Chapter 4 - Ethan Knew Something)
Brooke stared at him.
“What do you mean you know?”
Ethan pulled the blanket up around himself.
“I heard his voice before.”
“Where?”
“Grandma’s.”
“When?”
“Before she got really sick.”
Brooke sat beside him.
“Tell me everything.”
Ethan hesitated.
“Grandma told me not to.”
“Grandma is gone.”
His eyes filled.
Brooke immediately regretted saying it that way.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
Ethan wiped his nose.
“She said secrets aren’t always lies.”
Brooke thought about their mother.
“Sometimes they are.”
“She said some secrets are shields.”
“That sounds like Grandma.”
Ethan nodded.
“One time Mom and Gary were at the hospital with her. I stayed at Grandma’s with Mrs. Allen next door. I woke up because someone was talking downstairs.”
“Dad?”
“I didn’t know.”
“What did you see?”
“He was in the kitchen.”
“Adam?”
Ethan nodded.
“How old were you?”
“Eight.”
“That was last year.”
Another nod.
Brooke stood.
“Dad was here last year?”
“At Grandma’s.”
“And nobody told me?”
“He asked Grandma if he could see us.”
“What did she say?”
“No.”
The answer hit harder than Brooke expected.
“Why?”
“She said it wasn’t safe.”
“For who?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan continued.
“He left something.”
“What?”
“A green box.”
Brooke looked at him sharply.
“Green?”
“He told Grandma, ‘If anything happens to me, give this to Laura.’”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Grandma give it to Mom?”
“I think so.”
Brooke thought of the hidden kitchen compartment.
The green paint.
The documents.
“What else?”
Ethan twisted the blanket.
“I saw him again.”
“When?”
“Grandma’s funeral.”
Brooke remembered the funeral.
Rain.
Black umbrellas.
Gary guiding Laura through the cemetery.
A few old friends from Evelyn’s church.
A tall man standing far beyond the graves.
Brooke had assumed he was another mourner.
“You saw him there?”
“By a tree.”
Brooke remembered.
He had left before the service ended.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Gary saw me looking.”
“What did he do?”
“He asked who I was watching.”
Ethan’s voice grew quieter.
“I said nobody.”
Brooke felt anger burn through her.
“Did Gary know it was Dad?”
“I think so.”
“What happened afterward?”
“He made Mom cry in the garage.”
Brooke remembered that too.
Gary had said they were arguing over funeral expenses.
Another lie.
Ethan reached beneath Brooke’s mattress.
“What are you doing?”
He removed a crumpled piece of paper.
Green crayon covered one side.
On the other side was a sequence of letters and numbers.
Brooke stared.
“What is this?”
“I found it in Grandma’s coat pocket after the funeral.”
It read:
G17
E9
L40
A42
3K
614
Brooke touched the paper.
“G seventeen.”
“Maybe garage seventeen?”
“Or Gary?”
Ethan shook his head.
“Gary’s forty.”
Brooke looked at him.
“Who else is seventeen?”
He pointed at her.
Brooke.
B17.
Except the letter was clearly G.
Unless it was not a G.
Maybe it was a B written quickly.
B17.
Brooke seventeen.
E9.
Ethan nine.
L40.
Laura forty.
A42.
Adam forty-two.
3K.
Three knocks.
614.
Columbus area code.
Brooke’s pulse accelerated.
“Grandma made this.”
“Probably.”
“Why?”
Ethan shrugged.
Brooke turned the page toward the lamp.
A faint indentation ran through the bottom.
She took a pencil and shaded over it.
Letters appeared.
BOX 317.
“Storage unit,” Brooke whispered.
“What?”
“Grandma rented storage.”
“How do you know?”
“She moved stuff after Grandpa died.”
Brooke searched her memory.
Evelyn had once mentioned a facility off Westerville Road.
“Box three seventeen.”
“Can we go?”
“Not without a car.”
“Mom can take us.”
Brooke looked toward the wall separating her room from the hallway.
“Mom has been lying too.”
Ethan lowered his eyes.
“Do you think she’s bad?”
The question hurt.
Brooke wanted to answer immediately.
She could not.
“I think Mom’s scared.”
“So am I.”
“I know.”
“Does that make me bad?”
“No.”
“Then why does it make her lie?”
Brooke had no answer.
She put an arm around him.
“We figure out what’s true first.”
The next morning, Gary announced he would be working from home.
Brooke knew it was not coincidence.
He sat at the dining table with his laptop positioned so he could see the stairs.
Laura barely spoke.
At ten, Brooke asked to take Ethan to the library.
Gary shook his head.
“No.”
“We need books for his science project.”
“Use the internet.”
“At the library.”
“I said no.”
Brooke stared at him.
“Why are we suddenly prisoners?”
Gary smiled without looking away from the screen.
“Dramatic.”
“Are you afraid we’ll go somewhere?”
That got his attention.
Laura immediately intervened.
“Brooke, help me upstairs.”
Gary looked toward her.
“With what?”
“Laundry.”
“I’ll help.”
Laura forced a smile.
“I think you have work.”
For a moment nobody moved.
Then Gary returned to his laptop.
Upstairs, Laura closed the bedroom door.
Brooke folded her arms.
“You talk to Dad.”
Laura’s face went still.
Brooke watched the truth appear before a word was spoken.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Four months.”
“You told me he abandoned us.”
“I believed he did.”
“For nine years?”
“Yes.”
“You saw evidence yesterday.”
Laura glanced toward the hallway.
“Lower your voice.”
“No.”
“Brooke.”
“Why should I?”
“Because Gary cannot know Adam contacted you.”
“He almost found out last night.”
Laura looked terrified.
“What did you do?”
“I called him.”
“You what?”
“I used the house phone.”
Laura grabbed Brooke’s arms.
“Never do that again.”
Brooke pulled away.
“Why? Because Gary might find out you’ve been lying to him too?”
“Because the minute Gary thinks we have enough evidence to destroy him, he becomes unpredictable.”
“He already is.”
“You have not seen what he is capable of.”
“Then tell me.”
Laura closed her eyes.
When she opened them, she looked older.
“Nine years ago, your father and Gary owned a company together.”
“I know.”
“Gary stole from it.”
“How much?”
“More than eight hundred thousand dollars.”
Brooke stopped.
“He forged Adam’s signature. Created accounts. Redirected payments.”
“And Dad went to prison.”
“Yes.”
“Because you testified?”
Laura’s silence answered.
“You testified against him.”
“I believed the evidence.”
“You put Dad in prison.”
Tears rose in Laura’s eyes.
“I told the truth as I understood it.”
“And then you married Gary.”
“Three years later.”
Brooke laughed bitterly.
“Perfect.”
“Brooke.”
“No.”
“Gary convinced everybody Adam had manipulated us. He helped with lawyers. Bills. Everything.”
“So you married him.”
“I was alone.”
“And now?”
“Now I know what he did.”
“How?”
“Your grandmother.”
Brooke thought of Evelyn.
“What did she find?”
“A record Gary missed.”
“What record?”
Laura looked toward the floor.
“A transfer from one of the stolen accounts into a trust.”
“Whose trust?”
Laura hesitated.
Then whispered, “Yours.”
Brooke stared.
“Mine?”
“And Ethan’s.”
Gary had not only framed Adam.
He had hidden stolen money in accounts connected to the children.
Brooke suddenly understood why the papers inside the kitchen cabinet frightened him.
“Where are the records?”
Laura whispered, “Not here anymore.”
“Where?”
“I moved the originals.”
“To storage unit three seventeen?”
Laura’s eyes widened.
Brooke knew immediately she had guessed correctly.
“Grandma’s storage.”
“How do you know that?”
“Ethan.”
Laura looked toward the bedroom door.
Brooke lowered her voice.
“Mom, what’s inside unit three seventeen?”
Laura looked genuinely frightened now.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s another lie.”
“No. Evelyn never told me.”
“You just said you moved the records.”
“I moved copies to a lawyer. Storage three seventeen is something else.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Brooke stared at her mother.
Downstairs, a chair scraped.
Gary called, “Laura?”
Laura opened the door.
“Coming.”
Before leaving, she turned back.
“Whatever Ethan found, hide it.”
“Why?”
“Because yesterday Gary asked me one question after you went upstairs.”
“What?”
Laura swallowed.
“He asked whether Evelyn left anything for the children.”
Brooke felt a chill.
“What did you say?”
“No.”
“And did he believe you?”
Laura looked toward the staircase.
“I don’t think so.”
May you like
That afternoon, Brooke discovered Ethan’s green paper missing from beneath her mattress.
And Gary was nowhere downstairs.
