Chapter 3 - THE FIRST WIFE’S LAST RECORDING
Marcus’s attorney held a press conference less than twenty-four hours after my rescue.
He called the situation “a private marital misunderstanding deliberately sensationalized by law enforcement.”
He claimed I had suffered a psychological crisis late in pregnancy and voluntarily entered the cage because I believed it was the only safe place in the house.
The lie was so absurd that I expected reporters to reject it immediately.
Some did.
Others repeated it word for word.
Marcus’s family owned advertising contracts with two local television stations. His company had funded political campaigns and charity galas throughout the state.
By morning, strangers online were asking why I had remained silent for three weeks.
Why I had not screamed.
Why I had not fought harder.
Why I had married him.
Every question treated survival like evidence of guilt.
Rachel took my phone away before I could read more.
“You don’t owe strangers a performance of pain,” she said.
Detective Price returned with news about the adoption agreement.
Evelyn had signed it as the intended guardian of my unborn daughter.
My signature had been forged.
The document was witnessed by Dr. Samuel Cross, Marcus’s uncle.
I knew him as a respected obstetrician who had treated me during the first five months of pregnancy.
He had retired suddenly after telling me my insurance no longer covered his office.
According to police, he had never submitted my complete prenatal records to my new doctor.
Several test results had been altered.
One report falsely indicated that I had a degenerative neurological condition likely to make me an unsafe parent.
Another claimed I had admitted to substance abuse.
“They were building a case to take your baby,” Detective Price said.
“Why?”
“We think Evelyn wanted another chance.”
“At what?”
He hesitated.
“At raising Marcus.”
I stared at him.
That made no sense until he explained what investigators had found inside Evelyn’s home.
The walls of her private sitting room were covered with photographs of Marcus from infancy through adulthood.
Beside them were written schedules documenting his relationships, business decisions, medical appointments, and even his private arguments.
She had not merely supported her son.
She had managed him.
Every girlfriend who became serious was investigated.
Every employee who challenged him was removed.
Every woman who became pregnant was classified as either useful or dangerous.
Anna had been marked dangerous.
I had been marked replaceable.
My daughter had been marked renewal.
Evelyn believed Marcus’s cruelty came from mistakes made during his childhood. In her private journals, she wrote that raising his daughter herself would allow her to “correct the bloodline.”
The phrase made me sick.
Police had also recovered Anna’s final recording from one of the old phones.
Detective Price asked whether I wanted to hear it.
I almost said no.
Then I remembered the woman in the photograph.
She had been trapped in my cage.
She had carried a child beneath her heart.
If she had left a voice behind, someone needed to listen.
The recording began with breathing.
Then Anna whispered that Marcus had locked her in the basement because she discovered money transfers from his company to a private medical foundation.
The foundation paid vulnerable pregnant women to participate in what they were told were housing programs.
Several women later disappeared.
Anna believed Marcus and Evelyn were selling newborn babies through falsified private adoptions.
My hand tightened around the blanket.
The recording continued.
Anna said she had copied financial records and hidden them somewhere Marcus would never search.
Then a door opened.
Evelyn’s voice entered the recording.
“You were supposed to give us a child and remain grateful.”
Anna replied, “You’re never touching my baby.”
A struggle followed.
The recording ended with Marcus saying, “Take her to Uncle Samuel.”
Detective Price stopped the audio.
My entire body felt cold.
“What happened to her baby?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was it born?”
“We believe so.”
A hospital ledger from Dr. Cross’s former private clinic listed an unidentified woman admitted eight years earlier.
A baby girl was delivered by emergency surgery.
The mother’s name field was blank.
The infant was transferred three hours later.
“Transferred where?”
“The destination was erased.”
I looked toward the neonatal unit where my own daughter fought for breath.
Somewhere, Anna’s child might still be alive.
Detective Price then placed a small envelope on my table.
It had been discovered inside the lining of Anna’s coat in the hidden room.
On the front, she had written:
For the next woman Marcus chooses.
Inside was a brass key and a message.
He keeps the truth beneath his mother’s chapel.
Rachel read the sentence twice.
Evelyn had a private chapel on the Cross family estate, a stone building used for weddings and memorial services.
Police obtained a warrant.
Beneath the altar, they found a locked steel box.
The brass key opened it.
Inside were birth certificates, payment records, photographs of infants, and a list of twenty-one women.
Beside six names was the word completed.
Beside Anna’s was the word failed.
Beside mine was a date.
May you like
Tomorrow’s date.
Marcus had planned to make me disappear the morning after the dinner party.
