I pressed play.
At first, everything sounded ordinary.
My own voice thanking Marcus for picking me up.
The hum of the engine.
Traffic moving outside.
Marcus asking whether I wanted the radio turned down.
Then came several minutes of relative silence.
My voice disappeared from the recording.
A few moments later, Marcus spoke.
“She’s asleep again.”
I stopped breathing.
There was the sound of a phone connecting through the car’s Bluetooth system.
Then I heard a voice I recognized instantly.
Julian.
My husband.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
Marcus replied,
“Yeah. She’s completely out.”
Julian didn’t sound surprised.
He didn’t ask whether I was feeling all right.
He didn’t sound concerned.
Instead, he said,
“Good. Bring her to the usual location. Vanessa is waiting for you.”
My fingers tightened around the recorder.
Vanessa?
Who was Vanessa?
Then Julian continued.
“We need the photographs to look completely natural. No obvious staging this
