Jessica nodded as though she had already realized that.
“I started asking questions.
His story kept changing.
First you offered it.
Then your dad convinced you.
Then he said the paperwork had already been completed.”
Lucas cut in.
“You’re upset.
You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Jessica’s grip tightened around her phone.
“Tell them what your father made you delete.”
The color drained from Lucas’s face.
Dad shouted through my speaker, “Jessica, stay out of this.”
She looked toward the phone.
“You used my baby as an excuse to steal from her.
I’m already in it.”
The responder asked what had been deleted.
Jessica opened a recovered video file.
“Our doorbell camera recorded them when they brought the SUV to our house,” she said.
“Lucas deleted the clip from the app, but it was still in the recently deleted folder on my phone.”
She pressed play.
The first frame showed my father stepping out of my SUV in Lucas and Jessica’s driveway shortly after noon.
Lucas emerged from the driver’s side.
Dad held the spare key fob in one hand and a manila envelope in the other.
The audio was faint but clear enough.
“She’ll make noise,” Lucas said in the recording.
Dad laughed.
“She always folds.
By tomorrow, she’ll be shopping for a little used car and telling everyone it was her idea.”
Lucas opened the envelope and looked at the gift form.
“What if she checks the signature?”
“Claire copied it from an old payroll document.
It’s close enough.”
In the parking lot, Lucas closed his eyes.
Jessica’s recording continued.
“And the license?” Lucas asked.
“Don’t get stopped,” Dad replied.
