“I don’t know.”
“He had it when he left.”
I looked toward the nurse.
“Can you check the belongings they brought me?”
A few minutes later, the nurse returned with a small plastic bag.
Inside was my purse.
My keys.
My wallet.
And a second phone.
I stared at it.
“That isn’t mine.”
Rebecca looked confused.
The detective put on gloves.
“Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know.”
The nurse checked the belongings log.
“It was found inside her coat pocket.”
I stared at the phone.
Then something clicked.
Luke had once told me he didn’t own a second phone.
He had laughed when I asked.
“Why would I need one?”
The detective turned it over.
“No password?”
I shook my head.
She pressed the screen.
It opened.
There were hundreds of messages.
My hands began trembling.
The first conversation was with a number saved under a single initial.
D.
The messages went back years.
I read the most recent one.
D: Is she still refusing?
Luke: She thinks she’s finally figured it out.
D: Then the next pregnancy has to be the last.
My stomach turned.
I scrolled.
Another message.
Luke: The doctor says she can still conceive.
D: Good. Make sure she doesn’t know.
Then another.
Luke: If it’s a boy, we have a problem.
I stared at the screen.
“What problem?”
Rebecca whispered.
The detective kept scrolling.
A message from years earlier appeared.
D: The trust only transfers to a biological son.
I stopped breathing.
“What trust?”
The detective looked at me.
“You know what they’re talking about?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Another message appeared.
Luke: Her father left everything to her first male heir.
D: Then you know what you have to do.
My hands went numb.
My father had died when I was twenty-two.
Luke had always told me my father left me nothing because the estate had been swallowed by debt.
But suddenly I remembered something.
The old lawyer.
Mr. Bennett.
The man Luke had always refused to let me contact.
