Chapter 7: What Ethan Had on His Phone
They didn't leave the restaurant until nearly midnight.
Ethan was still there.
He was sitting on the back step outside the kitchen door, his jacket pulled around him, when Lucy came out with Jack.
He stood up when he saw them.
"They said I can go," he said.
"But they took my number."
"Good," Lucy said.
He shifted his weight.
"I should have said something.
That night.
I keep thinking about it."
"Ethan." Lucy stopped.
"You were fifteen."
"Sixteen."
"You were sixteen, and she was your employer, and you didn't know what you had heard.
There is nothing to forgive." She looked at him directly.
"But I want to ask you something."
He nodded.
"You came in with your phone already out.
Before anyone said anything to you.
Before you knew what was happening." She paused.
"Were you recording?"
Ethan reached into his jacket pocket.
He held up his phone.
"I started when she told me to go home," he said.
"When she used that voice.
I've heard her use it before, when she doesn't want something getting out.
I didn't know what I was recording.
I just — I knew something was wrong."
Lucy looked at the phone.
"Does it have her offering me money to change my statement?"
"It has everything from when she walked over to you.
Yeah."
Lucy was quiet for a moment.
"You need to give that to Officer Carver," she said.
"Tonight, before you leave.
Don't send it to anyone.
Don't post it anywhere.
Walk back in there and hand it directly to Carver."
"Okay."
"And Ethan." She put her hand briefly on his arm.
"Thank you.
For staying.
You didn't have to."
He looked at Jack.
"He was hitting a freezer door with a meat tenderizer," he said.
"I wasn't going to leave."
Jack almost smiled.
It was the first time all night.
Ethan went back inside.
Lucy and Jack sat on the step together and waited for Mark to finish with the officers.
The alley behind the restaurant was quiet.
A streetlight buzzed at the far end.
Somewhere two streets over, a dog was barking at something and then stopped.
"Are we going home?" Jack said.
"Where's home?" Lucy asked.
He thought about it.
"Grandma's, maybe.
For now."
"That sounds right."
"Will you come?"
Lucy looked at him.
He was twelve years old and he had broken a padlock with a meat tenderizer because he had refused, for seven months, to believe what every adult around him had insisted was true.
"Yes," she said.
"I'll come."
Mark appeared in the doorway behind them.
He had his keys in his hand and his jacket over his arm and he looked like a man who had aged ten years since dinner.
"Carver wants to see you before we go," he said to Lucy.
"Ethan gave her his phone.
She said it changes the obstruction charge." He paused.
"She said Diane's lawyer went very quiet when they told him."
Lucy stood up.
"Good," she said.
She went back inside.
Mark sat down on the step where she had been.
Jack stayed beside him.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Then Jack said, "You should have believed me."
Mark didn't argue.
He didn't explain.
He just sat with it.
May you like
"I know," he said.
Jack nodded once, like that was the beginning of something, not the end of it.
