Ethan dragged a hand through his hair, pacing once before stopping, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. “Mom, Dad, we need to sit down. We need to call the police. Right now.”
Dennis stepped aside and waved us into the living room. Lily broke from my side and ran to her father, wrapping her arms around his waist. Ethan lifted her without hesitation, holding her against him, his eyes closed, his face pressed into her hair as if he needed to anchor himself to something solid.
“You are safe,” he murmured to her. “You are safe now.”
We sat. Lily curled beside me on the couch, her legs tucked under her, her fingers knotted into my sleeve. Ethan dropped into the armchair opposite us, his shoulders slumped, his entire body radiating exhaustion.
“Jake has been stealing from the company,” he said. He did not ease into it. He did not soften the words. “For years. I found out three weeks ago.”
Dennis stiffened beside me. “How much?”
Ethan swallowed. “Over four hundred thousand.”
The room felt suddenly smaller, the air thick and hard to breathe. I tried to picture that amount of money and failed. It was abstract, distant, unreal.
“I confronted him,” Ethan continued. “He admitted it. Said he had gambling debts. Said he owed people who would hurt his family if he did not pay. He begged me not to go to the authorities. He said he just needed time.”
“And you believed him,” I said quietly.
“I wanted to,” he admitted. “He was my best friend. I thought if I could help him fix it, we could protect everyone. But after that, things started happening.”
He listed them one by one, his voice flat. His car searched. His office disturbed. Attempts to access his computer. Rachel noticing the same black SUV behind her on different days, in different places.
“I told Jake I was done,” he said. “That I was going to report everything. That is when he offered a deal.”
My stomach twisted. “What kind of deal?”
“He said he could make evidence disappear. That he had connections. He wanted two weeks before I went to the police.”
Dennis exhaled sharply. “And instead he set you up.”
Ethan nodded. “The identical car. The tracker. He wanted to blur the lines. Make it look like I was somewhere I was not.”
I felt cold spread through me. “Ethan, the keys. The keys I took this morning were on the hook where yours always are.”
His eyes widened slowly. “Jake still has the spare. We never asked for it back.”
The implication settled heavily. He had been inside Ethan’s home. Moving freely. Watching.
Ethan’s voice broke. “Mom, if you had taken Lily back to my house in that car…”
He did not finish the thought. None of us needed him to.
Dennis was already dialing emergency services, his voice clipped and controlled. As he spoke, I noticed the time on the clock. My phone buzzed in my hand, the battery blinking red.
“Ethan,” I asked, my heart pounding, “why did you come here today? Why now?”
His gaze met mine, hollow and raw. “Jake called me an hour ago. He knew you had borrowed my car. He said if I did not sign papers saying the theft was my idea, he would make sure something happened to you or Lily.”
The words knocked the breath from my lungs.
“He gave me a deadline,” Ethan continued. “Five o’clock.”
I looked at the clock again. Less than half an hour.
A small sound came from upstairs. A sharp intake of breath.
We all looked up.
Ethan moved first, taking the stairs two at a time. Dennis followed. I came behind them, my knees protesting, my chest aching with each step.
Lily stood at the top of the stairs, clutching her tablet. Her face was pale.
“Daddy,” she whispered, “Uncle Jake is here.”
She held out the screen. A notification glowed on it. Shared location alert.
Through the window, I saw it. A black SUV parked across the street. The driver’s door hung open.
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