Page 65 of The Fighter
“You’re going to love this.” I gave Raven a smile. “The extractor that we need is stored down in the archive.”
“Oh, you mean in my room?”
“Uh-huh. If you want, I could make a purple sign for the door like the one you have at the Gray Manor.” I was trying to make a joke to ease the tension a bit, but Raven stayed serious.
“Mila made me that sign.”
“I know. She told me.”
We were taking the stairs at a run.
I almost wished that I hadn’t confronted Raven about being an opportunist, since things between us had become stiff and awkward.
We worked together to extract the information on the wristband. She was cordial and polite, but her wicked humor that I’d come to appreciate was safely packed away. I hated how fast we’d become impersonal, but I didn’t know how to change it.
“There it is.” The large screen showed a long list of messages, videos, and sound files.
Raven’s eyes were darting around on the screen. “Can you search for activity around Dina’s death?”
“When was that again?”
“March 23rd, 2415.”
I searched and a list of calls came up. “Looks like these are the unanswered, the outgoing, and the incoming.”
“Wow, busy time for old Marcus, huh?” Raven was standing while I was sitting, and she let her finger run down the screen. I don’t think she noticed but as she leaned in, she supported herself with a hand on my shoulder. “There’s a lot of unanswered calls from Dina.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so let’s be systematic about this and look from her wedding day, which was March 18th.”
The first two days there was nothing from Dina, but then there had been two incoming calls on the third day, followed by thirteen unanswered until the day of her death.
“Did she leave any messages?” Raven asked.
“If she did, they would have been received as transcribed text messages.”
We searched but there was nothing.
“Wait a minute. This wristband is ancient. Maybe the technology worked differently back then. Do you remember anything about this type of wristband?”
I gave Raven an are-you-serious look. “How old do you think I am? I told you this wristband is thirty-four-years old. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but I didn’t wear a wristband three years before I was born.”
Raven rubbed her face. “Okay, let’s just keep searching. What about the videos?”
We looked through videos on fast forward but except for a few videos of the family it was all from hunting trips where Marcus was filmed with his foot on the head of a large bear or elk that he had killed.
“What about the sound files?”
“There’s over three hundred.” I groaned. “I hope you brought some food.”
“Let’s focus on the ones from the week where Dina got married and died.” Raven pulled a chair over and sat down next to me as I played the first file. The first five were low-quality recordings of meetings where a lot of people spoke at the same time. It was hard to make sense of any of it, except that they were angry and there was a theme of money.
The sixth sound file had us both sit up straight as the sound of a woman crying came through loud and clear.
“It’s me again. Why won’t you pick up? How can you do this to me? Am I worth so little to you? Call me, Dad.”
Raven blinked. “That was her. That was Dina.”
