Chapter 2
“My brother’s children.”
Her expression changed slightly.
“I’m sorry about Ethan.”
“You knew him?”
“No. But everybody who’s worked financial crimes in this city knows somebody who knew you.”
I almost smiled.
“Comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
She opened a notebook.
“Can we talk?”
We went into an empty family room.
She closed the door.
“What exactly did your people do at Rebecca Hale’s house?”
“Called police after I told them to check whether anyone was there.”
“Your people don’t usually do welfare checks.”
“No.”
“You planning to handle this yourself?”
There it was.
The question behind the question.
“No.”
Alvarez studied me.
“That answer surprise you?”
“A little.”
“It surprises me too.”
“Then why?”
I thought about Leo asking whether he had done okay.
About Maya saving him half a cracker.
About Ethan making a six-year-old memorize three phone numbers because he had apparently feared something he never explained to me.
“Because whatever happened in that house belongs to them,” I said. “Not to my reputation.”
Alvarez’s expression became less guarded.
“That’s a good answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
“Fair enough.”
She flipped a page.
“The hidden room contained financial documents, copies of custody paperwork, letters, and an external hard drive.”
My mind caught on one phrase.
“Custody paperwork?”
“Unsigned drafts.”
“Between Rebecca and Ethan?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“We haven’t authenticated everything.”
“What else?”
She hesitated.
“Your brother appears to have been documenting household finances for months before his death.”
That made sense.
Ethan documented everything.
He once tracked our mother’s grocery spending for six months because she insisted supermarket prices had doubled.
But Alvarez continued.
“He also documented conversations.”
My jaw tightened.
“With Rebecca?”
“We believe so.”
“About the children?”
“Some of them.”
I leaned back.
“What exactly was Ethan afraid of?”
“That,” Alvarez said, “is what we’re trying to understand.”
Rebecca called me at 11:17.
I stared at her name until the ringing stopped.
Then she called again.
And again.
On the fourth attempt, Alvarez looked at my phone.
“You should probably answer eventually.”
“Why?”
“Because avoiding her won’t make anything clearer.”
I stepped into the hospital courtyard.
Night air rolled warm over the concrete.
I answered.
“Thomas.”
Rebecca sounded breathless.
“Where are they?”
“With doctors.”
“Are they okay?”
I said nothing.
“Thomas, please.”
“You told me Leo wasn’t sleeping.”
“He wasn’t.”
“You told me Maya was asking for Ethan.”
“She was.”
“You told me they needed space.”
“They did.”
“Did you know Leo’s leg was injured?”
Silence.
Then, very softly, “Yes.”
The city seemed to disappear around me.
“How?”
“He fell.”
“When?”
“Last month.”
“And you didn’t take him to a doctor?”
“I tried.”
That answer was so unexpected I didn’t speak.
Rebecca began crying.
Not loudly.
Not theatrically.
Just the exhausted sound of someone whose words had finally reached a wall.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can’t over the phone.”
“Try.”
“Thomas, I know what this looks like.”
“What does it look like?”
“Like I stopped being able to manage anything after Ethan died.”
There was something in her tone that made my anger hesitate.
Not disappear.
Never that.
But hesitate.
“Where are you?”
“With an attorney.”
“Why?”
“Because the police searched my house.”
“Why would you need an attorney if you have nothing to explain?”
“Because I have a great deal to explain.”
That sentence stayed with me.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes?”
“If you care about those children, tell the truth to the investigators. All of it.”
“I do care.”
“Then prove it by cooperating.”
She went quiet.
Then she said, “Ask Leo about the blue notebook.”
“What blue notebook?”
But she had already ended the call.
At midnight, I called Mrs. Bennett.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Is this Margaret Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Thomas Moretti.”
The silence that followed told me Ethan had mentioned me.
Finally she said, “I wondered when you’d call.”
That was not what I expected.
“You knew my brother?”
“For sixteen years.”
“Leo says Ethan told him to call you if adults started arguing about papers.”
Margaret exhaled.
“Where are the children?”
“At the hospital. They’re safe.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“You knew something was wrong?”
“I knew Ethan was worried.”
“About Rebecca?”
“About what would happen if he died.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“He was forty-one.”
“He also had a congenital heart condition.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“What?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“He found out eight months before he died.”
I sat down.
Ethan.
Healthy Ethan.
The brother who ran five miles every Sunday morning.
The brother who had looked me directly in the eye two Christmases ago and said, You worry too much about things you can’t control.
“He knew?”
“He knew there was a risk.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Margaret’s voice softened.
“Maybe because he knew exactly what you would do.”
She was probably right.
I would have found the best cardiologist.
Then another one.
Then a third.
I would have moved every appointment forward and treated time itself as if it were an employee who needed reminding who signed the checks.
Ethan would have hated it.
“What papers was he worried about?”
“He was revising his estate plan.”
“Why hide that from me?”
“He didn’t hide it. You’re named in it.”
That surprised me even more.
“As what?”
“Temporary guardian.”
I stood so abruptly the chair scraped the floor.
“What?”
“If something happened to both Ethan and Rebecca, or if Rebecca became unable to care for the children, you were his first choice.”
“But Rebecca is their stepmother.”
“Yes.”
“Not their biological mother.”
May you like
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
