He already knew something had shifted.
And tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, he was going to push harder.
We did not have as much time as I had thought.
I called in sick to work the next morning and waited until Daniel’s truck turned off our street.
“Get your coat,” I told Ava.
Marcus lived forty minutes away, in the same house he’d owned for twenty years.
I had been there for barbecues.
I had sat on his back porch and watched him play with his dogs while Daniel grilled and Chloe ran through the sprinkler.
I had never once looked at him and thought: *he knows.*
He answered the door in a flannel shirt, coffee in hand.
When he saw my face, the color left his.
“Ellen.”
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Inside.”
He stepped back.
His eyes moved to Ava behind me and something happened in them — not surprise.
Recognition.
The look of a man who has been waiting for a knock on the door for five years.
We sat at his kitchen table.
He didn’t offer coffee.
“You know why I’m here,” I said.
Marcus set his mug down.
“I’ve thought about this day a lot.”
“Then you can start by telling me what Daniel said when he called you from the hospital.”
His hands wrapped around the mug.
He didn’t look up.
“He said there’d been an accident.
He said Chloe was gone.
He said Ava had been driving.”
“And you knew that wasn’t true.”
A long pause.
“I knew he’d been drinking when I left the house.
I knew he was in no state to drive.” His voice was rough.
“I didn’t know he’d gotten in the car.”
“But when he told you Ava had been driving—”
“I knew.” The words came out flat and quiet.
“I knew it wasn’t right.
But he was my brother.
And Chloe was already gone.
And I told myself that charging him wouldn’t bring her back.”
Ava made a sound beside me.
Not a word.
Just a breath, sharp and short.
Marcus finally looked at her.
“I am sorry, Ava.
What happened to you — what you had to carry — that was wrong.
I knew it was wrong.”
“Sorry doesn’t give me back five years,” Ava said.
He didn’t argue with that.
“Marcus.” I leaned forward.
“I need you to make a statement.
To the police.
Everything Daniel told you that night.”
His jaw tightened.
