Chapter 24 #2
Ethan saw him first. His eyes went wide. Not with surprise, but alarm.
"Dad?"
"Get in the Bronco."
"What? No."
"Ethan. Get in the vehicle. Now." His voice was low but the edge in it carried. Two people at a nearby table looked over. "I need to speak to Natalie."
Ethan looked at Natalie. She gave a small nod, almost imperceptible, as if releasing him. That gesture, the permission, the calm authority of it, made Noah's blood run hot.
Ethan stood. He grabbed his jacket from the booth and walked past Noah without looking at him. The cafe door closed behind him.
Noah slid into the booth across from Natalie.
She looked at him the way she looked at everything.
Calm and composed. Her dark hair was pulled back.
She wore a charcoal blazer over a white blouse.
A leather notebook sat beside her coffee.
She could have been meeting a source or having lunch with a friend.
Nothing about her suggested she had just detonated someone's career.
"So I caught that little hit piece," Noah said.
"What hit piece?"
"Don't do that."
"I'm asking a genuine question,” she shot back.
"The one in the New York Times. The one that describes my mental health leave.
The one that references unresolved questions about my family.
The one that stopped just short of naming my father.
" He kept his voice even. "You really think a national outlet gets that level of detail without someone local handing it to them? "
Natalie picked up her coffee and took a sip. She set it down in the center of the saucer. "I write for the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. I don't control what other publications choose to pursue."
"But you know who does."
"I know a lot of things, Noah. That's what happens when you do your job well."
"That mental health leave. You know that was for Ethan, not me. You know exactly what that was about."
"I know what you told me."
"It cost me my job."
"I'm sure your father can remedy that."
"Like the way yours probably got me fired."
Natalie set her cup down. For the first time, something shifted behind her composure. Not guilt. Recognition. The recognition that the conversation had arrived at the place she had expected it to arrive.
"Noah. Your obsession with my father is unhinged."
"Your father is a criminal."
"My father is running for mayor. He's respected.
He's stable. Face it, Noah—you're a man still reeling from your brother's death.
Your family is coming apart. Your judgment is being questioned.
And your investigation is going nowhere.
" She paused. "You could have had me on your side. You chose to push me away."
The words were delivered without heat. That was what made them worse. She wasn't angry. She was operating from a playbook, her father's playbook, and she was better at it than Noah had ever given her credit for.
"Stay away from my son," he said. "Stay away from all of us. Tell your father that too."
He stood. The booth creaked. A few people in the cafe were watching now, the careful sideways attention of people who could tell something was happening but didn't want to be caught looking.
Natalie watched him go. Her expression was not triumph. It was something harder than that. The last remnant of whatever had existed between them burning away in real time, leaving nothing but the cold architecture of opposing sides.
Noah walked out into the afternoon.
Ethan was in the passenger seat of the Bronco with his arms crossed. He didn't look at Noah when he got in. He didn't speak until they were two blocks from the cafe.
"You embarrassed me in there."
"I don't want you hanging around the Ashfords."
"You did."
Noah glanced at him. "That was then. This is now. Stay away."
"You can't stop me."
"While you live under my roof, you will do as I say."
Ethan went quiet. The Bronco rolled through town. Past the hardware store. Past the lake. Past the church where Luke's funeral had been held, which felt like a lifetime ago. The mountains were sharp against the sky. A school bus passed going the other direction.
"You know I saw the paper today," Ethan said.
Noah's hands tightened on the wheel.
"Everyone is talking about it. Jared Finley showed me on his phone. The article about you."
Noah didn't respond.
"Is it true? What they said about you being too close to the case?"
"No."
Ethan hesitated. "Then why does it feel like it is?"
"Ethan."
"Because Natalie said there are things about this family that you won't talk about.
And I've been watching you, Dad. You don't sleep.
You barely eat. You sit at your desk at night looking at files you won't let anyone see.
And now you got fired and someone is dead because of something you did at a campground. "
The words came out in a rush, the accumulated pressure of weeks of watching and not understanding, finally breaking through. Ethan wasn't angry. He was scared. And scared teenagers said the worst things because they didn’t know how else to ask for help.
"Maybe they're right about you."
Five words. They landed in the cab of the Bronco like a physical blow. Noah felt them in his stomach, in his chest, in the space behind his eyes where the headache had been building since before dawn.
He didn't respond.
He couldn't.
The Bronco turned onto their road. The lake appeared through the trees, flat and silver in the light. Callie's car was in the driveway. The house looked the same as it always did.
Noah pulled in and killed the engine. Ethan was out of the truck before it fully stopped, walking fast toward the front door without looking back. The door closed behind him.
Noah sat in the Bronco.
The badge was gone. The gun was gone. The investigation was gone. His son had just told him that maybe the people tearing him apart were right.
He sat until the light changed and the shadows reached the truck and the cold crept in through the windows. Then he went inside, because there was nowhere else to go.