Chapter 3

As I sorted through the nightstand, I noticed that someone had rummaged through the drawers.

I panicked and rushed over.

Sure enough, the voice recorder I always kept hidden at the back of the drawer was gone.

After my mother passed away, I became terrified of leaving the house alone. For a long time, even stepping outside filled me with dread.

When she was still alive, Kelsey Tanner used to send me voice messages to guide me through unfamiliar routes.

She would tell me which streets were well-lit, where to find convenience stores, and remind me not to panic if I took the wrong turn.

Later, Maurice transferred all those messages to a digital recorder and organized them by location. He even recorded a few messages in his own voice.

"Whenever you lose your way, listen to your mom's voice first, then mine."

I rushed out of my room and found Carla lounging on the sofa with headphones on. The recorder lay beside her feet, and Kelsey's voice came through the headphones.

"When you cross the street up ahead, remember to watch the lights."

Carla burst out laughing. "Gosh! Your mom sounds so old-fashioned. No wonder you still act like a helpless child."

I lunged for the recorder, but she jerked backward, snapping the headphone cord.

The device crashed onto the hardwood floor, and its plastic casing split open. For a moment, everything around me fell silent.

The commotion drew Maurice into the room. He immediately pulled Carla behind him. "Josefin, what is it this time? What kind of episode are you having?"

I crouched down and began gathering the broken pieces. Sharp edges of plastic sliced into my fingers, but I barely noticed.

"That was my mother's voice," I said.

Maurice glanced at the wreckage and waved dismissively.

"If it's broken, just get it repaired. Besides, aren't all the files backed up on the computer?"

"And where's the computer?"

He paused, caught off guard by the question.

"My phone died last night, so I borrowed the laptop to transfer some photos," Carla murmured timidly. "But a bunch of strange files popped up, and I was afraid I'd break something. So, I formatted the hard drive."

I scrambled to my feet and rushed into the home office. The monitor displayed nothing but a clean system recovery screen.

My mother's last messages, the route guides I'd collected over the years, and every piece of advice she'd recorded to help me live independently had been wiped out.

I gripped the mouse, my entire body trembling.

Hakon came in behind me and frowned. "It's just a few audio files. You have plenty of backups anyway. What's the big deal if some of them got deleted?"

"Carla's emotionally fragile right now," Margaret chimed in. "Don't scare her. The fact that she wanted to listen to those recordings just shows she considers you family."

I turned to face the three of them.

Hakon was my biological brother. When Kelsey was in hospice, he'd been away at a conference, leaving me alone at her bedside to listen to her final words.

Margaret had been my best friend for ten years. She knew that whenever I got lost, the first thing I did was reach for that recorder so I could hear my mother's voice and calm myself down.

And Maurice knew better than anyone. He was the one who had labeled every recording on the device. Yet all of them stood firmly on Carla's side, telling me to be more understanding.

"I didn't mean to." Carla tugged at Maurice's sleeve, her eyes brimming with tears. "If Josefin is angry with me, I'll let her use my phone to make it up to her."

"You don't need to give her anything." He immediately softened and comforted her. "She can't spend the rest of her life relying on the voice of the past."

His words cut through me like a dull blade, tearing me apart one piece at a time.

I said nothing more. Instead, I called a professional data recovery service and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Maurice called after me.

"To get back what's mine," I replied without looking back.

After hearing what had happened, the data recovery specialist asked me one question.

"Do you still have the original memory card?"

I froze.

There had been an old memory card inside the recorder. But when I searched my bag and went back to examine the shattered device, I couldn't find it anywhere.

Just then, a notification appeared on my phone from an unknown number.

[I have the memory card. If you want it back, meet me in the waiting room at the old ferry terminal by the harbor at 9:00 p.m. Come alone.]

The Weather Service had already issued three consecutive hurricane warnings for the area that day. But as long as there was even a glimmer of hope, I would do whatever it took to recover those recordings.

When I returned home, Maurice was in the living room, helping Carla try on my wedding dresses. Hakon and Margaret were busy choosing jewelry for her.

Not one of them even looked up when I appeared in the doorway, phone in hand. I walked straight over to Maurice and showed him the message.

"My mom's last words are on that card. Come with me."

He glanced at the screen, his lips parting as if he wanted to say something.

I shifted my gaze to Carla and continued, "I just had a friend trace the source of this message. Do you want to know whose phone it came from?"