Chapter 5
I didn't call ahead. I knew if I gave Ethan Cole time to prepare, he'd have a glass in his hand again.
The Whitaker Foundation tower was downtown on Main, eight stories of new glass stuck between brick buildings that had been there since the thirties. I'd driven past it a hundred times and never been inside. The lobby was cold and bright, all polished concrete and donor plaques. A receptionist asked if I had an appointment. I told her my name and that Ethan would want to see me. She made a call, listened, then looked at me differently.
"Seventh floor," she said. "He'll meet you."
The elevator was slow. I watched the numbers climb and tried to keep my hands still. In my jacket pocket I had the folded prenatal receipt Lauren left on the dresser and the timeline she'd written at our kitchen table. October through December, gaps I hadn't wanted to map. I didn't know what I was going to say. I just knew I couldn't sit in that apartment with two pieces of paper that didn't line up.
Ethan's office was at the end of a hallway lined with framed photos — groundbreakings, ribbon cuttings, Ethan in a hard hat, Ethan shaking hands with a councilman. His door was open. He stood when I came in, and the first thing I noticed was his hands. Empty. No lowball glass, no amber liquid, no ice. He wore the same navy blazer but without the party underneath it. White shirt buttoned to the collar, sleeves exact. Sober and composed, like he'd been at his desk since seven.
"Daniel," he said. "Close the door if you want."
I didn't close it all the way. I left it cracked an inch.
"You came alone," he added. It wasn't a question.
"You knew I would," I said.
He gestured to a chair across from his desk. I didn't sit. He sat anyway, folded his hands on a leather desk blotter. Behind him the window showed the water tower and the courthouse roof. Everything up there was neat and intentional. A coaster on the corner of his desk with a ring already worn into it, but no glass on it now.
"I figured you'd want the rest of what I didn't say last night," he said. "Lauren didn't tell you everything."
"Then tell me," I said.
He opened a drawer and pulled out a small notebook, the kind with a black elastic band. He flipped it open to a page he'd marked with a paperclip. His handwriting was small and tight.
"November fourteenth," he said. "The Marriott downtown. Conference rate. She said she was at her sister's in Franklin." He turned the page. "November twenty-second. My apartment. She left around ten. Told you she was working late at the clinic." Another page. "December second and December ninth. Both my place. December ninth she stayed until morning."
My throat went dry. Lauren's note had said November fourteenth she was home, that we had dinner and watched a movie. She'd written late shift for November twenty-second. She hadn't listed December second at all. She'd written brunch with her mom on the ninth.
"You're saying she lied on every date," I said.
"I'm saying she lied to you," he said. "Not to me. She was where she wanted to be."
I kept my hands in my pockets so he wouldn't see them shake. The office smelled faintly like coffee and paper.
"You have proof?" I asked.
He slid the notebook across the desk toward me, then added two more things from the drawer: a printed hotel folio with his name and the dates November fourteenth to fifteenth, and a parking validation stub from the same night with a timestamp. "I keep records," he said. "Donor work. You need to track everything. She laughed about it, actually. Said you never checked your phone bill."
I didn't touch the folio right away. I stared at it.
"She's pregnant with my child," he said, quieter now, not performing for a ballroom. "That part wasn't for effect, Daniel. December ninth is the date that lines up. The doctor at Mercy will have it. About eight weeks now."
That matched what Lauren had admitted the night before, that she'd known for two weeks and hid the appointment card. But the dates didn't. In my pocket Lauren's timeline said we were together December seventh through the tenth, that Ethan wasn't in the picture that week at all.
"You want me to hit you," I said finally.
Ethan looked surprised for half a second, then smiled without showing teeth. "No. I want you to stop pretending this is a misunderstanding. I didn't make her come to me. I didn't have to. She texted me first every time after October. I can show you those too, if you want to keep hurting yourself."
"I don't want your phone."
"Good. Because I won't drag her into a public fight. Last night was enough for you to know. This is me being straight with you without the whiskey and the crowd."
He took a sheet of foundation letterhead from his printer, uncapped a pen, and wrote quickly in the same tight hand: dates, locations, times. November 14 - Marriott 8pm - , November 22 - apt 7:30pm - , December 2 - apt 9pm - , December 9 - apt overnight - . He initialed the bottom and pushed it toward me.
"Take it," he said. "Compare it to whatever story she gave you. You'll see which one has receipts."
I wanted to tear it up. I wanted to put my fist through his neat window and watch him scramble. Instead I picked up the paper and folded it once, then again, and slipped it into my pocket next to Lauren's version. My hand brushed the prenatal receipt and I felt the paper warm against my fingers.
"I'm not threatening you," I said. My voice sounded thinner than I wanted. "Not here. Not ever. I came to hear you say it without a drink in your hand."
"You heard it," he said.
I turned for the door. My hand was on the handle when he spoke again, still sitting, hands still folded.
May you like
"Daniel. When you verify it — and you will — don't punish her for choosing the wrong thing. She was just trying to feel alive. You heard her."
I didn't answer. I pulled the door open and left it open behind me. The hallway was empty, the photos watching me walk back toward the elevator. In the elevator I didn't look at the paper. I just held my pocket closed with my hand and waited for the doors to seal.
