Ethan answered before I could.
“There’s probably something wrong with the registration.”
I looked at him.
He knew I knew that was a lie.
He also knew I had just heard him invent it.
“Registration?” I asked.
His eyes begged me to stop.
I didn’t.
“Interesting.”
Sharon’s gaze moved between us.
“What are you talking about?”
A car door slammed outside.
Then another.
Ethan turned toward the front windows.
Two officers were walking up our driveway.
Behind them was my father.
And beside my father was Mr.
Davis, the lawyer who had handled Aunt Margaret’s estate.
I had contacted them both before sunrise.
I had told my father only one sentence at first: “Dad, Ethan tried to make sure I never reached the cabin.”
He had wanted to drive straight to the house.
I told him not to.
Mr.
Davis had been calmer.
He told me to preserve every recording exactly as it was, avoid confronting Ethan, and contact law enforcement immediately.
So I had.
The officer I had just been speaking with was part of the response already waiting nearby.
When Tiffany unexpectedly demanded the SUV, everything changed.
I could not let her reach a dangerous road in it, no matter what kind of woman she had been to me.
But I also knew Ethan’s reaction might reveal something words alone could not.
The officers entered.
One asked Ethan to remain where he was.
Sharon exploded.
“This is ridiculous! This is my son’s house!”
“Actually,” I said, “it’s my house.”
She turned on me.
“What have you done?”
“Nothing to Ethan,” I said.
“Everything Ethan is dealing with this morning, Ethan did himself.”
My father walked directly to me.
His face was tight with anger, but he did not shout.
He simply put an arm around my shoulders.
That nearly broke me.
Not Ethan’s betrayal.
Not Maya’s voice.
Not even the image of him beneath my SUV.
It was my father touching my shoulder and asking, “Are you all right?”
For the first time all morning, I almost cried.
“I will be.”
One officer asked Ethan where he had been between three and four that morning.
“Sleeping,” he said.
The lie landed heavily in the room.
I took out my phone.
“No,” I said.
“You weren’t.”
Mr.
