Chapter 48 - The Interview That Never Happened
The cassette recorder clicked softly.
A low hiss filled Samuel's office before a man's voice emerged.
"Interview Log 14."
The speaker paused.
"Subject: Daniel Carter."
Daniel frowned immediately.
"I've never been interviewed."
Samuel motioned for silence.
A second voice followed.
It sounded remarkably like Daniel's own.
The same tone.
The same accent.
Even the slight hesitation before answering difficult questions.
Lily looked toward her father.
"Dad..."
Daniel slowly shook his head.
"That's not me."
The recording continued.
The interviewer asked ordinary questions at first.
Work history.
Education.
Family.
Future plans.
Then the conversation shifted.
"If an opportunity arose overseas, would you accept it?"
The voice answered without hesitation.
"Yes."
"What if it required leaving your daughter for several years?"
"I'd do whatever secured her future."
Daniel closed his eyes.
Those were words he might have said.
Yet he had never spoken them into any recorder.
Samuel stopped the tape.
"The pauses are wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"Listen carefully."
He replayed several sections.
Each answer ended a fraction of a second too cleanly.
No background noise.
No overlapping breaths.
"No real conversation sounds like this," Samuel explained.
"It's edited."
"You think someone assembled it?"
Samuel nodded.
"From different recordings."
Daniel stared at the machine.
"They manufactured evidence..."
"...before I even left the country."
At the end of the cassette, one final sentence had been added by another voice.
May you like
"The subject remains suitable."
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