Chapter 7
I stared at him.
For a second, I almost believed him.
The fear in his eyes looked real.
The shaking.
The sweat on his forehead.
But then I remembered the offshore account.
Three million dollars.
Deposited yesterday.
I remembered the insurance policies.
Four million dollars each.
Double indemnity.
I wrenched my arms out of his grip.
“Are you insane? Run? With two seven-year-olds? Where? To Mexico? To Canada? You really think the police won’t find us? You really think I’m going to become a fugitive because you couldn’t keep your hands out of the till?”
Ethan’s eyes darted around.
Like he expected cops to jump out of the bushes at any second.
“Sarah, listen to me. If I go to prison, the kids have nothing. No father. No child support. Nothing. But if we leave now—”
“If we leave now, they have a mother who’s an accomplice to a felony. They grow up on the run. Never staying in one place more than a month. Never going to a real school. Never having real friends. Is that what you want for them?”
My voice rose.
I forced it down.
Glanced at the bedroom windows upstairs.
Still dark.
No movement.
“You go if you want to, Ethan. But I’m not going anywhere. And neither are the kids. You want to run? Fine. But you do it alone. And when you get caught—and you will get caught—you’ll have another ten years added to your sentence for flight.”
Ethan’s face crumpled.
He sank down onto the front steps.
Put his head in his hands.
“I’m trapped,” he whispered. “There’s no way out.”
I sat down next to him.
Not too close.
Close enough to talk.
“Then don’t run. Turn yourself in. Cooperate. Give back every penny. Tell them everything. You’re a first-time offender. You’ve got two kids. A good lawyer could get you five years. Maybe less with good behavior. The kids would visit. They’d know you made a mistake. But they’d respect you for facing it.”
He looked at me.
Tears streaming down his face.
“Three million, Sarah. I took three million dollars. They don’t give you five years for that. They give you twenty. Maybe thirty. I’d be in my seventies when I got out. Noah would be thirty-seven. Emily would be thirty-two. They’d barely know me.”
He was right.
Three million dollars was a lot of money.
Enough to ruin a lot of lives.
Enough to keep him in prison until he was an old man.
“Then give it back,” I said. “All of it. The offshore money. The rings. Whatever you have left. Every penny. It shows remorse. It helps.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated.
Long enough that I knew there was another secret.
Another lie.
“Ethan. Why can’t you give it back?”
He stood up.
Paced the length of the porch.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“Because it’s gone.”
I stood up too.
“Gone? Three million dollars? How do you lose three million dollars in two years?”
He stopped pacing.
Looked at me.
His eyes were dead.
“I didn’t lose it. I paid it.”
“Paid it? Paid who?”
“Blackmailers.”
The word hung in the morning air.
Heavy.
Final.
“For the last two years,” he said, “someone has been blackmailing me. Someone who knows about Emily. About Danielle. About the embezzlement. They send me texts. Emails. Letters. Every month. Pay up, or they tell you. Tell Madison. Tell my boss. Tell everyone.”
My mind reeled.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. They use burner phones. Fake email addresses. The money goes to different accounts every time. I’ve tried to trace them. I’ve hired private investigators. Nothing. They’re ghosts.”
“How much have you paid them?”
“Almost all of it. Two point seven million. Over two years. That’s why I couldn’t pay you more for Noah’s school. That’s why I couldn’t buy Emily the house Danielle wanted. That’s why I had to keep embezzling more and more just to keep up with the payments.”
He ran a hand through his hair.
“I married Madison because her father is rich. I thought if I married her, I could borrow enough to pay off the blackmailers for good. Start fresh. But then Madison found out about Danielle. And the wedding blew up. And now the auditors are onto me. And the blackmailers—they’re demanding the last three hundred thousand. By the end of the week. Or they’re going to the police themselves.”
Everything was falling into place.
The desperate marriage to Madison.
The second ring for Danielle.
The lies.
The offshore account.
All of it.
One desperate choice after another.
All to keep a secret that had never needed to be a secret in the first place.
If he’d just told me about Emily three years ago.
If he’d just been honest.
None of this would have happened.
“Have you told Danielle any of this?” I said.
He shook his head.
“I was going to. Last night. But then the kids met. And everything was so perfect for five minutes. I couldn’t ruin it.”
“You have to tell her. Today. She deserves to know. We both do. Because whoever these people are—they’re not going to stop. Not now. Not when everything is already falling apart. If anything, they’ll get worse.”
The front door opened.
Noah stood in the doorway.
Rubbing his eyes.
Emily behind him.
Holding his hand.
“Mommy? Why are you yelling?”
I forced a smile.
Wiped the tears from my face I hadn’t realized were there.
“We’re not yelling, baby. We’re just talking. Grown-up stuff.”
Noah looked at Ethan.
“Dad? Why are you crying?”
Ethan knelt down.
Opened his arms.
Noah ran to him.
Emily followed.
Ethan wrapped both of them in a hug.
Held them tight.
Like he was afraid if he let go, they’d disappear forever.
“Dad’s just sad right now, buddy. But it’s going to be okay. I promise. Everything is going to be okay.”
He looked at me over their heads.
His eyes pleaded with me.
*Don’t tell them. Not yet. Please.*
I nodded.
Not because I believed him.
But because they were seven and two.
Because they didn’t need to know about prison and blackmail and three million dollars.
Not today.
Not on their first day as brother and sister.
“C’mon, kids,” I said. “Let’s go inside. I’ll make pancakes. Chocolate chip. Your favorite.”
Noah cheered.
Emily clapped her hands.
“Cake!”
“Close enough,” I said.
We went inside.
Ethan hung back for a second.
Pulled me aside.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“Don’t thank me yet. You’ve got twenty-four hours. That’s it. Tomorrow morning, we all sit down—me, you, Danielle. And you tell us everything. Every single detail. About the embezzlement. About the blackmail. About who you think is doing this. No more lies. No more secrets. If you hold back even one thing… I go to the police myself. And I tell them everything. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“I understand. Twenty-four hours. I’ll have it all ready. I promise.”
“Your promises don’t mean much to me anymore, Ethan.”
“I know. But this time I mean it. For the kids.”
“For the kids,” I repeated.
We went inside.
The kids were already at the table.
Arguing about who got more chocolate chips.
Ethan stood in the doorway.
Watching them.
A look on his face I’d never seen before.
Not fear.
Not shame.
Something else.
Determination.
Like he’d made a decision.
A terrible, final decision.
I didn’t know what it was yet.
But I knew.
May you like
Whatever it was.
It was going to break all of our hearts.
