Three A.M., Listening for Footsteps
Chapter 09 - Three A.M., Listening for Footsteps
Sophie woke at three in the morning, four days after the interview, certain she'd heard footsteps in the hallway outside their bedroom, though Ethan, waking beside her, heard nothing at all once he'd fully surfaced from sleep.
"There's nothing there," he said, checking the hallway carefully anyway, the specific patience of a man who understood his wife's fear wasn't irrational even if this particular instance turned out to be nothing.
"I know it's probably my mind," Sophie said, once he'd returned. "I just can't stop my body from reacting like she's still standing right behind me every time I hear something unexpected."
"That's not unreasonable," Ethan said. "Someone you trusted enough to have coffee with tried to kill you six days ago. Your body's allowed to stay alert to that for a while."
Sophie sat up, unable to fully settle back into sleep, and Ethan sat with her in the dark, the same patient presence he'd been offering consistently since the atrium.
"I keep thinking about the will," Sophie said. "About your father knowing, eighteen months before he died, exactly what Vanessa was capable of, and choosing to quietly protect the company instead of confronting her directly."
"I've thought about that too," Ethan said. "I don't know if it was cowardice or strategy. Maybe both. I think he was trying to protect the family from a scandal while still protecting the company from further damage, and he ran out of time before he could figure out how to do both without someone getting hurt."
"He couldn't have predicted this," Sophie said. "Nobody predicts their daughter trying to kill someone over an inheritance dispute."
"No," Ethan agreed. "But I keep wondering if he suspected, on some level, that leaving that document buried in a safety deposit box instead of dealing with it directly was passing the danger forward to whoever eventually found it."
Sophie considered that, the specific unfairness of inheriting not just an estate but the unresolved consequences of a decision someone else had made to avoid a difficult confrontation.
"I don't blame him," she said finally. "I think he was trying his best with limited time and information. I just wish he'd trusted someone enough to handle it properly before he ran out of time to see it through."
Ethan reached for her hand in the dark, the same gesture that had become their quiet shorthand for presence over the past difficult week.
May you like
"We're handling it now," he said. "Properly. Even if it's slower and harder than any of us would prefer."
Sophie nodded, leaning into him, listening for footsteps that never came again that night, her body slowly, gradually beginning to trust the silence instead of bracing against it.
