby alone. It's enough for Dr. Vance to sign the emergency evaluation."
My hand flew to my mouth. Tears of rage and horror stung my eyes.
They hadn't just been setting up a scene—they had been orchestrating a trap designed to frame me. If Grace hadn't walked in early on her own accord, Ethan was going to push me into the bathroom or manipulate the timing so that I would be filmed standing over a baby in a tub, making it look like I had abandoned her.
"Dr. Vance," I repeated, the name striking a terrifying chord. "Dr. Marcus Vance. He's Ethan's uncle on his mother's side. He runs a private psychiatric evaluation clinic in Bellevue."
"They weren't just going to sue you for custody, Nora," Grace said softly, looking at me with deep sympathy. "They were planning to have you involuntarily committed under an emergency psychiatric hold tonight. Once you were inside his uncle's facility, they would have total control over the trust and Lily."
Before I could respond, the blue ledger sitting on the table caught my eye. I flipped to the very back page, where a loose folded document had been tucked into the leather sleeve.
It was a pre-signed, pre-dated petition for emergency temporary guardianship, stamped by a corrupt notary, with Dr. Marcus Vance’s signature already affixed at the bottom.
The date on the document was tomorrow morning.
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"They have everything ready," I whispered. "If we go to the regular police right now, Ethan will claim this is a domestic dispute between divorcing parents. He has a legal right to his child until a judge says otherwise. He could pull police authority to force me to hand Lily over."
"Then we don't go to the regular police," Grace said, her eyes burning with determination. "We go to someone who outranks his uncle."
