Chapter 11 - THE NIGHT ETHAN FORGOT
Ethan had been twenty-one when Samuel Reed died.
He was studying law at a university ninety miles away.
At least, that was what he had always believed.
“I was at a party,” he told Claire in the station corridor. “I drank too much. I woke up in my apartment the next afternoon.”
“You don’t remember the night?”
“Only pieces.”
“What pieces?”
“A car. Rain. My father arguing with someone.”
“With my father?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire searched his face.
“You told me you had never met Samuel.”
“I didn’t remember meeting him.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“I know.”
Nora requested Ethan’s old phone records.
They showed that his phone had connected to a tower near Bellweather Storage shortly before midnight.
Samuel’s accident occurred at 1:10 a.m., eight miles away.
Ethan sat alone in an interview room while Nora questioned him.
He remembered receiving a call from Richard.
He remembered driving to the warehouse.
He remembered seeing Margaret beside Samuel’s van.
Then everything became smoke, shouting and broken glass.
“Did you attack Samuel?” Nora asked.
“No.”
“Did you see who did?”
Ethan pressed both hands against his forehead.
“There was another man.”
“Adrian?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened after the argument?”
“My mother gave me water.”
Nora paused.
“Water?”
“She said I was drunk.”
“Do you believe the drink was drugged?”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
Claire watched from behind the observation glass.
She wanted to enter and take his hand.
She also wanted to demand why his forgotten memories had become another weapon pointed at her family.
A technician interrupted with results from the ledger found in Box 317.
The entries documented payments from the Hale Foundation to clinics, judges, social workers and private institutions.
One payment had been made to Margaret the day before Samuel’s death.
Another was made to a company owned by Helen Reed.
Helen denied knowing anything about it.
The company had been created using her identity.
Money had been moved in her name to make it appear that Samuel accepted a bribe.
“Someone prepared to frame both my parents,” Claire said.
Nora nodded.
“And they may have staged Samuel’s death.”
A call arrived from the secure location where Diane Mercer was being held.
She had disappeared.
No windows were broken.
No alarms sounded.
The officer assigned to her door remembered admitting a federal agent whose credentials later proved false.
On the bed, Diane left a message written across the wall.
THE FIRST SON WANTS HIS SISTERS BACK.
Claire read the photograph twice.
“Sisters,” she said.
Not sister.
Plural.
Ethan looked at her stomach.
“He could mean the twins.”
“They aren’t born.”
“Then who else?”
Claire thought of Helen’s biological daughter, the baby taken from the clinic.
“My mother’s missing child.”
Nora began issuing orders.
Before anyone could leave, Claire’s phone vibrated.
A blocked number had sent a photograph.
Diane stood alive beside a dark-haired woman whose face was turned from the camera.
Behind them rose the ruins of Bellweather Storage.
Beneath the image was a message.
BRING MARGARET’S KEY.
May you like
COME WITHOUT POLICE.
ASK HELEN WHICH DAUGHTER SHE CHOSE.
