Chương 10
Claire looked at him.
“I asked Evan if you had agreed. He said you would after he explained.”
“And you believed that?”
“No.”
“What changed?”
“He told Sophie you already knew.”
Claire remembered Marisol’s account.
Not yet.
Ryan rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead.
“Then Sophie asked him why you hadn’t called.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
“He told her your phone was broken.”
Claire stared at him.
“He told her that?”
“Yeah.”
“That wasn’t in her interview.”
“She might not remember.”
Claire looked away.
Ryan continued.
“After she went upstairs, we fought.”
“What did you say?”
“That he needed to take her home.”
“What did he say?”
“That if he took her back before he had the Arizona arrangement ready, you’d panic and ruin everything.”
Claire laughed softly.
“There’s that word.”
“What?”
“Panic.”
Ryan looked at her.
“He used it a lot.”
Claire went still.
Ryan’s face changed.
“You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“He said you’d been having panic attacks.”
Claire stared at him.
“I had one panic attack.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
She had been in a packed supermarket six weeks after returning to work after a difficult period of exhaustion. Her vision narrowed. Her hands tingled. She thought she was having a heart attack.
She went to urgent care.
Later she spoke to a therapist for a few months.
Evan had been kind.
He drove her to the first appointment.
He held her hand in the parking lot.
Ryan said quietly, “He made it sound ongoing.”
Claire stood.
Ryan stood too.
“He told me you’d been unstable.”
The word landed without drama.
That made it uglier.
Claire looked at her house.
The curtains she had chosen.
The hydrangeas she forgot to water.
Sophie’s bicycle on its side near the garage.
All the evidence of a life she had assumed was shared.
“He was building a version of me.”
Ryan nodded.
“I think so.”
“For who?”
“I don’t know.”
That frightened Claire more than a confident answer would have.
Ryan reached into his pocket slowly.
Claire tensed.
He pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“I wrote down everything I remember.”
She did not take it.
“Give it to the deputy.”
“I did. This is a copy.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Okay.”
He put it back.
Claire looked at him.
“Why did you abandon the rental car?”
Ryan breathed out.
“Tuesday night Evan told me to drive Sophie to Arizona Wednesday morning.”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
“He what?”
“He said he’d meet us there.”
Claire stared.
“I told him no.”
“And?”
“He got angry.”
“How angry?”
“Not violent.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Ryan looked uncomfortable.
“He said if I backed out, he’d tell the IRS about the subcontracting account and let me deal with it alone.”
Claire absorbed that.
“He blackmailed you.”
Ryan shook his head.
“I helped him. Don’t make me cleaner than I am.”
She looked at him.
That was the first thing he had said that made her trust him a fraction more.
“What did you do?”
“I waited until Sophie fell asleep. Packed the car. I thought I’d take her home.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Ryan stared at the steps.
“Because I got scared.”
“Of Evan?”
“Of everything.”
He told Claire he drove south for almost an hour, stopped at the closed service station, and sat in the parking lot trying to decide whether returning Sophie would expose his role in the financial scheme.
He hated himself for the next part.
He left the rental car there.
Took Sophie’s backpack.
Forgot her book.
Called an old friend named Caleb who lived twenty minutes away and asked for a ride.
Caleb picked them up.
Ryan told him the rental car had broken down.
He brought Sophie to the lake house Wednesday afternoon in Caleb’s truck and invented the plumbing story.
“Why not tell me then?”
Ryan looked at her.
“Because every hour I waited made the truth worse.”
Claire understood that too.
A lie acquired weight.
Eventually people carried it simply because dropping it would crush them.
She said, “Sophie trusted you.”
Ryan’s eyes reddened.
“I know.”
This time she let him say it.
“You need to leave.”
He nodded.
At the sidewalk, he stopped.
“I’m going to cooperate with everything.”
“Good.”
“I might get charged.”
Claire did not answer.
He gave a small shrug.
“I probably should.”
“Maybe.”
Ryan looked down the street.
“I don’t want Sophie thinking I disappeared because I don’t care.”
Claire’s anger rose again.
“You do not get to ask her to make you feel better.”
“I’m not.”
“Then don’t.”
He nodded.
Claire watched him walk away.
That evening, Evan called.
She almost ignored it.
Then she answered because avoiding him had begun to feel too much like the old marriage.
“Hi.”
His voice was careful.
“Hi.”
Silence.
Claire sat at the kitchen table.
Sophie was upstairs video-calling Mia from camp, trying to explain her absence without explaining anything.
Evan said, “Ryan came to see you.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“He told my attorney.”
Of course.
“I’m going to ask you one question,” Claire said.
“Okay.”
“Did you tell people I was mentally unstable?”
Silence.
Evan exhaled.
“Claire.”
“Yes or no?”
“I said you’d had anxiety.”
“To who?”
“Ryan.”
“Who else?”
“This is being twisted.”
“To who?”
His tone changed.
“I was worried about you.”
Claire almost admired the speed of it.
“You were worried about me while copying my bank statements and planning to move our daughter.”
“I was planning for a worst-case scenario.”
“You were creating one.”
“You threatened to leave.”
“Yes.”
“And take Sophie.”
“Yes.”
“You keep acting like that was nothing.”
“I would have left with her because I believed you were lying about money.”
“You were.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew enough then.”
Claire stood and walked to the window.
Outside, the evening was warm. A child rode past on a scooter.
Evan said, “I thought if everything came out at once, you would react emotionally.”
May you like
She laughed softly.
“I am reacting emotionally.”
