Chapter 2 - The Key in Ethan’s Pocket
The governor issued a forty-eight-hour emergency stay at 11:57 p.m.
Three minutes before my mother was supposed to die.
When the announcement came, my knees gave out.
I sat on the floor of the prison waiting room and cried harder than I had cried in six years.
Not because she was free.
She wasn’t.
Not because everyone suddenly believed her.
They didn’t.
She was simply alive.
For now.
Victor was questioned for four hours.
Then released.
That part made no sense to me.
The police said Ethan’s statement was important but not enough to charge anyone.
Victor claimed he had been at our house after Dad died because Mom called him.
He said a dark stain on his shirt could have been coffee.
He denied entering Mom’s bedroom.
He denied hiding the knife.
And because six years had passed, the police had no immediate physical evidence proving otherwise.
I showed the detective Ethan’s key.
He studied it.
“Do you recognize it?”
“No.”
“Did your uncle say anything about it?”
Ethan shook his head.
The detective placed it in an evidence bag.
My stomach tightened.
“Are you taking it?”
“For examination.”
“Will I get it back?”
“If it is not connected to anything.”
Something in me did not trust that answer.
Maybe I had learned too late that trust should be earned.
The next morning, Mom’s attorney, Rebecca Sloan, met us at a diner near the prison.
Rebecca had represented Mom for the last four years during appeals.
She had never stopped believing her.
I had.
That shame sat between us.
Rebecca spread the original case photographs across the table.
Kitchen.
Blood.
Knife.
Mom’s robe.
Our father, Michael Hayes.
I had not looked at those photographs since the trial.
Rebecca pointed toward the murder weapon.
“The knife was found beneath Caroline’s side of the bed.”
I nodded.
“Her fingerprints were on it.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember why?”
I stared.
“Because she used it.”
“Not necessarily.”
Rebecca pulled out another photograph.
It showed our kitchen knife block.
“One knife was missing.”
I looked closer.
The slot shape matched the murder weapon.
“Your mother told police she had used that knife to cut vegetables earlier that evening.”
I remembered.
“She washed it.”
“That was her testimony.”
Rebecca tapped the fingerprint report.
“Her prints were found beneath the victim’s blood.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means her prints may have been on the handle before the murder.”
I stared at her.
“Why wasn’t that enough?”
“Because the prosecution argued she used the knife and never released it.”
Rebecca looked tired.
“The science could not prove when her fingerprints were placed there.”
Ethan played with a paper straw wrapper.
I looked at him.
“Did you see Uncle Victor touch the handle?”
He shook his head.
“He wore gloves.”
Rebecca went still.
“What kind?”
“Black.”
My stomach dropped.
The prosecution had argued there was no evidence of another person because no unidentified fingerprints were recovered.
Gloves explained that.
Rebecca immediately wrote something down.
Then Ethan pointed at one photograph.
“Why is Dad’s watch there?”
I followed his finger.
A silver watch lay on the kitchen counter.
I remembered it.
Dad wore it every day.
“What about it?”
Ethan frowned.
“Dad didn’t wear that watch when Uncle Victor came.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“What did he wear?”
Ethan whispered.
“The brown one.”
I stared.
Dad owned another watch.
An old leather-strapped watch from our grandfather.
After his death, it vanished.
The police inventory never listed it.
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Ethan, are you sure?”
May you like
He nodded.
“Uncle Victor took it.”
