The Disappearing Act(54)
I turn to her emails for some kind of answer. Finding nothing in her inbox, I run the cursor down Emily’s neatly archived mail folders until I reach the computer-generated folders at the bottom of the screen. RECOVERED, DELETED, DRAFTS.
I dive into the DELETED folder, hoping that her trash hasn’t been recently erased, but I’m not in luck. The file is empty, as is DRAFTS. I don’t exactly know what the RECOVERED folder is but I click on it next.
The file is full. I stare at the emails, every email the same, all duplicates. Every single email is from Emily to Emily. There must have been an error in sending so she sent and re-sent over and over. There’s no subject in the subject bar, and every single email has two attachments. There’s eighteen of them, identical.
I open one. It’s empty except for the two attached files. One labeled: Bel Air.m4a. The other: San Fernando.m4a.
Emily sent two audio files to her laptop from her iPhone. One must be the meeting she recorded. I know a couple of the major studios are out in the San Fernando Valley where the second recording was obviously made. But the first recording, Bel Air, is a mystery.
Emily must have deleted the email that actually made it into her inbox, but her laptop somehow managed to recover copy upon copy upon copy of its duplicates here.
I tap on Bel Air.m4a and it opens in Voice Memos.
Its creation date is 1 January this year. My breath catches. Emily made an actual recording of whatever happened on New Year’s Eve. Whatever is on this forty-nine-minute-long recording must be the leverage Emily used to secure the offer of a lifetime.
23
New Year’s Eve
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13
I grab a cushion from the sofa, turn a fresh page in my notepad, and hit play on the New Year’s Eve audio file Bel Air.m4a.
At first there is only silence. I increase the volume and the room slowly fills with the comforting ruffle of white noise. The muffled sound of bass music through a wall, the reverb and screech of voices having fun in other rooms, with the scrape and rustle of a pocket in the foreground.
A party from the safety of a pocket or bag.
Now the sound of a voice close, the words not quite distinguishable. I pump up the volume further until a male voice comes into focus, the tone cloying, coaxing.
My blood runs cold. Oh God…I think I know what this is. I listen for the female voice, the female voice that must be there, and I pray it’s not Emily’s.
The sound of the door to the room opening causes a flood of party noise that is quickly muffled as the door closes. A second male voice asking a question.
Then a female voice closer to the recorder—a murmur, followed by a groan. I strain for words.
“I don’t feel good. Can I get some water?” the voice whispers.
It’s Emily.
The second male voice across the room gives a muffled utterance, his tone dismissive.
“Well, if you don’t want to be here then leave,” the first male voice snaps back at him, his soft coo now acidic. He turns back to the woman, his voice tender again. “You need some water, sweetheart? Let me help you.”
The sound of water hitting glass. The man by the door says something out of hearing. The sound of someone glugging back water thirstily, catching their breath, and gulping back more.
“Whoa, whoa. Slow down,” the soft male voice says. “Have you taken something?”
“No. Just so thirsty.” Emily’s voice, it’s recognizable although thickened, distorted slightly, by alcohol or drugs I presume. My thought immediately backed up by her words. “I think, someone put something…my drink. It all feels…too slow.”
The sound of a bed or sofa creaking as someone sits down near her. “Slow is fine. We’re not going anywhere, are we? It’s nice here just…us, right?”
I shudder at his words, his tone mocking in its tenderness. My hand darts out to the keyboard to stop the audio—I’ve heard enough—but I hesitate as I hear:
“Who is he?” Emily asks hazily.
The sound of the closer man turning, a pause. “Don’t worry about him. He’s a friend. We’re all friends, right?”
The sound of Emily flopping back into the cushions. “Yeah, I guess. Where’s Marla?”
“I don’t know who that is, sweetheart.”
The voice by the door says something and the door opens; sounds of the party flood the room then muffle as the door closes again. The second man is gone.
“Look at you,” he says, his voice flat and suddenly much closer. “You’re very beautiful, but I suppose you know that. You didn’t like me earlier, did you? But I think you like me now.”
“No—I need to…” Emily slurs.
My hand shoots to the space bar and I stop the recording. I don’t need to hear any more. I know what this is and I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. It’s a recording of Emily being raped. That much is clear.
I bolt up quickly from the floor, putting instant distance between me and the computer as if continued proximity might, in some way, imply tacit collusion. My blood fizzles with completely useless adrenaline, even though I know that I can’t help her. I can’t stop what happened over a month ago from happening.
The audio is only six minutes in, there’s still another forty-three minutes or so to go.