Chapter 6 - What Ethan Chose
The recording began with breathing.
Ethan’s.
Ragged.
Painful.
Then Victor.
“You cannot call Laura.”
Ethan replied:
“I’m not calling anyone.”
Laura closed her eyes.
Federal investigators played the audio inside a secure conference room.
Grace sat beside her.
Noah was not present.
Victor said:
“Good.”
“Don’t sound relieved.”
“You finally understand the risk.”
“I understand someone used ASTER’s remote maintenance channel to shut down my engine.”
“And that person will know you survived if you reappear.”
Ethan coughed.
Then:
“Let them think I’m dead for seventy-two hours.”
Victor asked:
“And Laura?”
“She gets protected.”
Victor laughed quietly.
“By thinking her husband drowned?”
“It buys us three days.”
Laura clenched both fists.
Seventy-two hours.
That was what Ethan originally intended.
Three days.
Victor asked:
“What happens after three days?”
“I go to the FBI.”
“And if the sabotage leads back to Mercer Aviation?”
“Then it does.”
“And if Laura’s signature is on the proxy approvals?”
Ethan went silent.
Laura looked at investigator Price.
“What signature?”
“We’ll get there.”
The audio continued.
Victor:
“You didn’t know, did you?”
Ethan:
“Know what?”
“Someone used Laura’s authentication certificate to approve ASTER maintenance access.”
Ethan’s breathing changed.
“That’s impossible.”
“It’s in the logs.”
“She doesn’t have the password.”
“Someone does.”
A long silence.
Then Ethan said:
“Keep her out of this until I know who used her credentials.”
Laura understood.
Ethan had feared not that she was guilty.
But that someone was trying to make her look guilty.
That knowledge softened nothing about his decision not to call.
It only explained it.
Seventy-two hours became a week.
Then three.
Why?
The next recovered section answered.
Andrea Shaw was speaking.
“Ethan, your death declaration petition is being prepared.”
Ethan snapped:
“Stop it.”
Victor:
“We cannot stop everything without explaining why.”
“I’m alive.”
“You’re injured, exposed, and we still don’t know who authorized the override.”
Ethan:
“Evelyn knows.”
Victor:
“Evelyn is gone.”
Laura leaned forward.
Evelyn Cross again.
Then Andrea:
“If you reappear now, every share transfer reverses.”
“Good.”
Victor:
“And whoever sabotaged you knows we found them.”
Ethan:
“I said good.”
There was movement.
Then Victor’s voice hardened.
“You cannot even walk ten feet without dizziness.”
Laura looked at Price.
“His injuries.”
“Records suggest significant head trauma.”
The private flight physician, Dr. Lena Cole, later told investigators Ethan had suffered a skull fracture and probable subdural bleeding.
She had repeatedly recommended hospitalization.
Victor refused public admission under Ethan’s name.
Ethan himself refused twice too.
Laura felt anger shift.
Victor had controlled him.
But Ethan had also made choices.
Secrecy had become cooperation.
The recording continued.
Ethan:
“Three more days.”
Victor:
“That’s what you said last week.”
Silence.
Ethan whispered:
“I need Evelyn.”
Laura turned to Price.
“Did he find her?”
“We believe Flight 417 was arranged partly to retrieve her.”
Grace said, “Reykjavik.”
Price nodded.
“Evelyn had fled to Iceland.”
“Why?”
“Because she believed Victor would blame her for the sabotage.”
Laura looked sharply toward him.
“Did she sabotage Ethan?”
“We don’t know yet.”
After the meeting, Laura sat in her car without starting it.
Ethan had been alive.
Afraid.
Injured.
Suspicious.
And he had chosen not to call her.
For years, Laura had blamed herself for their final argument.
The night before the crash, she accused Ethan of loving Mercer Aviation more than his family.
He left their bedroom and slept in his study.
The next morning he boarded the experimental plane.
Then disappeared.
Laura had spent five years wondering whether his last memory of her was anger.
Now she knew something worse.
He had had eleven weeks to change that memory.
He did not.
Grace knocked lightly on the car window.
Laura unlocked the door.
Grace sat beside her.
“You don’t have to defend him.”
Laura stared ahead.
“I loved him.”
“I know.”
“I still do.”
“That doesn’t require making every decision he made good.”
Laura looked at her.
Grace continued:
“My father copied evidence and then stayed silent for years. Maybe Victor scared him. Maybe he believed he was protecting us.”
“Do you forgive him?”
“I don’t know.”
Laura nodded.
“That seems to be the only honest answer anyone has.”
Her phone buzzed.
Maya Chen had traced the authorization that used Laura’s digital certificate before Ethan’s crash.
The login came from Victor’s executive office.
But the device belonged to someone else.
Andrea Shaw.
Laura called immediately.
Andrea answered.
“You used my authentication.”
Andrea began crying.
Laura closed her eyes.
“Why?”
“I didn’t know what it was approving.”
“Victor told you?”
“Yes.”
“You made me part of the sabotage trail.”
“I thought it was a board consent.”
“And afterward?”
“I realized.”
“Did Ethan know?”
“Yes.”
Laura almost dropped the phone.
“When?”
“Flight 417.”
“And what did he say?”
Andrea’s answer was barely audible.
“He said he didn’t know whether he could ever tell you.”
Laura’s voice broke.
“Why?”
“Because the evidence would make it look like you helped bring down his aircraft.”
Laura ended the call.
Five years earlier, someone had built a trap around her signature.
Ethan had seen the trap.
May you like
And instead of trusting her with the truth—
he had chosen to investigate her from the shadows.
