Chapter 2 - The Grave Without a Body
Ethan ordered the ballroom cleared.
Guests protested, whispered, stared, and attempted to understand what they had witnessed, but the Caldwell security staff moved efficiently. Within minutes, the celebration that had been designed to announce Ethan and Vanessa's future had dissolved into a procession of expensive dresses and uncomfortable silence.
Vanessa refused to leave.
“This is my engagement party.”
“Not anymore,” Ethan said.
The words struck harder than shouting.
Vanessa stared at him.
“You're ending our engagement because some housekeeper manipulated your child?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't need to.”
Lauren stood near the staircase with Noah pressed against her side.
Ethan looked at them.
“Study.”
Lauren stiffened.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because there are cameras.”
Ethan's expression changed.
“In my study?”
“There used to be.”
“Used to be?”
Lauren realized her mistake.
Ethan stepped toward her.
“How do you know that?”
She lowered her eyes.
“Because I installed one.”
Vanessa went pale again.
Ethan saw it.
“Everybody comes with me.”
They entered the library instead.
Ethan locked the door.
Noah sat beside Lauren on a leather sofa, refusing to release her hand.
Vanessa remained near the fireplace.
Ethan stood in the center.
“Start talking.”
Lauren looked at Noah.
“Not with him here.”
“No!” Noah cried immediately.
Lauren hugged him.
“Sweetheart—”
“You'll disappear.”
Her face crumpled.
Ethan knelt before his son.
“She isn't going anywhere.”
Noah looked suspiciously toward Vanessa.
“Promise?”
Ethan hesitated.
Then looked directly at Lauren.
“I promise.”
A nanny took Noah into the adjoining sitting room, leaving the connecting door slightly open.
Lauren watched until he disappeared.
Then Ethan asked the question that had been burning through him.
“Are you Clara?”
She stared at him.
“Yes.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
Vanessa laughed.
It sounded forced.
“That's absurd.”
Lauren reached behind her left ear.
“There is a scar here.”
Ethan's eyes widened.
“From when I fell off Rebecca Morrison's horse when I was sixteen. You used to joke that it looked like a question mark.”
She lifted her hair.
The scar was there.
Ethan couldn't speak.
“My first Christmas gift to you was a watch you hated.”
“I didn't hate it.”
“You never wore it.”
“It was ugly.”
Despite everything, Lauren almost smiled.
Exactly the way Clara used to.
Then Ethan's expression collapsed.
He turned away.
His hand covered his mouth.
“You were alive.”
Clara lowered her head.
“Yes.”
“For two years.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me bury you.”
“I had no choice.”
Ethan spun around.
“You always had a choice!”
Clara flinched.
He immediately lowered his voice.
“I stood over an empty grave.”
“It wasn't empty.”
That stopped him.
“What?”
Clara looked toward Vanessa.
Vanessa's eyes narrowed.
“There was a body.”
“Whose?”
“I don't know.”
Ethan stared.
Clara continued.
“The night of the crash, I wasn't driving.”
“But the police report—”
“Was false.”
Vanessa scoffed.
“And conveniently everyone involved is either dead or unavailable?”
Clara looked at her.
“Not everyone.”
Vanessa's face tightened.
Ethan noticed.
“Clara, tell me what happened.”
She inhaled slowly.
“Two years ago, someone called me.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
“I didn't know then.”
Clara's eyes moved toward Vanessa.
“I know now.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“This is insane.”
Clara continued.
“The caller said she had proof someone inside Caldwell Holdings was stealing money through shell companies. She said your signature was being forged.”
Ethan frowned.
“Why contact you?”
“Because she didn't trust anyone around you.”
Clara swallowed.
“She told me to meet her at the old Westbridge Hotel.”
Ethan remembered that night.
Clara had told him she was meeting a friend.
“She never came?”
“She did.”
“Who was she?”
“Your father's former accountant. Margaret Sloan.”
Ethan stared.
Margaret had disappeared shortly after Clara's death.
“She gave me a flash drive.”
“Where is it?”
“Gone.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“How convenient.”
Clara ignored her.
“On my way home, a black SUV began following me.”
Her voice slowed.
“At the bridge, it hit us.”
“Us?”
“I had picked someone up.”
“Who?”
“The accountant.”
Ethan's face changed.
Clara nodded.
“She was terrified. She begged me not to leave her alone.”
The memory returned visibly.
Rain.
Headlights.
Metal.
“I remember the car spinning.”
Clara's breathing became shallow.
“I remember Margaret screaming.”
Ethan moved closer.
“You don't have to—”
“Yes, I do.”
She looked at him.
“I woke up outside the car.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
“My head was bleeding. I couldn't move my left arm. Someone dragged me into another vehicle.”
“Who?”
“I never saw his face.”
Vanessa suddenly reached for her phone.
Ethan noticed.
“Put it down.”
“I need to call my lawyer.”
“Nobody's stopping you later.”
“Ethan—”
“Put it down.”
Vanessa slowly returned it to the table.
Clara continued.
“When I woke again, I was in a private clinic.”
“What clinic?”
“I never knew.”
“They told me you were dead.”
Ethan froze.
“What?”
“They showed me newspaper pages. Photographs. They told me the crash had killed you and Noah.”
Ethan's anger disappeared.
Clara's eyes filled.
“I believed our son was dead.”
Ethan sat heavily in a chair.
“For how long?”
“Three months.”
She wiped her face.
“Then I saw you on television.”
Ethan stared at her.
“You saw me?”
“You were carrying Noah into the memorial service.”
“Why didn't you come home?”
“Because twenty minutes later, someone entered my room.”
Clara's voice became barely audible.
“He showed me photographs of Noah sleeping.”
Ethan's face hardened.
“He told me that if I contacted you, Noah would die for real.”
Vanessa looked toward the door.
Ethan saw it.
“Who threatened you?”
“I don't know his name.”
“But you'd recognize him?”
“Yes.”
Ethan walked to his desk and opened his laptop.
Vanessa moved.
“I won't participate in this circus.”
Clara suddenly said, “Sit down, Vanessa.”
The room froze.
Vanessa turned.
Clara's expression had changed.
Fear remained.
But beneath it was something stronger.
Certainty.
“You know him.”
Vanessa laughed.
“You're delusional.”
Clara reached into her uniform pocket.
She removed a folded photograph.
She placed it on the table.
Ethan picked it up.
The image showed a man leaving a restaurant.
Beside him stood Vanessa.
Ethan looked up.
Vanessa said nothing.
“Who is he?”
“My former driver.”
Clara shook her head.
“No.”
Vanessa's jaw tightened.
“He's the man who came into my clinic room.”
Ethan stared at Vanessa.
“Tell me she's lying.”
Vanessa didn't answer.
“Tell me.”
“She is.”
Too late.
The hesitation had betrayed her.
Clara continued.
“I stayed away because every few months I received another photograph of Noah. At preschool. At the park. Sleeping.”
Ethan felt sick.
“They were watching my son?”
“They were making sure I understood.”
“Then why come back now?”
Clara looked toward the sitting room.
“Because the photographs stopped.”
Ethan frowned.
“And that's good.”
“No.”
Clara shook her head.
“The last envelope was different.”
She reached into her pocket again.
This time she removed a small card.
Ethan unfolded it.
Four words were printed across the center.
HE DOESN'T NEED YOU.
Ethan's face hardened.
“When did you get this?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“And then?”
“I discovered Vanessa had moved into this house.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“You are accusing me based on a photograph and an anonymous note?”
“No.”
Clara looked at her.
“I came back because of something Noah said.”
Ethan turned.
“What?”
“I've been secretly seeing him for six weeks.”
The confession hurt Ethan in a new way.
“You've been near my son for six weeks?”
“I needed to know he was safe.”
“How?”
“His nanny takes him to Hawthorne Park.”
Ethan remembered Noah mentioning a nice lady who fed ducks.
Clara had been that woman.
“Three days ago, Noah told me Vanessa was taking him on a trip.”
Ethan looked at Vanessa.
“What trip?”
Vanessa blinked.
“Children say things.”
Clara continued.
“He said she told him Daddy wouldn't be coming.”
Ethan's expression changed.
Vanessa shook her head.
“This is grotesque.”
“Then explain this.”
Clara removed one final item.
A plane ticket.
Passenger: NOAH CALDWELL.
Departure: tomorrow morning.
Destination: Zurich.
Ethan looked at Vanessa.
“You bought this?”
“No.”
“Your assistant did.”
“How would you know?”
Clara's eyes narrowed.
“Because your assistant is the person who helped me get into this house tonight.”
Vanessa went still.
Ethan stared between them.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No one spoke.
A photograph arrived by text.
Ethan opened it.
His blood turned cold.
It was a photograph of Noah taken less than a minute earlier.
Inside Ethan's own sitting room.
Below it were six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE DEAD BURIED.
Ethan looked toward the adjoining door.
“Noah?”
No answer.
He ran.
The nanny was unconscious on the floor.
May you like
The window stood open.
And Noah was gone.
