Chapter 2 - THE STORY ETHAN PRACTICED
Daniel did not ask Ethan to repeat the whole thing in the hospital hallway.
He called Detective Marissa Cole instead.
"My son just told me my wife coached him to accuse me of violence."
Cole arrived forty minutes later with a child-interview specialist.
Daniel sat outside while Ethan spoke inside a small family consultation room.
He hated every second of it.
When the specialist finally opened the door, she looked angry.
Not at Ethan.
"Mr. Carter, your son says his mother has been rehearsing statements with him for almost two months."
Daniel stared at her.
"Two months?"
"He says she told him it was a game called 'remember it right.'"
Daniel's stomach turned.
Cole stepped beside her.
"We need your consent to collect his tablet."
"Why?"
Ethan appeared behind them holding a scratched blue tablet.
"I recorded her once."
Daniel blinked.
"You what?"
"Grandma told me if a grown-up tells me to say something that isn't true, I should save it if I can."
Ethan opened a voice-memo app.
There were twelve recordings.
Daniel's knees nearly gave out.
Cole played the newest one.
Olivia's voice filled the room.
"Again. Start from when Daddy came home angry."
Ethan's smaller recorded voice answered.
"Daddy came home angry and yelled at you."
"Then what?"
"He pushed you."
"Good. And what did I do?"
"You told him to stop."
"Perfect. Don't add anything else, okay? Judges don't like kids who change their stories."
The recording ended.
Daniel stared at the floor.
The specialist whispered, "There's more."
The second file was worse.
Ethan had apparently left the tablet recording after he went to brush his teeth.
Olivia spoke to someone on the phone.
"Once the temporary order is signed, Daniel can't stop us."
A man's voice answered, too faint to identify.
Olivia laughed.
"He'll be too busy defending himself."
Then:
"No, his mother doesn't know everything. Not yet."
Daniel looked at Cole.
"Who is she talking to?"
Cole shook her head.
"We need the original file analyzed."
Ethan touched Daniel's sleeve.
"Dad?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"I know who came to the house."
Daniel lowered himself to Ethan's height.
"Who?"
"Uncle Luke."
Daniel stopped breathing.
Luke Mercer wasn't Ethan's uncle by blood.
He was Daniel's best friend.
The man who had stood beside him at his wedding.
The man who had held Ethan in the delivery room hallway and cried harder than Daniel had.
Ethan looked toward the closed door.
"Mom always made me go upstairs when he came over."
Then he added the part that made Daniel's hands go numb.
"Except one time."
"What happened one time?"
Ethan's eyes filled with tears.
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"I heard Mom tell him I was supposed to be his son."
