Exposed (Ethan Frost 3)

“Go after him,” Tori whispers to me, but I’m already moving, already following him down the long winding hallway to his office. As I do, I’m vaguely aware of Tori gathering up her stuff to leave. A few seconds later I hear the front door open and close.

“Ethan. Please. Talk to me,” I tell him as I follow him into the office. I don’t know what I want him to say, but this silence is killing me.

The vacant look in his eyes is killing me.

He shrugs a little. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“Whatever you need to say. It can’t be healthy to keep whatever you’re feeling all balled up inside you.”

“I’m fine, Chloe. There’s nothing to talk about.” He takes off his suit jacket, throws it over the arm of the couch. “I was in the middle of ruining him—why should I care what happens to him?”

His eyes are steady on mine, his face completely blank as he says it. But his voice—his voice—is dark and shaky and off. Just off.

“Nobody should have to find out that someone they love is dead from a news report.” I put a hand on his arm, squeeze gently. My stomach is still rolling with the horror of it. A breaking news report. What the hell is wrong with the FBI in Massachusetts? Don’t they know anything about notifying next of kin before letting announcements like that into the mainstream media?

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I despised him, isn’t it? It’s not like I care if he’s dead.”

It’s such a blatant lie that I don’t bother calling him on it. Instead, I walk up behind him, wrap my arms around his waist. Rest my cheek against his back. And notice—for the first time—the fine tremor running through him.

My big, strong, tough husband is shaking like a leaf.

Before I can call him on it, though, his smartphone rings. He stiffens, one hand coming up to rest on mine as the other fishes in his pocket for his phone.

“Let it go to voicemail,” I tell him softly. “There’s nothing so important right now that you have to take this call.”

He glances at the screen. “It’s my mother.”

Fuck. Of course it is.

He accepts the call, puts the phone to his ear. And even though it’s not on speaker, I’m close enough—and his mother is loud enough—that I can hear the entire conversation.

“Did you kill him?” she demands as soon as he answers the phone, her voice shrill and high and nearly incoherent with pain. “Tell me the truth, Ethan. Did you kill my son?”

“What? Of course not, Mom! I’m in California—”

“Did you have him killed?”

“Jesus, Mom. No! I would never do anything like that—”

“I never thought you’d do half of what you’ve done. You’ve turned against your family, humiliated us in front of the whole world, destroyed everything that was important to your brother. Why am I supposed to think it’s such a stretch that you’d actually kill him, too?”

“Because it’s a long way from turning proof of a guy’s illegal activities over to the FBI to killing him,” Ethan tells her. There’s a pleading note in his voice I’ve never heard before, like he’s seeking absolution from her for a crime he didn’t commit.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Mom, please—”

“No! Even if you didn’t do this, even if you didn’t actually point the gun at him and shoot him yourself—”

Ethan flinches like he’s absorbing a hit. “Is that what happened to him?”

“Like you care! Even if you didn’t actually kill him, this is still your fault. You did this.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did! You pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed until someone got angry enough that they killed him. Or until he killed himself. Either way, the blame is on you. Either way—”

I grab the phone from him then, disconnect the call.