Chapter 5 - The Safe House
For the next two weeks, I lived off the grid.
Mr. Harrison and our security team moved me to a secluded, modern glass-and-steel cabin nestled deep in the Columbia River Gorge, far away from the prying eyes of the media and the relentless buzzing of reporters outside my mother’s suburban home.
My mother visited every few days, bringing groceries, fresh clothes, and updates on the legal fallout.
"Ethan’s defense team is already trying to pin the entire conspiracy on Summer," Mom said one afternoon, setting a ceramic mug of hot tea on the wooden coffee table while I sat wrapped in a knitted blanket on the sofa, working through physical therapy exercises for my healing ribs. "They're claiming he was manipulated by a cunning, impressionable younger sister who orchestrated the whole thing."
I let out a dry, humorless laugh, rolling my shoulders back as a dull ache radiated through my collarbone. "Classic Ethan. He always found a way to deflect blame, even when caught red-handed. Is Summer playing along?"
"Not anymore," Mom sighed, sitting down across from me with a heavy heart. "Once her court-appointed defense attorney explained that Ethan was throwing her under the bus to save himself from federal prison, Summer turned on him with a vengeance. She handed over every single text message, every voice note, and every email where Ethan explicitly mapped out how to liquidate my family trust after your 'tragic' passing."
"Good," I murmured, watching the grey river current flow swiftly past the floor-to-ceiling windows. "Let them devour each other. They deserve every second of it."
"And how are you holding up, Claire?" Mom asked softly, leaning forward and placing her hand over mine. Her eyes were lined with worry, the stress of the past month etching deep wrinkles into her face. "You survived a near-fatal crash, you discovered your husband tried to murder you, and your sister is facing twenty years in federal prison. You don't have to be strong all the time."
I looked down at my hand, then at the faint, jagged scar running along my forearm from where the metal had sliced through my wedding dress.
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"I'm not being strong for them, Mom," I said, my voice steady and resolute. "I'm being strong for myself. For three years, I let Ethan shrink my world. I let him convince me that my career was secondary, that my instincts were wrong, that his charm was a shield against the world. I thought I lost everything in that limousine crash. But looking back... that crash saved my life. It woke me up."
Mom smiled, a proud, watery grin, and squeezed my fingers tightly. "You were always stronger than you knew, sweetheart. Ethan and Summer just underestimated what happens when you push a survivor into a corner."
