Chương 7
There had been no such paperwork.
Daniel read the email once.
Then sat down.
Ethan stood across from him.
“Why would she say that?”
Daniel looked sick.
“I don’t know.”
Jonah said, “We’re trying to determine that.”
Ethan stared at Daniel.
“Were you?”
“Was I what?”
“Trying to take me.”
“No.”
“You wanted custody.”
“I wanted shared custody.”
“You hired a lawyer.”
“After your mother told me she wanted to move to California.”
“So you were going to stop her.”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
Ethan blinked.
Daniel continued.
“I would have asked a court to prevent her from moving you out of state until we had an agreement.”
“That sounds like taking me.”
“Maybe to her it did.”
Ethan sat down.
The story refused to become simple.
He wanted a liar.
One liar.
One villain.
Instead he had his dead mother frightened by something that was partly false and partly true.
A father who admitted he had been controlling.
A woman with a fake name.
A security manager following mysterious instructions.
And nine years of everybody being certain about different things.
Vale was suspended from the hotel.
Daniel wanted him fired.
The hotel’s general manager refused until the investigation finished.
Daniel threatened to resign.
Rachel told him that was stupid.
They argued in the driveway.
Ethan heard them through an open window.
“He put my son outside in a storm.”
“He followed a written directive.”
“A false directive.”
“We know that now.”
“He slapped something out of a child’s hands.”
“Yes. And if you resign, you lose access to half the internal records we’re trying to get.”
Daniel paced.
Rachel folded her arms.
“You want to protect Ethan? Stop making decisions because you’re angry.”
Daniel stopped.
“That’s rich.”
Rachel’s face hardened.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Say it.”
Ethan moved away from the window.
He did not hear the rest.
Later, Rachel left without saying goodbye.
Daniel cooked pasta.
Neither spoke.
Ethan finally said, “You were mean to her.”
Daniel stirred sauce.
“Yes.”
“You going to apologize?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I stop wanting to defend myself.”
Ethan considered that.
“Mom used to apologize while she was still mad.”
Daniel looked at him.
“How’d that go?”
“Bad.”
Daniel nodded.
“Yeah.”
They ate at the kitchen island.
Ethan asked why Daniel worked at the hotel.
Daniel said he liked fixing problems.
Ethan said, “You’re bad at that.”
Daniel laughed.
It surprised both of them.
The next clue came from the hotel.
The written instruction Vale claimed to follow had arrived eleven months earlier.
It was an email sent to hotel security from an address that appeared to belong to Daniel’s former attorney.
Subject: RESTRICTED FAMILY MATTER.
It included Ethan’s childhood photograph and instructions to contact security if a boy matching an updated age projection appeared asking for Daniel.
Do not notify Mr. Miller directly.
Remove the individual from private property.
Notify this office.
The address was fake.
Almost correct.
One letter different.
Rachel spotted it.
Daniel stared at the printout.
“So somebody knew I worked there.”
Rachel nodded.
“And knew Ethan might eventually come looking.”
Jonah asked the obvious question.
“Who benefited from keeping them apart?”
Nobody answered.
Ethan did not like how quickly his thoughts moved toward Claire.
Then away.
Then toward Marissa.
Then toward Daniel.
He felt guilty every time he suspected one parent.
Even when one parent was dead.
Especially then.
Police found Marissa on Thursday.
She had driven east.
A traffic camera caught her near Limon.
State patrol stopped her outside Burlington.
She had cash.
Multiple IDs.
And a folder containing copies of Ethan’s birth certificate, Daniel’s employment records, and Claire’s death certificate.
Ethan heard that last part and stood so abruptly his chair fell backward.
“She knew Mom died?”
Jonah nodded.
“For months.”
“Why didn’t she tell him?”
“We’re asking.”
“Why didn’t she tell me she knew?”
“We’re asking.”
Ethan turned toward Daniel.
Daniel’s face was pale.
“How did she get the death certificate?”
Jonah looked grim.
“That’s one of the questions.”
Marissa asked for a lawyer.
She said almost nothing.
But the search of her car and storage unit produced enough evidence to change the shape of the case.
She had been taking money.
Not from Daniel.
From Claire.
Small amounts at first.
Then larger.
Bank transfers.
Cash withdrawals.
Checks made out to aliases.
Claire had paid Marissa for years.
For what, nobody knew.
Ethan did.
He did not understand immediately.
The knowledge arrived through memory.
A kitchen table in Albuquerque.
His mother whispering angrily on the phone.
You said he was close.
Another memory.
Phoenix.
Claire putting five hundred dollars into an envelope.
Another.
A laundromat when Ethan was eight.
His mother crying after reading a text.
“We have to move.”
Ethan sat on Daniel’s living room floor with the album open in front of him.
Daniel sat several feet away.
Jonah had left an hour earlier.
Rachel had gone home.
The house was quiet.
Ethan looked at a photograph of his mother.
“She told us you kept finding us.”
Daniel said nothing.
“She said we had to move because your investigators were close.”
“Sometimes they were.”
“What if Marissa told her every time?”
Daniel leaned forward.
Ethan continued.
“What if she made Mom pay her to help us hide?”
Daniel looked toward the dark windows.
“That would explain some of it.”
“Some?”
“I did hire investigators.”
Ethan looked at him.
“I did try to find you. If Claire believed she had to stay hidden, my searching would have made Marissa’s lies easier.”
Ethan hated the fairness of that.
He wanted Daniel to say none of this was his fault.
He did not.
On Friday, the district attorney’s office allowed a recorded interview with Marissa.
Ethan was not permitted to attend.
Daniel was not permitted either.
They waited in separate rooms at the sheriff’s office because Ethan had asked for space.
After two hours, Jonah came out.
His face looked tired.
“She talked.”
Daniel stood.
May you like
Ethan remained seated.
Jonah looked at Ethan first.
