Chapter 18 - What He Knew
Claire stared at the photograph. “Tell me this isn't what it looks like.”
Ethan recognized the day. He had visited Cedar Point before a trip to Chicago. A site supervisor showed him the crack. Ethan asked whether the wall could wait until a full engineering crew arrived. The supervisor said yes. Ethan wrote the note on a work order.
“Monday was after the flood,” Claire said.
“I didn't know it was going to fail.”
“You saw the damage.”
“I did.”
“And you told them to wait.”
Ethan couldn't escape the plainness of those words. He had been worried about a project deadline. The supervisor had been worried about overtime. Residents had complained for months, and he'd accepted one man's reassurance because it was easier than stopping construction.
“I'm not asking you to make this okay,” he said. “It wasn't okay.”
Maya stood at the doorway, having heard enough. For a moment she looked like she might walk away. Instead she entered and laid Elena's last written complaint on the bed.
“She wrote this six days before she died,” Maya said. “She said water was coming through the wall. They told her she was imagining it.”
Ethan read the page with shaking hands. In the margin Elena had written: I DON'T WANT TO BE RIGHT. I WANT US TO BE SAFE.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
Maya answered, “Sorry is what you say when you spill coffee. This is what you do afterward.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“Tell the investigators exactly what happened. Give back the money. Stop hiding behind people in expensive suits.”
“I will.”
He spent the afternoon with Ortiz and two state investigators. He turned over emails, signed statements, and agreed not to make any claim that Sloane alone had caused the Cedar Point disaster. He might face charges. He might lose his company. He had no right to bargain for forgiveness in advance.
Later, Claire found him sitting outside the NICU, watching their daughter breathe through the glass.
“I still love you,” she said. “That's what makes this so hard.”
Ethan nodded. “I know.”
Her phone rang. The caller ID was blocked. She answered before he could stop her.
May you like
Sloane's voice came through, calm and close.
“Congratulations on the baby, Claire. I hear she looks just like her mother.”
