CHAPTER 123: What She Said

POV: Avalon Pierce

The next morning, they all gathered in Agent Nunez's office to listen to it. There were four of them: Avalon, Selene, Margaret, and Agent Nunez. They stood around a small speaker on the desk, waiting to hear what it had to say.

"Let's get one thing straight before we listen to this," Nunez said. "It was recorded a long time ago, without anyone's permission, by people who wanted to use it to hurt others. The story Reeves told you was meant to make you think about it in a certain way. So, I want you to keep that in mind when you're listening."

Avalon nodded.

Margaret pressed play.

The audio was old, scratchy, but clear enough.

A phone ringing. Then a click.

"Mom." Jonathan Pierce's voice. Young, certain and alive. Avalon had only ever heard four seconds of his father's voice before, in an old home video Margaret had shown him years ago. This was different. This was him talking, thinking, being a person in real time.

Nene's voice was laced with a warning, her tone unmistakable despite the youthful edge to it. "You have to stop this,' she urged. 'Whitmore is not someone to be trifled with, I've seen the way he deals with people who get in his way."

"I have evidence, Mom. Real evidence. People are being defrauded. I can't just look away from that because it's inconvenient."

"Be careful, okay? Don't turn a blind eye, but don't confront him either. Go through the proper channels, talk to the authorities, and let them handle it. We don't want him to know we're onto him, so keep a low profile and let the professionals do their job."

"I already told him I know."

A long silence on the recording.

"Jonathan." Nene's voice had changed. Lower. Frightened, in a way Avalon had never heard from her, not once in his entire life. " Why would you do that?"

I said that because I wanted to show him I wasn't intimidated by him.

"You should be afraid of him," Nene said.  "I am, for you. Please, walk away from this. Let someone else finish it. You have a son."

"I have a son who deserves to grow up knowing his father didn't look away from something wrong."

Another silence.

Nene's voice trembled as she spoke, "Please," she said, the word barely above a whisper. She paused, taking a deep breath before continuing, "Please, Jonathan."

"I love you, Mom. I'll be careful."

The call ended.

The office was silent after the recording stopped.

Selene reached over and took Avalon's hand.

"She spoke in a hushed tone, her words laced with a mix of sadness and concern. 'That's not what Reeves said it was,' she whispered, shaking her head. 'This isn't a story about a woman who knowingly took a risk and accepted the consequences. No, this is about a mother who pleaded with her son to be cautious, to think before acting, and was met with refusal and defiance.' Her voice trailed off, the weight of her emotions evident in the silence that followed."

Avalon was quiet for a long moment, processing the sound of his father's voice, alive, certain and brave in a way that had cost him everything.

"He said that after a while, she had made an effort, she really did try to put a stop to it."

Margaret spoke softly, "She did." Her voice was laced with a gentle nostalgia. "I'd never heard that particular call before, but I remember those weeks like they were yesterday. She was... different, somehow. Distracted and frightened in a way that I'd never seen her before or after. At the time, I just thought it was the stress of work getting to her, but now it all makes sense."

Avalon's words came out slowly, "Reeves twisted this, he manipulated a recording of a desperate mother pleading with her son to hold on, and then he used it to falsely claim that she was responsible for his death."

Nunez explained that people like Reeves have a way of manipulating facts. "They use real events, but then they twist them to fit their own purposes," he said. The recording itself is genuine, but the story Reeves told you about it is not entirely true.

"Why didn't she ever tell me this," he said. " Why keep it buried for thirty years if she actually tried to stop him."

Margaret was quiet for a moment, considering.

She spoke slowly, her words dripping with a mix of sadness and regret. "Even though she tried her best, he still died," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "And I think that's something she's always struggled with - the feeling that she didn't do enough, that if she'd just tried harder, fought harder, or even physically stopped him somehow, things might have turned out differently." She paused, collecting her thoughts before continuing. "The thing is grief doesn't always make sense. It doesn't listen to logic or reason. She knew, deep down, that she'd done everything she could, but I don't think she ever really believed it. I think a part of her always wondered if she could have done more, if there was something she missed, something she could have changed." Her words trailed off, leaving a sense of melancholy hanging in the air.

Selene squeezed his hand.

She spoke softly, her voice barely above a whisper. “That's not guilt over being involved,' she explained. 'It's just grief - the ordinary, yet completely overwhelming kind.'"

Avalon gazed at the tiny speaker sitting on the desk, its silence a stark contrast to the significance of what it held - the only existing recording of his father's voice as an adult, a treasure that was uniquely his in the entire world.

"I want a copy," he said.

Nunez gave him a thorough once-over before speaking. "This is evidence, Avalon, and that means it needs to stay with us for the time being, possibly even until the trial related to Reeves is over."

"Avalon spoke up, saying, 'After this is all done, I want a copy.'"

"I'll make sure that happens," Nunez said.

He nodded.

Selene watched him absorb everything—the relief of his grandmother's innocence, the fresh grief of hearing his father's voice for the first time, the complicated weight of finally understanding what those thirty years of silence had actually been protecting.

"He spoke softly, his voice barely above a whisper. 'Nene, I'm sorry,' he said, his words laced with regret. 'I was wrong to doubt you, even if it was just for a moment.'"

Margaret leaned in and gently placed her hand on his shoulder.

She'd get it, she said. Her whole life, people judged her without knowing the whole truth. She'd let it go and forgive you way sooner than you're forgiving yourself right now. 

Nunez's phone rang.

She walked away to take the call, and when she came back, the look on her face was enough to silence

everyone in the room.

"That was the team keeping an eye on someone who works with Reeves," she explained. "The same one we saw lurking around outside Maya's building last night."

"Did you find him," Selene said.

"Nunez spoke up, his voice firm. 'We did,' he admitted. However, she quickly added, 'there's a complication that we need to consider.'"

"What kind of complication," Avalon said.

Nunez looked at both of them carefully.

"He wants to talk to you, and only you," she said, her voice firm. "Selene, it's you he's asking for, not Avalon, just you."