Chapter 6 - Someone Was Watching UsTyler was on his feet before I finished reading the message.
“Lock the door.”
Claire did.
I crossed the room and checked the security latch even though I had watched her lock it.
Tyler called hotel security.
Then the police.
The children woke during the commotion.
Mason wandered into the living room rubbing his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said too quickly.
Tyler gave me a look.
No more lies.
Even small ones.
I corrected myself.
“Someone sent Claire a strange message. Security is checking it.”
Mason looked scared.
“Are we in danger?”
“We don’t know.”
Tyler crouched.
“But there are people downstairs whose job is to keep everyone safe.”
Lily appeared behind Mason.
Claire wrapped an arm around her.
The police arrived twenty minutes later.
Two officers took statements.
They examined the message and photograph.
It wasn’t an explicit threat, they explained, but the fact that someone photographed us at the hotel made it concerning.
They asked whether Claire had enemies.
“No.”
“Custody disputes?”
“No.”
“Work conflicts?”
“No.”
Then one officer asked the obvious question.
“Who would want you to stop investigating the accident?”
Claire glanced at Tyler.
“His father.”
Tyler immediately said, “We don’t know that.”
The officer wrote Richard’s name anyway.
“And the attorney?”
“Martin Cole,” Claire said.
The officer took his information too.
I watched Tyler struggle with every answer.
Accusing his father of manipulating him emotionally was one thing.
Giving his father’s name to police was another.
After the officers left, Tyler called Richard.
No answer.
Then Martin.
Voicemail.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Claire folded her arms.
“Convenient.”
“Don’t,” Tyler said.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’ve already decided Dad sent that message.”
“Who else?”
“Internet lunatics. Thousands of people found our names tonight.”
That was unfortunately true.
Our hotel could have been identified from a photograph someone posted.
I hated that Tyler’s explanation made sense.
I hated that Claire’s did too.
At nearly two in the morning, hotel security moved us to different rooms under another reservation name.
Tyler refused to sleep.
I found him sitting by the window around three.
The city lights reflected in the glass.
I sat across from him.
“You should rest.”
“So should you.”
“I tried.”
“So did I.”
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then Tyler said, “I didn’t cheat.”
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“You believe me?”
“Yes.”
Relief crossed his face.
I held up a hand.
“Don’t confuse that with everything being okay.”
The relief vanished.
“I’m not.”
“You lied to me.”
“I know.”
“Repeatedly.”
“Yes.”
“For years.”
“Yes.”
I hated how easily he admitted it.
I almost wanted him to argue so I could be angrier.
Instead he sat there and took it.
“Why didn’t you tell me before we got married?”
“I was ashamed.”
“Of driving?”
“Of surviving.”
That stopped me.
Tyler looked at the floor.
“You know how people say survivor’s guilt like it’s a feeling?”
I nodded.
“It wasn’t a feeling for me.”
“What was it?”
“A rule.”
I waited.
“I believed every good thing in my life had to be paid for because Evan didn’t get any of it.”
His voice was barely above a whisper.
“When I met you, I almost ended things after the third date.”
“Why?”
“Because I liked you too much.”
I stared at him.
“That makes no sense.”
“It did to me.”
He gave a sad smile.
“I’d catch myself being happy and feel sick.”
I remembered our early relationship.
Tyler occasionally disappeared emotionally.
Never physically.
He would go quiet for a day.
Withdraw.
Apologize afterward without explaining.
I had assumed it was stress.
“Why did you marry me?”
“Because you made me believe I was allowed to.”
“And then you still didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“By then the lie had become too big.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“It’s a coward’s reason.”
At least he knew.
I looked out the window.
“Did you ever consider therapy?”
“Once.”
“What happened?”
“Dad found out.”
Of course he did.
“He told me if I dug up the past, I’d destroy Mom.”
I closed my eyes.
Richard’s fingerprints were everywhere.
“How did your mother cope after Evan died?”
“She didn’t.”
Tyler leaned back.
“She stopped leaving the house for months. Dad handled everything. Funeral. Insurance. Police. Lawyers.”
“Which gave him control.”
“Yes.”
“When did she start functioning again?”
“After I left for flight school.”
“Did she ever talk to you about Evan?”
“Not really.”
“About the accident?”
“Never.”
“What does she believe happened?”
Tyler took a long time to answer.
“She believes I was driving too fast.”
My chest hurt for him.
“Does she blame you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
His eyes met mine.
“Yes.”
There was no self-pity in his voice.
That made it worse.
I thought about Diane.
My mother-in-law had always been polite to me.
Warm with Mason.
Reserved with Tyler.
I had assumed that was simply her personality.
Now I replayed a hundred family dinners.
Richard praising Mason.
Diane asking me questions.
Tyler doing everything possible to make his mother smile.
And Diane rarely touching him.
I felt sick.
“How has your family lived like this for seventeen years?”
Tyler gave me a tired look.
“Very quietly.”
At six in the morning, my phone began buzzing again.
I had turned it back on in case my parents tried to reach me.
There were dozens of messages.
Friends.
Relatives.
People I hadn’t spoken to since college.
One message was from Tyler’s mother.
Jenna, please call me before you believe anything Claire says.
I showed Tyler.
His face tightened.
“Call her.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
I called anyway.
Diane answered on the first ring.
“Jenna?”
“Hi.”
“Where’s Tyler?”
“Here.”
“Is Mason safe?”
“Yes.”
She exhaled.
“Thank God.”
“What exactly do you think Claire is saying?”
Diane went quiet.
“That Tyler killed Evan.”
I looked at Tyler.
He stared at the floor.
“No,” I said. “Claire is saying Tyler may have spent seventeen years wrongly believing that.”
Diane didn’t respond.
“Did you know the Mustang had steering problems?”
“No.”
The answer was too fast.
“Diane.”
“I said no.”
“Did Richard?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ever see a repair invoice?”
“No.”
Tyler stood suddenly.
“Mom.”
I put the phone on speaker.
Diane inhaled sharply.
“Tyler.”
“Did you know the car was unsafe?”
“No.”
“Did Dad?”
“I don’t know.”
Tyler closed his eyes.
“Mom, please.”
Diane started crying.
Not loudly.
Just one broken breath.
Then another.
“Your father told me not to say anything.”
Tyler froze.
I felt cold spread through me.
“About what?” he whispered.
Diane’s next words changed everything again.
“The night before Evan died, I heard your father tell him that if he mentioned the repair shop to you, he’d cut him off completely.”
Tyler gripped the back of the chair.
“You knew?”
“I didn’t know what they were talking about.”
“But afterward?”
“I suspected.”
Tyler looked like he had been struck.
“For seventeen years?”
Diane sobbed.
“I was afraid.”
“Of Dad?”
“No.”
She paused.
“Of what the truth would do to you.”
Tyler laughed once.
It was the saddest sound I had ever heard.
“The lie already did it.”
Diane whispered his name.
Tyler stepped away from the phone.
“I can’t.”
Then he walked into the bathroom and locked the door.
Thirty seconds later, I heard him crying.
Mason was standing in the hallway.
He had heard it too.
He looked at me.
“Dad never cries.”
I wrapped my arms around him.
“Sometimes people cry when something they’ve carried a long time finally becomes too heavy.”
Mason leaned into me.
From behind the bathroom door, Tyler’s grief filled the room.
May you like
And I realized our marriage might not survive his lies.
But first, my husband had to survive learning that some of the people he trusted most had allowed him to hate himself for almost half his life.
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