Chapter 6 - The Tape and the Poisoned Well
The silence in the library stretched until it felt as though the limestone walls might crack from the pressure.
Sheriff Miller slowly unhooked a pair of steel handcuffs from his utility belt. He didn't look at Greg with the easy familiarity of a friend anymore; he looked at him with the cold disgust of a lawman who had realized he had been harboring a snake.
"Diane Vance," Miller said, his voice flat. "Stand up."
Diane didn't move. She couldn't. Her legs seemed to have lost all their strength. "Miller... please," she whispered, her voice cracking into thin, pathetic fragments. "That tape was edited. It was spliced! Ryan made that with computers! He works with technology, he—"
"That micro-cassette is twenty-four years old, Diane," Leonard Cross interrupted coldly. "It has been sealed in cedar and vacuum-packed since the night Arthur recorded it. The magnetic tape contains no digital artifacts. The state forensics lab in Albany will confirm Arthur’s voice patterns in less than twelve hours."
Cross turned to the state troopers standing by the door. "Officers, you may take Mrs. Vance into custody for attempted murder, second-degree murder, and elder abuse."
May you like
One of the troopers stepped forward, his boots loud against the hardwood.
"No! Wait!" Ashley suddenly screamed, scrambling backward across the Persian rug like a spider, pointing an accusatory finger directly at her mother. "I didn't know! I swear to God, I had nothing to do with it! It was her! Her and Dad! They talked about it in the kitchen at night!
