Chapter 8 - Ethan Disappears
I called Ethan seventeen times.
No answer.
The eighteenth call went directly to voicemail.
Mara contacted a private investigator.
Luka contacted people whose names I did not want to know.
Thirty minutes later, Ethan’s apartment appeared on local news.
Police vehicles surrounded the building.
A woman had been found injured.
Vanessa.
Ethan was missing.
“They’re going to blame him.”
I said.
Mara nodded.
“They already are.”
Vanessa had survived.
According to the report, she claimed Ethan attacked her after discovering the paternity fraud.
I stared at the television.
“That’s a lie.”
Luka studied me.
“You sound certain.”
“I lived with Ethan for four years.”
“He abandoned you.”
“Yes.”
“He cheated on you.”
“Yes.”
“He tried to take your daughter.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
“But he doesn’t shoot women.”
Luka nodded.
“Good.”
I frowned.
“Good?”
“Anger hasn’t made you stupid.”
Mara’s investigator called.
She put him on speaker.
“Ethan Cole’s vehicle was found beneath the West Harbor Bridge.”
“Body?”
Luka asked.
“No.”
“Blood?”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“Enough to make police assume serious injury.”
“But not death?”
“Correct.”
He paused.
“There’s another detail.”
“What?”
“Someone wrote M-17 on the windshield.”
That night, I could not sleep.
My daughter lay beside me in the portable crib.
I finally gave her a name.
Emma.
I had chosen it months earlier.
Ethan had wanted Olivia.
For the first time, I realized I didn’t care what he wanted.
“Emma Carter.”
I whispered.
Not Cole.
Carter.
Luka stood outside the bedroom door.
“You should sleep.”
“You should stop hovering.”
“I’m protecting the hallway.”
“You’re terrible at pretending not to hover.”
That almost brought a smile.
Then I noticed he was holding something.
A small wooden box.
“What is that?”
“Something your father left me.”
He handed it over.
Inside was an old cassette recorder.
A tape sat inside.
Labelled:
ELENA - FINAL INTERVIEW.
My hands trembled.
“My mother?”
Luka nodded.
“We never played it.”
“Why?”
“Daniel said only you should.”
I pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman’s voice.
Soft.
Young.
Terrified.
“If Clara ever hears this, then I failed to protect her.”
I began crying before she finished the first sentence.
“My name is Elena Carter.”
“I was patient M-17.”
“Meridian told me my treatment would cure my blood disorder.”
“They lied.”
“They changed my eggs before Clara was conceived.”
I stopped breathing.
“They were trying to create a stable carrier.”
My hand covered my mouth.
“Clara was not the experiment.”
My mother continued.
“She was the escape.”
“I became pregnant before Meridian could take her.”
“Daniel helped me run.”
The recording crackled.
Then came words that shattered everything I believed about my birth.
“I did not die delivering Clara.”
I stared at the machine.
“I disappeared.”
“And if Daniel kept his promise, Clara believes I am dead.”
My knees weakened.
The tape continued.
“One day, she may hate me for that.”
“But hatred is better than a grave.”
My mother was alive after my birth.
Maybe she was still alive now.
Then her final sentence played.
May you like
“If M-17 activates again, find my sister Elise.”
“She knows where I am.”
