Chapter 13 - A Wedding Without a Marriage
While Nora remained under observation, Claire asked Ethan to meet her at her attorney's office instead of their honeymoon suite.
Ethan arrived in yesterday's wedding shoes and a wrinkled shirt. “Can we please have one normal conversation?”
Claire folded her hands. “Did you witness Nora's forged deed?”
Ethan stared at the floor. “I thought it was a temporary transfer.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know the signature wasn't hers?”
He rubbed his face. “Mom said Nora had agreed. She showed me a consent form.”
“Did you speak to Nora?”
“No.”
“And after you realized?”
Ethan's eyes filled. “Victor said he'd call in the debt on the restaurant. We'd lose everything.”
Claire drew back. They had spent two years saving for a small restaurant of their own. Ethan had claimed their investment money came from a business grant. Now she knew it had been borrowed through Victor's network.
“What else did you sign?”
Ethan whispered, “The custody petition. I didn't know Adrian's name was fake until afterward.”
Claire stood. “You watched your sister-in-law get loaded into an ambulance, and you still tried to protect your mother.”
“I was scared.”
“So was Lily. She didn't lie.”
Her attorney slid a sheet of paper across the desk. It explained steps Claire could take to separate their finances while they decided whether to continue the marriage. Claire hadn't come to threaten Ethan. She'd come prepared.
“You need your own lawyer,” she said. “And you need to tell the police everything.”
Ethan gripped the chair arms. “If I do, Victor will destroy me.”
“Maybe. But if you don't, you'll destroy yourself.”
That evening, Ethan walked into Detective Jackson's office with three envelopes and a flash drive. He gave a recorded statement about false invoices, documents Patricia had ordered him to sign, and messages from Victor's assistant.
Then he produced a recent bank withdrawal receipt.
“What's this?” Jackson asked.
“Mom emptied a safe-deposit box this morning. Victor told her to bring the contents to his cabin.”
“Where's the cabin?”
Ethan swallowed. “That's the problem. My dad used to own it. Nora's father did the renovations.”
Inside one envelope was a photograph of the cabin's cellar.
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Scrawled on the back were Thomas Bennett's words: IF I GO MISSING, SEARCH UNDER THE STAIRS.
