Chapter 3 - The Recording in Her Pocket
Mave took the photograph to the local police.
They found no fingerprints, no return address, and no usable security footage.
The officer who took her report advised her to change Posie’s routine.
Mave did more than that.
She contacted Garrett’s former college roommate, Daniel Reece, the only person from Garrett’s old life who had once treated her like family.
Daniel was now a corporate attorney in Manhattan.
When Mave told him about the false paternity test, his silence lasted too long.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.
Daniel exhaled.
“Garrett never told anyone to cut contact with you.”
Mave gripped the phone.
“He changed his number.”
“His mother changed the entire communications team while he was in London. When he returned, she told him you had accepted two million dollars and left with another man.”
“I never took a dollar.”
“I know.”
Daniel revealed that Garrett had searched for her for nearly a year.
Every lead had failed.
Every investigator had somehow received the wrong address.
Then Coraline entered Garrett’s life publicly.
She was patient, polished, and approved by both families.
Mave felt sick.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because Garrett’s father found something before he died.”
Thomas Hail had discovered irregular payments from a family-controlled account. The transfers led through three shell companies connected to private investigators, clinic administrators, and a security firm owned by Warren Ashford.
Thomas had begun assembling evidence.
But he suffered a fatal heart attack before he could confront anyone.
Daniel believed Thomas’s files had been destroyed.
Mave refused to bring Posie into a public war without proof.
So she returned to New York secretly.
She went straight to Evelyn Hail’s townhouse and confronted her while recording the conversation on her phone.
At first, Evelyn denied everything.
Then Mave mentioned the clinic administrator.
Evelyn’s voice changed.
“You were supposed to disappear permanently.”
Mave kept the phone inside her coat pocket.
“You threatened to take my baby.”
“I protected my son’s future.”
“By stealing three years of his daughter’s life?”
There was a long silence.
Then another woman entered the room.
Coraline.
She looked directly at Mave’s coat pocket.
And smiled.
May you like
“I wondered when you’d become brave enough to record us.”
👉 Coraline knew about the recording before Mave ever reached the wedding—but she had a plan to make sure Garrett never heard it.
