Chapter 8 - The Way Into the House
Claire could no longer dismiss Lily.
Ethan had surveilled them.
For weeks.
He admitted it.
“I needed to reach you.”
“Why not police?”
“I tried police before.”
No record.
“Why not walk to front door?”
“Because people like you don't open doors for kids like me.”
Claire had no immediate answer.
“Why Lily?”
“She was kind.”
“You knew that?”
“I watched her give food to man outside bakery.”
So he predicted Lily would help hungry child.
That explained alley.
Claire asked:
“Did you deliberately look starving?”
Ethan’s eyes flashed.
“I was starving.”
The distinction mattered.
He exploited genuine suffering.
He had not fabricated it.
Then investigators discovered Ethan had used public library computers to research Claire.
Missing Thomas.
Andrew.
Lily’s school charity event.
Claire’s foundation speeches.
But private details could still only have come from Thomas or Mara.
Ethan’s story remained possible.
Then Lily noticed something stranger.
Ethan never asked where Thomas’s bedroom had been.
He already knew.
He walked directly there first night.
Claire had assumed memory.
But if Thomas told him?
Possible.
He knew hidden latch beneath windowsill.
Thomas had been three.
Would he remember tiny latch six years later strongly enough to tell Ethan?
Maybe.
Inside hidden compartment Claire found toy car.
And beneath it—
a folded note.
Not old.
Paper recent.
THOMAS LIKES THE BLUE ONE.
DON’T SAY RED.
Claire stared.
Someone had planted instructions inside her house.
For Ethan?
Security footage showed no outsider entering room recently.
Only Ethan.
He claimed note was already there.
Forensics found Ethan’s fingerprints.
No others usable.
Handwriting not Ethan’s.
At least according to preliminary comparison.
Who wrote it?
Then detective searched Ethan’s backpack recovered from alley.
Sewn into lining:
a list.
MOON PANCAKES.
HENRY HORSE.
417.
BLUE, NOT RED.
SCAR LEFT.
ANDREW = DAD.
Claire’s stomach turned.
A script.
Someone had coached him.
Ethan cried when shown.
“Thomas wrote it.”
“Why?”
“He said if I ever found you, these things would make you listen.”
“Why wouldn't he come himself?”
Ethan whispered:
“He couldn't.”
“Why?”
“He was afraid.”
“Of who?”
Ethan looked at Claire.
Then toward portrait of Andrew.
“Your husband.”
“Andrew is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then Thomas couldn't still be afraid of him.”
Ethan shook head.
“Not Andrew.”
Claire’s face changed.
“I don't have a husband.”
Ethan whispered:
“You were supposed to.”
That made no sense.
Until Claire remembered she had been engaged two years earlier.
To financier Jonathan Vale.
She ended engagement after discovering he had lied about debts.
Jonathan had disappeared from public life six months ago.
May you like
And Ethan’s backpack had been manufactured for a private school charity sponsored by—
Jonathan Vale.
