Chương 8
She specifically asked them not to disturb potential evidence.
So they did the more frustrating thing: made a list.
Daniel's workshop drawers.
Old toolboxes.
A metal filing cabinet.
Bookshelves.
The attic.
The detached garage.
A locked fire safe nobody could find the key to.
They sent photographs to Reyes and waited.
Waiting turned out to be unbearable.
Claire made coffee.
Too strong.
Her father had done that too.
She dumped half and added water.
Ellen stood at the kitchen sink.
“Ethan called me.”
Claire looked up.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Why?”
“To apologize.”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Not telling me he was there.”
Claire stirred coffee.
“Did you forgive him?”
“No.”
The answer comforted Claire.
Then bothered her.
“You don't have to say that for me.”
“I didn't.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I wished Daniel had been right about him.”
Claire stared at her mother.
“What does that mean?”
Ellen dried her hands.
“Your father thought Ethan would eventually tell the truth.”
Claire looked away.
“He did.”
“Eleven years late.”
“Yes.”
“That counts?”
“I don't know.”
Ellen sat across from her.
“I think people like clean moral math because actual guilt is exhausting.”
Claire frowned.
“That's annoyingly insightful.”
“I've had eight years.”
Claire drank the bad coffee.
“What if he had told me on our first date?”
“You wouldn't have had a second.”
“No.”
“What if he told you after a month?”
“I don't know.”
“A year?”
Claire looked down.
“I don't know.”
“That may be why he kept waiting.”
“That doesn't make it okay.”
“No.”
Claire was beginning to hate conversations in which everyone agreed that something was wrong while nobody could tell her what to do with it.
On Friday, five days after the wedding, Marston Development issued a statement.
Claire read it online.
The company acknowledged that Victoria Marston had attended the reception briefly after receiving “an indirect invitation from an acquaintance” and denied any connection between the company and Daniel Bennett's death.
They described the historical Crestview concerns as “previously reviewed regulatory matters.”
Claire called Ethan immediately.
“What were the regulatory matters?”
“I don't know what they're referring to.”
“Were there investigations?”
“Internal compliance review. Maybe county permitting questions.”
“Any penalties?”
“Not that I remember.”
“So they're already minimizing.”
“Probably.”
Claire paced her mother's kitchen.
“Can they do that?”
“They can say whatever their lawyers approve.”
“What are you doing?”
A pause.
“Meeting my attorney.”
“About criminal charges?”
“Yes.”
Claire stopped.
“You think you could be charged?”
“Yes.”
“For the report?”
“Potentially.”
“After eleven years?”
“I don't know how limitations apply. My lawyer is sorting it out.”
Claire's anger wavered.
Consequences had become real.
Not abstract guilt.
License.
Career.
Court.
Money.
She sat.
“What will you do?”
“If prosecutors ask me to cooperate, I cooperate.”
“Even if you lose your license?”
“Yes.”
She hated how much she needed to hear that.
“You should have done it then.”
“I know.”
“You don't get credit now.”
“I know.”
“Stop agreeing with me.”
A small breath that might have been a laugh.
“Okay.”
Silence.
Claire looked through the window at a neighbor mowing his lawn.
The sound came and went as he turned at the edge of the yard.
“Did you marry me because of my father?”
“No.”
“Did dating me start because of him?”
Ethan took too long.
Claire closed her eyes.
“Answer.”
“At first, partly.”
She pressed her lips together.
“How?”
“When I saw your name, I thought maybe you knew what Daniel had found.”
Claire felt nauseated.
“You dated me for information.”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I answered your messages because I was curious whether you knew anything.”
“That is dating me for information.”
“I didn't ask you about him.”
“You didn't need to. You let me talk.”
“I stopped thinking about that after the first few dates.”
“How convenient.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No, Ethan. You know what it is.”
He did not answer.
Claire continued.
“When did it become real for you?”
“Do you remember the grocery store on Connecticut Avenue?”
She did.
Their fourth date had ended badly after Claire got a work call and spent forty minutes handling a crisis in the frozen-food aisle. Ethan had wandered off and returned with ingredients to make grilled cheese because every restaurant kitchen nearby had closed.
“What about it?”
“You were furious about some donor email. You were standing next to frozen peas calling somebody a coward under your breath.”
Claire remembered.
“I thought you were intense.”
“I was intense.”
“You bought mustard you hated because I said I liked it.”
“That cannot be the moment you fell in love with me.”
“It wasn't.”
“Good.”
“But it was the first night I forgot who your father was.”
Claire sat silently.
That was worse than a perfect declaration because it sounded true.
She whispered, “I don't know what to do with that.”
“You don't have to do anything.”
“Are you asking me to forgive you?”
“No.”
That surprised her.
“What are you asking?”
“For the chance to answer everything.”
Claire looked at the wedding ring on her hand.
She had not removed it.
Not because she had decided anything.
She simply had not.
“I'll call you when I want that.”
“Okay.”
On Saturday morning, Reyes returned with a warrant and three evidence technicians.
The locked safe in Daniel's workshop contained tax records, a revolver registered to him, $1,840 in cash, Claire's birth certificate, and no Crestview files.
The garage produced nothing.
The attic produced mildew.
By noon everyone was dirty and irritated.
One technician found a USB drive taped beneath a drawer in Daniel's workbench.
Claire's heart jumped.
The drive contained twelve years of family photographs and a folder labeled RECIPES.
Ellen laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Claire started laughing too.
Reyes looked mildly offended.
“What's funny?”
“My father couldn't cook.”
The folder held barbecue recipes downloaded from websites.
No evidence.
No corruption.
May you like
Just Daniel apparently planning to become a person he never became.
That evening Claire drove to her own apartment for the first time since the wedding.
