I thought about the conversation I had recorded: Carter’s voice, Spencer’s answer, and the strange way they spoke as if unconsciousness were another scheduling problem.

I wrote down the exact words I could remember and let the investigators preserve the recording itself.

Listening to it repeatedly had begun to change the sounds.

Each time I thought I heard something new, I wondered if I was inventing it.

Ramirez suggested that I stop using it as a form of private punishment.

“We have the file,” he said.

“You don’t have to keep proving to yourself that you heard it.” I closed my laptop and put it in the bag with the medical documents.