Chương 5
“You didn’t make—”
“I know what the correct sentence is, Ethan.”
He closed his mouth.
She breathed carefully because of her ribs.
“I just didn’t feel it yet.”
Ethan lowered his eyes.
“What happened today?”
“Your mom came over at lunch.”
“Why did you let her in?”
Claire’s expression sharpened.
He raised both hands.
“Sorry. Bad question.”
“She has a key.”
Ethan looked toward the hooks beside the pantry.
The spare key was gone.
“She came in?”
“She knocked first. I didn’t answer. She used the key.”
“Owen was home?”
“He had a half day.”
Ethan had forgotten.
The school calendar had been on the refrigerator for a month.
Of course he had forgotten.
“Mom said Ryan was sorry,” Claire continued. “She said he’d panicked. She said there was an explanation for the money and we could all sit down tonight.”
“Was there?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
Claire looked toward the hallway.
“I told her I was going to the police about yesterday.”
Ethan swallowed.
“That’s when she changed.”
“How?”
“She said if I reported Ryan, the business would get audited, your employees could lose their jobs, and your dad’s name would be dragged through everything.”
“My dad’s been dead three years.”
“I know.”
“She used him anyway.”
“Yes.”
Ethan stood because sitting had become impossible.
He crossed to the sink and stared into it.
One of Owen’s cups sat upside down on the drying rack.
“What happened when Ryan got here?”
“I didn’t know he was coming.”
“How did he get in?”
“Your mother let him.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“He wanted my phone.”
“Because of the bank records?”
“I’d taken screenshots.”
“Where are they?”
“Some are backed up.”
“Some?”
“I emailed a few to myself yesterday. The rest were on the phone.”
Ethan turned.
“Ryan knew?”
“I told your mother.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me what proof I had. I was angry.”
A tiny, bitter smile appeared and vanished.
“Not my most strategic moment.”
That was Claire.
Even sitting bruised on their couch after midnight, she could find one dry sentence and hate herself for needing it.
Ethan almost smiled.
He did not.
“Ryan came in and told me to unlock the phone. I said no. Your mom kept saying we were all going to calm down. Ryan tried to take it. I scratched him.”
“The neck.”
“Yes.”
“He says you attacked him.”
“Of course he does.”
“What happened to your ribs?”
Claire looked at her hands.
“He grabbed me. I bit his arm.”
Ethan’s face changed.
“Then he hit me.”
The kitchen went silent.
“Once?”
“Twice.”
Ethan’s hands rested on the counter.
He had spent most of his adult life doing physical work. He knew exactly what his body could do to another man if he stopped controlling it.
That knowledge frightened him now.
Claire saw something in his posture.
“Don’t.”
“I’m standing here.”
“I mean later.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t make me spend the next month wondering whether you’re going to ruin your life trying to punish him.”
Ethan looked away.
“I can’t promise I won’t want to.”
“Want whatever you want.”
She leaned her head back.
“Just don’t do it.”
He nodded once.
“The pills?”
Claire’s face lost what little color remained.
He regretted asking, but she answered.
“After Ryan hit me, Owen came out.”
Ethan pictured it before he could stop himself.
“He saw?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus.”
“Ryan started telling him everything was okay. Owen screamed at him to get away from me.”
Claire’s voice broke slightly.
“That’s when your mother started panicking.”
“About Owen?”
“About what he’d seen. About me calling the police. About Ryan leaving marks.”
She shifted carefully.
“Your mom went into her purse and got the bottle.”
Ethan stared at her.
“What did she say?”
“That I needed to calm down.”
He thought of Margaret’s words in the kitchen.
She was hysterical.
I was calming her down.
Claire’s gaze went unfocused.
“She put three or four capsules in her hand. Maybe more. I don’t know. I slapped them away. The bottle fell. Ryan had my wrists for a second.”
Ethan’s stomach turned.
“She put them in your mouth?”
Claire nodded.
“I spit them at her.”
Her eyes filled again.
“Owen was screaming.”
Ethan crossed the room.
He stopped several feet away.
“Can I sit next to you?”
Claire looked at him.
Then nodded.
He sat.
Not touching.
For a while neither spoke.
Upstairs, a floorboard shifted as the house settled.
Claire said, “Your mom told Owen I was sick.”
Ethan pressed his lips together.
“She told him not to believe what I was saying.”
He looked at the floor.
“And then you came home.”
The next morning, Ethan burned the coffee.
He had made coffee every morning for eleven years and could not explain how he managed it.
Claire sat at the kitchen table wearing one of his old flannel shirts over her hoodie because she could not get warm.
Owen slept upstairs.
Ethan poured the coffee down the sink.
“That smells criminal,” Claire said.
He looked at her.
One corner of her mouth moved.
He stared for a second before realizing she was trying to make a joke.
“Good,” he said. “Maybe the cops can take that too.”
Her smile disappeared almost immediately, but it had been there.
He made another pot.
At eight-twenty Alvarez called.
The prescription bottle and recovered capsules had been entered into evidence. Claire’s phone would need to be processed before it could be returned. A detective would contact them. Owen might be referred for a forensic interview because he had witnessed part of the incident.
“Do we have to make him do that?” Ethan asked.
“No one should coach him,” Alvarez said. “But if investigators request an interview, you can talk with the assigned advocate about the process.”
Ethan looked across the room.
Owen stood on the stairs holding his blanket.
“How long is this going to take?”
“There isn’t a clean answer.”
May you like
Of course there wasn’t.
After the call, Ethan drove to the shop alone.
