Chapter 12- CHLOE’S WARNING
Chloe was nineteen now and in her first year of college.
She called me between classes, trying to sound casual.
“Aunt Emily, did you give someone my new number?”
“No. Why?”
“I got a weird message.”
She sent me a screenshot.
You were a child when you made that recording. Adults pressured you. Correct the story before you ruin more lives.
The number was blocked.
A second message had arrived twenty minutes later.
College is expensive. Honest witnesses sometimes receive help.
My stomach turned.
“Did you answer?”
“No.”
“Tell campus security. Then send everything to Maya.”
Chloe hesitated.
“There’s more.”
The sender had attached a photograph of her leaving a lecture hall.
Someone had been watching her.
Within an hour, campus police escorted Chloe to her dorm. Rachel drove there and stayed with her while Maya contacted the investigator who had handled Brian’s case.
The messages changed the nature of Donna’s petition.
This was no longer only a visitation dispute.
Someone was trying to intimidate a witness.
Donna denied knowing anything about it. Her lawyer called the messages “an unfortunate coincidence” and suggested they could have come from an online stranger who had heard her podcast interview.
But Chloe recognized the final sentence.
Family loyalty should be worth something.
Donna had said those exact words to her after the dinner, when she demanded that Chloe delete the video.
Chloe had recorded that conversation too.
“I never told the prosecutor,” she admitted. “I was scared they’d take my phone.”
“Do you still have it?”
“It’s in my cloud account.”
When she sent me the file, I listened alone.
Donna’s voice was quiet and unmistakable.
You don’t understand what you recorded. Delete it, and your uncle will make sure college is paid for.
Chloe answered, “Lily could have died.”
May you like
Donna’s response made every hair on my arms rise.
Then Emily should have signed the papers when she was told.
