The first real mistake

Chapter 30

The First Real Mistake

Nobody moved for a moment after Ethan said it.

Then Dan walked to the table and sat down. He looked at Judith carefully. “Tell us exactly what he said. Word for word.”

Judith kept her arm around Lily. “He offered to make everything go away. The press release, the investigation, my name in the papers. In return he wanted the original recording and he wanted Ethan to step back from whatever Robert told him last night.” She paused. “I said no. I asked him about my father. He would not give me a straight answer. And when I turned to walk away he said my name and reminded me that I have a daughter.”

The kitchen was completely quiet except for the low sound coming from Lily’s tablet.

“He said it like that,” Dan said. “On a public street.”

“Yes,” Judith said. “Directly in front of the security camera above the entrance. I made sure I was standing under it the whole time.”

Ethan looked at her. “You planned that before you went down.”

“Yes,” she said simply.

Dan looked at his brother. “That footage combined with the voice memo on her phone-”

“Is evidence,” Ethan finished. “Of intimidation. Of a direct threat against a child.” He pulled out his phone. “I am calling Robert Ashby. He needs to know this happened before he gives his statement to the police. It strengthens everything.”

He stepped into the hallway to make the call.

Judith looked down at Lily who had not looked up once from the tablet through any of this. She was watching something with small animals in it, completely absorbed, one hand absently reaching for the last piece of her toast.

Judith watched her eat it.

She thought about Blackwood’s voice on the street. Still pleasant even when he was threatening a three year old child. That pleasantness was the most frightening thing about the man. The way cruelty sat so comfortably inside good manners.

Dan leaned forward on the table. “Judith.”

She looked at him.

“You did well down there,” he said quietly. “I mean that.”

She nodded once and said nothing.

Ethan came back into the kitchen. “Robert is on his way to the police station now. His lawyer is already there waiting. He is giving the full statement this morning, everything, Gerald Thompson’s accident, Whitmore’s involvement, the payments, all of it.” He sat down at the table. “I also spoke to Elena. The camera footage from the entrance is being secured right now. She is sending it directly to the journalist Sarah Okafor and to Robert’s lawyer simultaneously.”

“What about Whitmore,” Dan said. “He is going to know all of this is happening in real time.”

“He already knows,” Ethan said. “He has known since last night. The question is what he does next.” He looked at both of them. “A man like Whitmore has spent fifteen years making sure his name never appears anywhere. This morning his name is in three newspapers and about to be in a police statement. He has two options. He disappears completely and lets my father take the full weight of everything. Or he tries to shut it down fast and makes himself more visible in the process.”

“Which do you think he will do,” Judith asked.

“I think he will try to shut it down,” Ethan said. “Because disappearing means abandoning fifteen years of investment and he is not the kind of man who walks away from something he built.”

“So he comes after us harder,” Dan said.

“Yes,” Ethan said. “Which means we cannot stay here.”

Judith looked at him. “What do you mean.”

“This address,” Ethan said. “My father was sitting outside it this morning. Which means Whitmore’s people know it too. We need to move. Today. Somewhere none of them can connect to any of us directly.”

Judith looked around the apartment. The notepad on the table. The cold coffee cups. The charger plugged into the wall with Lily’s tablet cable running from it.

“Where,” she said.

Ethan and Dan looked at each other.

“Robert has a property,” Ethan said. “Outside the city. He offered it last night. I did not think we would need it this quickly but—”

“How far outside the city,” Judith asked.

“An hour. Maybe less depending on traffic.”

Judith looked at Lily again. Still watching her tablet. Still completely unbothered.

She thought about staying. About holding her ground in this apartment that Dan had arranged with its security on the door and its camera above the entrance. She thought about the black car sitting at the curb this morning and the pleasantness in Richard Blackwood’s voice when he said the word daughter.

“Okay,” she said. “We go.”

Dan nodded immediately. “I will start making calls.”

“Pack only what Lily needs,” Ethan said to Judith. “We travel light and we leave within the hour.”

Judith stood up. She looked down at her daughter.

“Lily,” she said. “We are going on a little trip today. Can you help me pack your bag.”

Lily looked up from the tablet. Her face was immediately interested. “Where are we going.”

“Somewhere with a garden,” Judith said.

Lily’s eyes went wide. “Does it have grass.”

“Probably a lot of grass,” Judith said.

Lily was already climbing down from her chair.

Judith followed her down the hallway toward the bedroom. She could hear Dan on the phone behind her and Ethan typing something on his phone, both of them moving and planning and pushing forward the way they had been doing since last night without stopping.

She went into the bedroom and opened the small bag she had packed when they first came here two days ago.

She started repacking it carefully, putting Lily’s things in first the way she always did.

Her hands were steady now.

Whatever was coming next, they were not going to face it sitting still and waiting for it to arrive.

She zipped the bag and stood up straight.

“Mummy,” Lily said from behind her. “Can I bring Mr. Bear.”

“Yes,” Judith said. “Go and get him.”

Lily ran past her back into the living room.

Judith looked at herself in the small mirror on the bedroom wall for just a moment.

Then she picked up the bag and walked back out.