Chapter 7 - The House Ethan Thought Was EmptyBy morning, Claire was discharged under a temporary alias.
The sheriff’s office moved her to a small county-owned apartment normally used for protected witnesses.
Claire hated every part of it.
The beige walls.
The borrowed clothes.
The fact that Ethan was sleeping freely in a hotel while she hid.
But Sheriff Daniel Mercer explained the strategy clearly.
“As long as Parker believes you’re missing, he behaves like a man who expects you to stay dead.”
“And if he learns I survived?”
“He becomes a man cleaning up mistakes.”
Claire understood.
So she agreed to disappear for one more day.
Ruiz brought Claire’s laptop from her office.
Ava sat beside her.
“We need to check the cameras.”
Claire’s home security system stored recordings online.
Ethan knew the alarm code, but Claire had never given him access to the cloud account.
The footage from the previous night loaded slowly.
7:31 p.m.
Ethan entered through the front door.
Claire’s heart reacted to seeing him.
Even now.
That infuriated her.
He looked exhausted.
His clothes had changed.
His expression suggested grief.
If Claire hadn’t known the truth, she might have believed it.
Ethan walked directly upstairs.
Claire switched camera angles.
Bedroom.
There was no camera inside.
Hallway only.
Ethan emerged eight minutes later carrying a folder.
Claire leaned closer.
“My estate documents.”
“How can you tell?” Ava asked.
“Blue leather binder.”
Ethan went downstairs.
Office.
He stayed inside seventeen minutes.
Then exited without the binder.
“What did he do in there?”
Claire opened another interface.
Her office contained a motion camera facing the windows.
She had installed it after a burglary in the neighborhood.
The recording appeared.
Ethan entered.
Closed the door.
Placed the folder on the desk.
Then removed his phone.
He called someone.
The camera had no audio.
Claire watched his mouth.
Ava moved closer.
“Can you read lips?”
“No.”
Ethan opened Claire’s filing cabinet.
He removed tax documents.
Investment statements.
Then he opened her computer.
Claire’s password was saved.
He logged in.
“What is he looking for?”
Claire already knew.
Money.
Ethan spent twelve minutes on the computer.
Then something happened.
A woman entered.
Claire stopped breathing.
Mara.
Even without sound, Claire recognized her from the photograph.
Mara crossed the office and kissed Ethan.
Not a friendly kiss.
Not ambiguous.
Ethan wrapped one arm around his wife’s waist.
Claire stared at the screen.
Ava looked at her mother.
“Do you want me to turn it off?”
“No.”
Claire forced herself to keep watching.
Mara said something.
Ethan shook his head.
She became angry.
He pointed toward the computer.
Then Mara pulled an envelope from her purse.
She placed it beside Claire’s estate documents.
“What’s that?” Ava whispered.
Claire zoomed in.
The image blurred.
Mara removed papers.
Ethan signed something.
Then he laughed.
Claire’s hands curled.
A man who believed his girlfriend had fallen to her death hours earlier was laughing in her office.
Mara poured two glasses of bourbon.
Claire’s bourbon.
They drank.
Then Ethan pulled Mara against him.
Claire looked away when his hand moved beneath her blouse.
Not because it was explicit.
Because the intimacy looked familiar.
He touched Mara the same way he touched Claire.
Same hand at the waist.
Same smile.
Same soft tilt of his head before a kiss.
Nothing had belonged to Claire.
Not even his tenderness.
“Keep going,” she said.
Ava hesitated.
“Mom.”
“Keep going.”
Twenty-eight minutes after entering, Mara left through the side door.
Ethan wiped surfaces.
Then carried the blue folder upstairs.
When he returned, he had Claire’s jewelry case.
“He stole your jewelry?”
Claire shook her head.
“Watch.”
Ethan opened the case.
Removed several pieces.
Then stopped.
He picked up a necklace.
Claire recognized it instantly.
A diamond pendant her mother had given her before dying.
Ethan stared at it.
For several seconds something strange happened.
His face softened.
Claire almost imagined guilt.
Then Ethan put the necklace into his pocket.
“Bastard,” Ava whispered.
He left the house.
Claire paused the footage.
Ruiz entered.
“We found something in Maya’s vehicle.”
“Her?”
“No.”
Ruiz placed an evidence photograph on the table.
A broken camera lens.
Blood.
And a piece of paper.
Claire read the handwritten message.
IF CLAIRE BENNETT IS ALIVE, TELL HER TO LOOK IN ETHAN’S STORAGE UNIT.
Claire frowned.
“What storage unit?”
“We didn’t know he had one.”
“Neither did I.”
Ruiz gave her another photograph.
A key had been taped beneath the message.
A brass key marked 317.
Ava looked at Claire.
“What do you think is inside?”
Claire remembered Rebecca.
Mara.
The hidden phone.
The three-million-dollar policy.
“I don’t know.”
Sheriff Mercer entered behind Ruiz.
His expression said he had bad news.
“We traced the number receiving messages from the secret phone.”
Claire stood.
“Who owns it?”
Mercer put the report down.
“The account was opened six years ago.”
“By Mara?”
“No.”
“Ethan?”
“No.”
Claire stared at him.
“Then who?”
The sheriff looked uncomfortable.
“The billing address belongs to someone you know.”
Claire’s pulse accelerated.
Mercer turned the page toward her.
Claire read the name.
And suddenly Ethan’s betrayal wasn’t the most shocking thing in the room.
May you like
Because the secret phone had been communicating with Claire’s ex-husband.
Michael Bennett.
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