Chương 6
She did not want her father reaching across time to make Ethan more sympathetic.
“That doesn't excuse him.”
“I didn't say it did.”
“You're doing that thing where you say something technically neutral because you want me to make the generous conclusion myself.”
Ellen smiled faintly.
“Your father used to say that about me.”
“I know. I got it from him.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Claire ate the eggs even though she wasn't hungry.
Her mother folded and unfolded a paper napkin.
“Why didn't you tell me about the threat?”
Ellen's face changed.
There it was.
The question she had been dreading.
“Because I was afraid you'd become like him.”
“What does that mean?”
“He couldn't leave things alone.”
Claire stared.
“Because they mattered.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like a compliment.”
“It wasn't always.”
Ellen looked toward the window.
“Your father could turn being right into a form of selfishness.”
Claire almost objected.
Then stopped.
“He would decide something mattered morally, and after that everything else became secondary. Sleep. Money. Me. Sometimes you.”
Claire felt defensive on his behalf.
“He was trying to keep people safe.”
“I know.”
“So what should he have done?”
“I don't know.”
The answer was immediate.
“I have spent eight years not knowing.”
Ellen's voice remained steady.
“I loved your father. I was angry with him when he died. Those things are both true.”
Claire looked at her mother differently.
“What were you angry about?”
“He wanted to go public with whatever he had found. I begged him to wait until you finished your semester.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody had already been following him.”
Claire's fork stopped.
“What?”
Ellen looked tired.
“He noticed a car twice outside the house. Once near his office. He thought it was someone from Marston.”
“And he still kept going.”
“Yes.”
“You knew before the photograph threat.”
“Yes.”
Claire pushed the plate away.
“You have lied to me too.”
Ellen absorbed that.
“Yes.”
“Everybody decided I couldn't handle my own life.”
“You were twenty.”
“I was not six.”
“No.”
“You let me mourn the wrong story.”
That landed.
Ellen looked down.
“Yes.”
Claire left the table.
She spent the next two days in her mother's house while the world outside discussed her marriage.
Her employer told her to take the week off. Claire worked as a communications director for a medical nonprofit, which meant she understood exactly how bad seven seconds of video could become once strangers decided it represented a complete moral event.
The organization's CEO called personally.
“We're not asking you to make any statement.”
“Thank you.”
“But if reporters contact staff—”
“I'll send language.”
“Claire, you don't have to work.”
“I'm already writing it.”
She spent twenty minutes drafting three sentences designed to communicate nothing.
It felt good.
Controlled language was familiar.
Facts existed.
Boundaries existed.
She could not make her marriage understandable, but she could tell forty employees not to comment to media.
Ethan did not come to the house.
He sent only practical messages.
Police may contact you again.
My lawyer says the old engineering records may still exist through insurer archives.
I am staying at Mark's.
I canceled the honeymoon reservations.
That last one made Claire cry in the shower.
They had been scheduled to fly to Portugal.
She had bought a ridiculous straw hat specifically for the trip.
She sat on the bathroom floor wrapped in a towel and stared at the hat hanging from the doorknob.
There was no symbolism in it.
It was simply a stupid hat she no longer needed.
On the third day Detective Reyes called.
“We confirmed the woman in the venue footage was Victoria Marston.”
Claire stood.
“How did she get in?”
“Someone added her name to a vendor access list.”
“Who?”
“We're working on that.”
“Did she leave the photograph?”
“We don't know.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She denies knowing anything about the envelope.”
“Does she admit she knew my father?”
“She admits they had professional disagreements.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“Was she there the night he died?”
“She acknowledges being at the restaurant earlier.”
“After that?”
“She says she drove back to Washington.”
“Can she prove it?”
“Claire.”
“I know. You're not going to discuss evidence.”
“Correct.”
“Then why are you calling?”
A pause.
“We're reopening review of your father's crash.”
Claire sat down.
Not reopening the case.
Review.
Careful language.
“Because of Ethan?”
“Because new information exists.”
“Do you think Dad was killed?”
“We don't know.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Okay.”
“There is something else. Your husband disclosed that your father may have maintained copies of project documents.”
“The missing box.”
“Yes.”
“My mother told you?”
“She did.”
Claire felt a familiar anger toward Ellen, followed immediately by the recognition that telling police was exactly what she should have done.
“When do you need me?”
“Not right now.”
“I want to help.”
“The best way you can help is not to investigate on your own.”
Claire said nothing.
Reyes sighed.
“People always interpret that silence the same way.”
“I haven't done anything.”
“Good. Keep doing that.”
Claire promised.
Then broke the promise six hours later.
Not dramatically.
She searched her father's email.
Ellen had kept his old desktop computer in the basement because nobody had ever been able to decide what to do with it.
The machine took eleven minutes to start.
Claire sat among Christmas decorations and paint cans while the fan inside the tower rattled.
Most accounts no longer worked.
His old local email archive did.
Thousands of messages.
Claire searched Crestview.
Dozens of results appeared.
She read until her eyes hurt.
Most were painfully boring: permit numbers, meeting times, drawing revisions, requests for clarification.
Then she found Ethan.
His name appeared in an email from Daniel to a colleague.
Met with Ward kid again. He knows Mercer changed the field data. Not sure he'll stand behind it when things get ugly.
Claire stared at the sentence.
Again.
May you like
They had met more than once.
Ethan had said her father asked him to meet at the restaurant.
