Chương 6
He had one finger resting against June’s foot through the blanket.
He looked up immediately.
Claire sat across from him.
“Where is your mother?”
“Dana asked security not to let her back up.”
“She’ll hate that.”
“Yes.”
“That gives me some joy.”
“I’m not judging.”
“I am.”
He nodded.
Claire rolled her eyes.
“There you go again.”
“Sorry.”
They sat in silence.
Then Ethan said, “I should tell you the whole thing.”
Claire felt tired before he began.
“Okay.”
“My mother asked me three weeks ago whether we had wills.”
“We do.”
“I told her that.”
“What else?”
“She asked who we named as guardian.”
Claire stared at him.
They had named Claire’s sister, Nora.
Margaret had never liked that decision.
“What did you tell her?”
“That it was Nora.”
“And?”
“She said Nora has student debt, lives in a two-bedroom condo, and changes jobs too often.”
“She’s a pediatric physical therapist.”
“I know.”
“She changed hospitals once.”
“I know.”
“Did you defend her?”
“Yes.”
Claire waited.
Ethan looked down.
“My mother said if something happened to you, she didn’t think I could manage alone.”
Claire felt something cold move through her.
“What did you say?”
“I told her to stop.”
“Is that all?”
“No.”
Of course not.
He rubbed his thumb against his wedding ring.
“I told her I was scared too.”
Claire stared at him.
“Of being a father?”
“Of being bad at it.”
That answer disarmed her.
She hated that.
Ethan looked toward June.
“My dad died and I became whatever she needed me to become. I knew how to do that. Work, school, company, board dinners, all of it. There was always a right answer. Then you got pregnant and suddenly people kept asking me questions where there wasn’t a right answer.”
Claire’s anger remained.
It simply had to share space with something else.
“You could have told me.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
He nodded.
She almost laughed.
“Seriously?”
He put his hands up.
“I don’t know what I’m allowed to say anymore.”
“Good.”
“Okay.”
She stared at him until they both smiled despite themselves.
It lasted perhaps three seconds.
Then Claire said, “Why did you record her?”
Ethan stopped smiling.
“After the will conversation, she asked me to send her a copy.”
“A copy of our will?”
“She said she wanted to update her estate plan.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“She got angry. Then yesterday she asked about your signature.”
Claire waited.
“I called Dana’s office. I didn’t reach Dana. I spoke to an associate. He said if I believed my mother was preparing fraudulent paperwork, I should preserve whatever evidence I lawfully had access to and avoid confronting her before we knew what she was doing.”
“So you set up your phone.”
“Yes.”
“And left.”
“I told Mom I was going for coffee.”
“Where were you really?”
“Across the hall.”
Claire frowned.
“There’s nothing across the hall.”
“A linen alcove.”
She stared at him.
“You hid in a linen alcove.”
“Yes.”
“For twenty-three minutes.”
“Twenty-six.”
“Why twenty-six if the recording is twenty-three?”
“I had trouble getting the door open quietly.”
Despite everything, Claire laughed.
He smiled.
Then she looked at the forged papers.
The humor vanished.
“You watched her do it?”
“On my laptop. The phone was streaming.”
“You could have stopped her.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He took a long time.
“Because I wanted her to finish.”
Claire looked away.
There it was.
The ugly answer.
Not noble.
Not protective.
Strategic.
He had wanted the crime completed enough to prove itself.
“And if she had taken the papers and gone?”
“I followed her.”
“You left me asleep.”
“Yes.”
“With June.”
“Yes.”
“While your mother was trying to build a case that I couldn’t be trusted with June.”
His mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
Claire looked at the storm.
“I don’t know what to do with you.”
“I don’t either.”
That was the closest they came to honesty all day.
By three in the afternoon, Margaret’s petition was already beginning to collapse.
Not because justice moved quickly.
Because Robert Vale, her attorney, became alarmed.
He called Dana again and asked whether they could speak privately.
Dana refused unless Claire authorized it.
Claire did.
Vale said Margaret had told him the consent form was signed voluntarily the night before.
He had not witnessed it.
He had not spoken with Claire.
He had not verified the signature independently.
He sounded angrier each time he repeated one of those facts.
“I relied on my client’s representation.”
Dana said, “Then I suggest you preserve that representation.”
“I am.”
“You should also preserve every version of the attached document.”
“I am.”
“Emails.”
“Yes.”
“Texts.”
“Yes.”
“Drafts.”
There was a pause.
“Yes.”
Claire sat beside Dana.
“What happens now?”
Vale cleared his throat.
“I am withdrawing the emergency request pending clarification.”
Margaret’s voice sounded faintly in the background.
“Robert.”
He muted the call.
Then returned.
“I’ll file the withdrawal.”
Claire said, “Does that mean she can’t take June?”
Dana answered, not Vale.
“It means there is still no order authorizing her to do so.”
It was not the triumphant answer Claire wanted.
It was better.
It was precise.
Claire had become suspicious of dramatic certainty.
After the call, Dana told them something else.
“Do not assume the filing disappearing means the problem disappears.”
Claire nodded.
“What do we do?”
“That depends partly on what you want.”
Ethan said, “We report it.”
Claire looked at him.
Dana did too.
Ethan stopped.
“Sorry.”
Claire appreciated the apology and hated needing it.
Dana turned toward her.
“You have choices. You can make a police report about the alleged forgery. You can seek advice about protective measures. You can also do neither today. There are evidence-preservation steps we should take regardless.”
“What would you do?”
Dana shook her head.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because then you’ll spend the next six months wondering whether you did what your lawyer wanted.”
Claire looked at the sleeping baby.
May you like
“What if I wait and Margaret destroys things?”
“We preserve what we can now. Vale has professional obligations. Ethan has the recording. We have the documents. The hotel may have relevant access records or footage from common areas. But yes, delay can affect evidence.”
