Chapter 7: What Comes After Running
Ethan Vance looked like a man who hadn't slept in four days, because he hadn't.
He sat across from Clara in a small room at the police station — not an interrogation room, just an office Reyes had cleared — with his hands wrapped around a paper cup of coffee he hadn't drunk.
Clara sat across from him and waited.
"I didn't know about the bag," he said.
"I need you to believe that."
"I know you didn't," Clara said.
"Reyes told me."
"I panicked.
Mack's man called me and said if I didn't disappear, they'd—" He stopped.
His jaw worked.
"They said Lily."
"I know."
"I should have called the police.
I know that.
I know that now.
I just—" He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
"I thought if I was gone, they'd have no reason to go near you.
I thought I was protecting you."
"You left your wedding ring in a bag of bl00d under our sofa, Ethan."
He looked up.
"I didn't put it there."
"I know.
Scott did." Clara leaned forward.
"But you left.
You left Lily in that apartment.
She was the one who heard the scratching.
She was the one who woke me up.
She is six years old and she spent the last three days thinking her father might be d*ad, and the night we found that bag she watched police officers photograph our living room floor while your mother stood in our hallway screaming that I had kjlled you."
Ethan's face crumpled.
"Clara—"
"I'm not finished." Her voice didn't rise.
It stayed level and clear, which was worse.
"I understand that you were scared.
I understand that Mack threatened us.
But you made a choice to run instead of fight, and that choice put Lily and me in the middle of something we had no way to defend ourselves against.
Do you understand that?"
"Yes," he said.
Barely audible.
"Scott had a spreadsheet with our names on it.
With Lily's name.
With insurance figures next to it." She watched his face.
"Your brother sat down and calculated what we were worth d*ad."
Ethan set the cup down.
His hands were shaking.
"I didn't know how bad it had gotten.
I knew Scott was angry about the company.
I knew he'd been taking money — I confronted him the week before I disappeared.
He told me I had no proof.
He told me if I went to the board, he'd make sure I was the one who looked guilty." He looked at his hands.
"I should have gone anyway."
"Yes," Clara said.
"You should have."
Silence settled between them.
Not comfortable.
Not hostile.
The kind of silence that holds a question neither person is ready to answer yet.
Ethan looked up.
"Is Lily awake?
Can I—"
"She's with a neighbor.
She doesn't know you're here yet." Clara stood.
"I need to think, Ethan.
About what I want to tell her.
About what happens next." She picked up her jacket from the back of the chair.
"I'm glad you're alive.
I mean that.
But I need you to understand that glad you're alive and ready to go back to normal are not the same thing."
She walked to the door.
Stopped with her hand on the frame.
"You told me the Harborview project required decisions I wouldn't understand," she said.
"Do you remember that?"
"Yes."
"I understood every single one of them.
I just wasn't allowed in the room." She opened the door.
May you like
"That's also something we need to talk about."
She left him sitting with the cold coffee and the weight of everything he hadn't said in time.
