Chapter 7: Scott Makes His Move
The uniformed officer reached Scott before he could finish dialing.
Clara heard it all from the living room — the sharp instruction, the sound of the phone being placed on the table, Scott's voice climbing into something that was almost a shout before he caught himself and brought it back down.
Holt appeared in the doorway.
"He tried to make a call."
"To who?"
"He says his lawyer.
We're checking." Holt's expression said he didn't fully believe it.
"I need to ask — is there anyone else connected to this family who might need to be located tonight?
Anyone Ethan mentioned as a concern?"
Clara thought.
"There's a man named Greaves.
Phillip Greaves.
He's the financial director of Vance Family Properties.
Ethan mentioned him twice in the last month — once saying he was being pressured, once saying he'd asked Greaves to pull certain records and Greaves had stalled."
Holt wrote the name.
"Relationship to Scott?"
"Greaves has worked for the family for twelve years.
He's loyal to Beatrice.
Ethan always said that — Greaves answers to Beatrice, not to the board."
Holt nodded and stepped back into the hallway.
Clara heard him on the radio.
She heard Greaves's name spoken twice.
Then Scott's voice again, from behind the closed door — quieter now, which was somehow worse than the shouting.
"You have nothing.
You have a child's story and a letter from a man who isn't here to confirm it.
That's not evidence.
That's a wife who didn't know what her husband was involved in and is now trying to redirect attention."
A pause.
Then Holt: "And what was he involved in, Mr.
Vance?"
Silence.
"You just said she didn't know what her husband was involved in.
So tell me.
What was he involved in?"
Another silence, longer.
"I'd like my lawyer now," Scott said.
Clara closed her eyes.
She could feel the shape of what Scott had almost said — the outline of it, the weight.
He had started to build a story about Ethan.
A story that would make Ethan the problem.
The threat.
The man who had brought this on himself.
She thought about Ethan sitting with Lily for an hour that last afternoon.
Reading to her.
Letting her show him things on her tablet.
Kissing Clara on the top of her head.
He hadn't brought this on himself.
He'd found something.
And finding it had made him dangerous to people who had spent years building something they didn't want found.
Reyes came and sat near her.
Not close enough to intrude.
Just present.
"You're doing well," Reyes said quietly.
"I don't feel like I'm doing anything," Clara said.
"You're keeping her calm." Reyes nodded toward Lily.
"And you're thinking clearly.
Both of those things matter."
Clara looked at her daughter.
"She saw Beatrice come in that night and she didn't say anything until tonight.
She's been carrying that for three days."
"She was protecting you," Reyes said.
"She didn't know what it meant.
She just knew it felt like a secret."
Clara's throat tightened.
She pressed it back down.
Holt returned.
His face had changed again — the tightening around the eyes was more pronounced now, and there was something else underneath it.
Something that looked like it might be urgency.
"Daniel Farro answered," he said.
"He's been expecting contact since yesterday.
Ethan met with him ten days ago and gave him a sealed envelope with instructions.
Farro says the envelope contains financial records, internal communications, and a signed statement from Ethan describing what he found in the company accounts." Holt paused.
"He also says Ethan told him that if Clara didn't make contact within seventy-two hours of his disappearance, Farro was to go directly to the district attorney."
Clara stared at him.
"Seventy-two hours."
"Ethan disappeared three days ago," Holt said.
"Farro was going to call the DA tomorrow morning."
The room shifted.
Everything that had felt like chaos began to arrange itself into something with edges.
Ethan had built a failsafe.
He had planned for the possibility that he wouldn't make it back.
He had given Clara a path and given Farro a deadline and trusted that one of them would move in time.
"What was in the accounts?" Clara asked.
"What did he find?"
Holt looked at her steadily.
"Farro wouldn't say over the phone.
But he used the word fraud.
And he used the word significant." He paused.
"He also said there's a second name on the statement.
Someone inside the company who helped Ethan document everything."
"Who?"
Holt looked at his notepad.
"A woman named Carol Greaves." He looked up.
"Phillip Greaves's wife.
She works in accounts receivable."
Clara sat back.
Phillip Greaves — the man loyal to Beatrice, the man who had stalled when Ethan asked for records — had a wife who had helped Ethan build a case against the family.
She thought about what that meant inside a household.
The conversations that must have happened.
The risk Carol Greaves had taken.
"Is she safe?" Clara asked.
"We're checking on that now," Holt said.
From the hallway came the sound of the front door opening.
New voices.
Clara recognized the formal cadence of it — more detectives, or someone from a higher unit.
Holt straightened.
"The financial crimes division is sending someone over," he said.
"This has moved beyond a missing persons situation."
He said it carefully, the way people say things when they want to be accurate without being cruel.
Beyond a missing persons situation.
Clara looked at Ethan's letter, still folded in her hand.
May you like
She thought: I know.
I think I've known since the ring.
