Chapter 4 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Finish Me
Lucas Vane was found alive twelve hours later.
He walked into a ranger station before sunrise, half-frozen, bleeding from a cut above his eye, and demanding federal protection.
Daniel called me immediately.
“He wants to talk.”
“To me?”
“Only to you.”
“Why?”
“He won’t say.”
I looked at Noah sleeping beside me.
“Bring him.”
Daniel objected.
The doctors objected.
Everyone objected.
In the end, they arranged a secure video connection.
Lucas appeared on the screen wearing a gray hospital sweatshirt.
He was younger than I expected.
Early forties.
Rough face.
Sunken eyes.
Nothing about him looked like a professional killer.
That almost made him more frightening.
He stared at me for several seconds.
“You’re alive.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“No.”
“Then why were you waiting below that cliff?”
He looked away.
Daniel spoke from beside me.
“Answer her.”
Lucas swallowed.
“Ethan hired me.”
“For what?”
“To make sure the fall looked fatal.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“He researched that ridge for months. There’s a shelf about thirty feet down.”
“The ledge.”
“Yes.”
“He knew I might land there.”
“He planned for it.”
I closed my eyes.
“What were you supposed to do?”
Lucas hesitated.
“Sedate you.”
“And then?”
Silence.
“Say it.”
“Move you farther down.”
“Throw me off.”
“Yes.”
“And my baby?”
His face tightened.
“I didn’t know you were pregnant when I took the job.”
“You saw me.”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you do it?”
Lucas stared into the camera.
“Because when you fell, you screamed for your baby.”
I said nothing.
“I heard you hit the ledge. I started climbing down. Then you began talking.”
“What did I say?”
“You kept telling him to stay with you.”
Tears burned my eyes.
Lucas continued.
“I’ve done bad things, Mrs. Calloway.”
“Claire.”
He nodded.
“I’ve done things I can’t erase. But I never killed anyone.”
“You agreed to.”
“Yes.”
“At what point did your conscience arrive? Before or after the seventy thousand dollars?”
He flinched.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserve prison.”
“I know.”
Daniel watched quietly.
Lucas took a breath.
“I was climbing toward you when Ethan called.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked if you were alive.”
“And?”
“I said yes.”
My skin prickled.
“What did he tell you?”
Lucas looked directly at me.
“He said, ‘Then finish it.’”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
“What happened?”
“I disconnected.”
“And ran?”
“No.”
Lucas rubbed his hands together.
“I was going to help you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Why should I believe that?”
“Because someone attacked me before I reached you.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I heard someone behind me. Then I got hit.”
“With what?”
“A climbing tool, maybe. I fell ten feet. When I woke up, my pack was gone.”
“Whoever attacked you left you alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I remembered the rescue helicopter.
“Was it Daniel?”
“No,” Daniel said immediately. “Our team wasn’t on the ground yet.”
Lucas looked uneasy.
“There’s more.”
“Then talk.”
“I wasn’t the first person Ethan hired.”
Daniel went still.
“What does that mean?”
Lucas explained that months earlier, Ethan had contacted him through an intermediary.
A man named Grant Holloway.
Grant had organized illegal surveillance, debt collection, and intimidation for wealthy clients.
But Grant had disappeared four months earlier.
“Why?”
Lucas shook his head.
“I assumed Ethan got rid of him.”
“Why would he?”
“Because Grant discovered something.”
“What?”
Lucas looked toward me.
“Ethan wasn’t only stealing money from investors.”
I waited.
“He was stealing from you.”
“My accounts are protected.”
“Not those accounts.”
“What accounts?”
“Your father’s company.”
My heart stopped.
The Bennett logistics company.
Lucas continued.
“Ethan used your electronic signature to guarantee loans through subsidiaries. If auditors discovered what he’d done, he could face decades in prison.”
“So killing me erased that?”
“Not completely.”
“Then why?”
“You were scheduled to meet the company’s outside auditor.”
I remembered.
The meeting had been planned for the week after our Montana trip.
I had asked questions about unusual financial transfers.
Ethan knew.
“He thought I discovered it.”
“He thought you were about to.”
Daniel wrote something down.
“What happened to Grant?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who attacked you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who took Ethan?”
Lucas stared at him.
“I don’t know.”
But I saw something in his face.
Fear.
“You do.”
Lucas shook his head.
“You have an idea.”
“No.”
“Lucas.”
His jaw tightened.
“The only person Grant trusted was his sister.”
“Name?”
“Rebecca Holloway.”
Daniel immediately typed on his laptop.
A minute later, his expression changed.
“Rebecca Holloway is a forensic accountant.”
Lucas nodded.
“She worked for Bennett Logistics.”
I stared at the screen.
“What?”
“She was fired six months ago.”
My mind raced.
I remembered Rebecca.
Quiet.
Brilliant.
She had worked in corporate compliance.
Ethan told me she had been fired for mishandling confidential information.
“What happened to her?”
Daniel searched.
“No current address.”
Lucas leaned closer.
“She didn’t disappear.”
“Then where is she?”
“She’s been gathering evidence.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she contacted me two weeks ago.”
Daniel frowned.
“What did she want?”
“To know whether Ethan had hired me.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
“Then why attack you?”
Lucas looked directly at me.
“I don’t think she attacked me.”
“Who did?”
“I think Ethan sent someone else.”
That possibility changed everything.
Another person.
Another accomplice.
Someone neither Vanessa nor Lucas knew.
Before we could continue, Daniel’s phone rang.
He listened.
His expression darkened.
“They found Ethan.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“An abandoned maintenance cabin near the park boundary.”
“Who took him?”
“No one.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“He staged the abduction.”
Daniel explained.
Ethan had written the message himself using blood from a cut on his hand. He wanted investigators to believe someone had taken him while he escaped across the border.
“He’s alive?”
“In custody.”
Relief washed through me.
Not because I cared whether Ethan survived.
Because I wanted him conscious when the truth destroyed him.
“Does he know I’m alive?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Not yet.”
“When will you tell him?”
He looked at me.
“That depends on you.”
Two days later, investigators prepared an interrogation room.
Ethan sat alone at a metal table.
He looked exhausted.
No expensive suit.
No audience.
No Vanessa.
An investigator entered.
“You’re being charged with financial crimes and obstruction.”
Ethan smiled.
“My lawyers will handle it.”
“There’s also the matter of your wife.”
His smile vanished briefly.
“What about Claire?”
“We’ve recovered new evidence.”
“She fell.”
“You pushed her.”
Ethan leaned back.
“Prove it.”
The investigator opened a folder.
“Vanessa Hartley is cooperating.”
That was a bluff.
But Ethan didn’t know.
His jaw tightened.
“She’ll say anything.”
“Lucas Vane is cooperating too.”
This time, Ethan reacted.
Only slightly.
But enough.
“Never heard of him.”
The door behind him opened.
Daniel entered.
Ethan studied him.
“Who are you?”
“The man who found your wife.”
Silence.
Ethan’s face emptied.
“What?”
Daniel pulled out a chair.
“You heard me.”
“That’s impossible.”
The door opened again.
I stepped inside.
My ankle brace made my walk slow.
But I walked.
Ethan stared at me.
For the first time since I had known him, Ethan Calloway had absolutely nothing to say.
I stopped across the table.
“Hello, Ethan.”
His mouth opened.
Closed.
His face lost color.
“You’re dead.”
“No.”
He stood so suddenly the chair fell backward.
“You’re dead!”
Officers moved toward him.
I didn’t flinch.
“You left me to die.”
His breathing became ragged.
“The mountain—”
“Didn’t finish your job.”
His eyes dropped toward my stomach.
It was flat now.
The change registered.
His expression twisted.
“The baby?”
I smiled.
“You don’t get to ask.”
Something broke in his face.
Not grief.
Fear.
Because if Noah lived, Ethan’s financial plan collapsed completely.
“You lied,” he whispered.
“You held my funeral.”
“I thought—”
“You stood beside Vanessa and celebrated.”
“She manipulated me.”
I laughed.
“Of course.”
“She planned this.”
“Vanessa pushed me?”
“No.”
“Lucas?”
Silence.
“Did Lucas cut my brakes?”
Ethan’s eyes flickered.
That was enough.
“Did you arrange the gas leak?”
“Claire—”
“How many times did you try to kill your son?”
He slammed both hands on the table.
“I NEVER WANTED A SON!”
The words echoed through the interrogation room.
Everyone froze.
Ethan realized what he had said.
I stared at him.
Then nodded slowly.
“Thank you.”
He sank back into the chair.
“What?”
“Thank you for finally telling the truth.”
I turned toward the door.
“Claire.”
I stopped.
His voice changed.
Suddenly softer.
Familiar.
The voice of the man I had once loved.
“We can fix this.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“No, Ethan.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“Please.”
I walked away.
Behind me, he shouted my name.
Then something else.
“ASK DANIEL ABOUT REBECCA!”
I stopped.
Daniel stopped too.
Ethan began laughing.
“You think he rescued you by accident?”
Daniel’s face changed.
I turned toward him.
“What is he talking about?”
Daniel said nothing.
Ethan smiled from behind the glass.
And for the first time since my rescue, I wondered whether the man who had saved my life had been telling me the whole truth.
May you like
Because Ethan knew Daniel’s name before anyone had introduced them—and whatever connected Daniel Mercer to Rebecca Holloway had begun long before that helicopter found me beneath the snow.
---
