Chapter 5 - Grant’s VersionBy sunrise, Grant had an attorney.
By eight, he had a story.
By nine, that story had reached local television.
A representative for Hale Ridge Outfitters released a statement calling the incident “a tragic family accident involving an inexperienced child who panicked during a private training exercise.”
Sarah read the statement from Ethan’s hospital room.
Private training exercise.
The words made her hands shake.
Grant had turned attempted murder into public relations.
Ortiz entered carrying coffee.
“He’s controlling the narrative,” Sarah said.
“He’s trying.”
“People are going to believe him.”
“People aren’t the jury.”
Sarah looked toward Ethan, asleep behind a curtain.
“Can you arrest him?”
“Not yet.”
Sarah stared.
“You have Ethan’s statement.”
“We do.”
“You have the trust.”
“We have motive.”
“You have the delayed call and false location.”
“We have suspicious behavior.”
“And the camera.”
“Still being processed.”
Sarah stood.
“What are you waiting for?”
Ortiz answered calmly.
“For enough that his attorney can’t turn a fast arrest into an argument that we built the case backward.”
Sarah hated patience.
Grant had always depended on other people being patient.
He delayed.
He explained.
He apologized.
He made everyone wait until anger became exhaustion.
Then he called exhaustion forgiveness.
By afternoon, Grant’s lawyer requested access to Ethan.
The answer was no.
Sarah obtained an emergency protective order barring Grant from direct contact while the investigation continued.
Grant responded by filing a motion accusing Sarah of interfering with his parental rights.
“Of course he did,” Sarah said.
Miriam sat beside her in the courthouse waiting area the next morning.
“It isn’t about seeing Ethan.”
“What is it about?”
“Creating a record. Grant wants to look like the concerned father being unfairly excluded.”
Sarah laughed bitterly.
“He pushed him off a cliff.”
“Then we make sure every court that touches this case knows why contact is unsafe.”
The judge maintained the temporary no-contact order pending a fuller hearing.
Grant walked past Sarah outside the courtroom.
For one instant, surrounded by attorneys and deputies, his mask slipped.
His eyes met hers.
Cold.
Accusing.
As if she had betrayed him.
Sarah understood then that Grant did not think of himself as a monster.
He thought of himself as a man whose plans had been interrupted.
That frightened her more.
That evening Noah Bell visited the hospital.
He carried a clear evidence envelope.
Inside was a child-sized glove coated with reddish dust.
“We found this near the west notch,” he told Ortiz.
Sarah recognized it as Ethan’s missing right glove.
Noah spread a map across the table.
“Grant told us Ethan went over here.”
He pointed north.
“The glove was found here.”
West.
“The smartwatch ping came from here.”
Farther below the west notch.
“And the branch damage where we recovered Ethan lines up directly under it.”
Ortiz nodded.
“So Grant was at the west notch.”
“Yes.”
“He could claim confusion.”
“He could.”
Noah tapped the map.
“But there’s something else.”
He produced photographs.
Fresh tire tracks.
Grant’s SUV had been parked near a restricted maintenance path only seven hundred yards from the west notch.
The northern location Grant described was nearly two miles from that parking area on foot.
“He would have had to walk past the actual jump site, then continue for forty minutes, then somehow confuse the two,” Noah said.
Sarah looked at Ortiz.
“That’s not confusion.”
“No.”
Noah hesitated.
“I also found something wedged about thirty feet below the cliff.”
He held up another evidence bag.
A fragment of black plastic.
The broken corner of Ethan’s action camera casing.
“The camera in the hospital is missing this exact section.”
Ortiz took it.
Sarah noticed a tiny metal piece embedded in the plastic.
“What’s that?”
Noah looked at her.
“Mounting hardware.”
“For the camera?”
“I don’t think so.”
He glanced at Ortiz.
“It looks like Ethan’s camera hit something else before it fell.”
“What?”
“A second camera.”
Grant had not simply taken Ethan to the cliff.
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He may have filmed it from two angles.
And only one camera had been recovered.
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