I ignored it.
It buzzed again.
Then Naomi’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and looked at me.
“What?”
She covered the receiver.
“Eleanor is requesting a deal.”
I almost laughed.
“She has been in custody less than eight hours.”
“She says she has information.”
“About what?”
Naomi’s eyes shifted toward the hallway, where Captain Ruiz stood speaking with a nurse.
“About the messages.”
The room felt colder.
I looked at Leo.
Then at Sophia.
Then back at Naomi.
“What kind of information?”
Naomi listened again.
Her face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“She says Audrey didn’t clone your account alone.”
PART 4
My mother had always treated truth like furniture.
Something to rearrange before guests arrived.
So when Naomi said Eleanor had information, I did not feel relief.
I felt the old familiar caution.
“What does she want?” I asked.
Naomi listened into the phone, then ended the call.
“Reduced charges. Access to personal belongings. Permission to speak to you.”
“No.”
“I told her no.”
“Good.”
“But her attorney claims she can identify a second person involved in impersonating you.”
Captain Ruiz stepped into the room.
“I need to hear this.”
Naomi looked at me.
“Only if you agree.”
Sophia was awake now.
She had heard enough.
Her voice was weak, but clear.
“No.”
Everyone turned to her.
Sophia swallowed.
“She does not get to use another secret to pull Lucas back into her orbit.”
I moved beside her bed.
“You’re right.”
She looked at Ruiz.
“If there is another person, investigate them. But Eleanor does not get him alone.”
Captain Ruiz nodded.
“Agreed.”
Sixth payoff.
Sophia had been silent for months because silence had been forced on her.
Now the room listened when she spoke.
The formal interview happened that afternoon.
Not with me.
With Detective Harris, Captain Ruiz, Naomi, and Eleanor’s public defender present.
I watched later from a recording because Naomi said I needed to see my mother’s face when she said it.
Eleanor sat in a gray interview room, no makeup, hair loose around her face.
Without Sophia’s robe, without the staircase, without the house behind her, she looked smaller.
Angrier.
Not sorry.
Never sorry.
“I want my personal property released,” she said.
Detective Harris leaned back.
“You are not bargaining with a yard sale.”
“I have information.”
“Then give it.”
“My daughter made most of the fake messages.”
“Most?”
Eleanor’s lips pressed together.
“There was another account.”
Captain Ruiz spoke then.
“What account?”
Eleanor looked at her.
“You military people think your systems are so clean.”
Ruiz did not blink.
“What account, Mrs. Hayes?”
Eleanor looked down at her hands.
“A man contacted Audrey. Said he served with Lucas. Said he knew how hard deployments were on marriages. Said Sophia was probably unstable.”
Naomi paused the recording there when she showed me.
“Do you recognize that?”
“No.”
She resumed.
Detective Harris asked, “Name?”
Eleanor shrugged.
“He used Ryan at first. Maybe Bryan. Audrey handled him.”
“Handled him how?”
