J.T. Ellison - Lie To Me - a gripping thriller with a shocking twist!

“Bullshit. She’s just trying to hurt you. She could be holed up with some lover, laughing up her sleeve while the police make a case against you. We gotta get out in front of this. Right now.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Bill, you read too many novels. There is nothing to get out in front of. I’ve done nothing wrong, and neither has Sutton. It’s been a bad time for us both. She’s had a lot to deal with, and I’m praying all she’s done is take off for a few days, like her note said.”

“There’s your quote. I’ll call the Times, say that exactly.”

“No story. Seriously. You have to quash it. I can’t face the scrutiny.”

“It’s too late. And it sells books, buddy.”

“You didn’t just say that to me. Go away, Bill. Make sure the story isn’t run. Don’t come down. I’ll call if I have news.”

He hung up. The phone rang immediately. He debated for a moment, then turned off the ringer again. Drank some more tea. Foraged in the refrigerator, found some prosciutto-and-mozzarella wraps. He needed fuel. The idea of eating was repugnant, especially with the constant visions of Sutton lying dead and broken in a ditch that inundated him, but he’d do her no good drunk and empty.

Ethan ate. He looked out the window. The media were still lined up, camera lights on, beautiful young reporters fluffing their hair and straightening their ties. The local evening news was about to start.

He debated for a few moments: Turn it on? See what Sutton had wrought?

Then: Dashiell.

The thought of his dead son, of the things the reporters would be saying, made him want to crawl right out of his skin. Bolts of panic shuddered through his body. He was stuck in the house; he knew the moment he tried to step foot outdoors, the media would pounce on him. Stuck, trapped in this moment in time, unable to walk away, unable to function. He simply didn’t know what to do.

He watched the scrum of reporters on his front step. He decided to stay away from the TV, decided against any internet reading. He was afraid what he might see there. Himself cast as the villain. Sutton, his beautiful Sutton, dragged across the coals again. The baby, resurrected and killed, all over again.

He couldn’t take this. He couldn’t stand it anymore.

So he poured a drink. And then another. He walked around the house for some exercise, looked at pictures of Dashiell, and for one long, odd moment, stood in Sutton’s closet and smelled her scent and masturbated.

What else was a trapped man supposed to do? It’s not like he could open his laptop and write, could he? Could he? Yet a little voice said, You’re a selfish man, Ethan Montclair. Might as well take advantage.

How in the name of God it happened, he didn’t know, but when he opened the manuscript that had lain dormant for the past two months, the words just started to flow.

THE FIRST BREAK

The call came very late that evening, while Ethan Montclair sat in his lonely house, contemplating whether he should go searching for his wife or continue to allow the inertia and ennui to consume him. Get lost in a bottle, or possibly stumble across his dead wife’s body?

An easy, unsurprising decision. He’d poured a drink and continued to type.

Officer Holly Graham, though, had already gone to bed. When her cell phone rang, she fumbled with the phone—who wouldn’t, that late? When she finally got it to her ear, there was silence. She feared the caller had hung up. They hadn’t.

“Officer...Graham, is it?”

The voice was female, deeper than normal, but feminine. Graham glanced quickly at the caller ID—private. That could be anything from a blocked number to a pay phone.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“You need to look closer at Ethan Montclair.”

“Who is this?” Graham had asked again.

“A concerned friend. Sutton Montclair is my friend. I’m afraid, we’re afraid, Ethan’s hurt Sutton.”

The voice was clear and confident, though Officer Graham could hear a waver in the very last words, as if the caller were scared.

Graham did everything by the book.

“Ma’am, I’d appreciate it if we could make this official. Can you meet me at the station, give a statement?”

“No. I won’t help if you make this official.”

“How did you get this number?”

“Look closer at Ethan. He’s not what he seems. The baby... It’s not what it seems.”

“You’ll have to give me more to go on, ma’am. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

The voice, now a vicious hiss: “Everything.”

IN WHICH WE RECEIVE A CLUE

The intensity of the voice sent Holly’s heartbeat ticking up a notch. She called Sergeant Moreno directly, as he’d instructed.

“Sorry to call so late, sir. Can someone dump the LUDs on my cell phone? My personal phone, not my work phone. I just got an anonymous call about Ethan Montclair. Said to look closer at him, and at the baby’s death.”

“How’d they get your personal cell phone number?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does, but we’ll worry about it later. I’ll have a trace run, see if we can nail it down.” He yawned. “Damn, it’s late. But I’m awake. Might as well take the time now to update me. Where are you on the case?”

“Everything Montclair told us is checking out. Sutton was committed to Vanderbilt on an emergency psychiatric hold six months ago. I called the doctor, but they won’t talk to me without a warrant in hand, so all we have is the court filing. It checks out, everything Ethan said shows up there—suicidal ideation, psychosis. He’s telling the truth about her breakdown.

“The baby’s death was ruled SIDS, the autopsy showed no signs of trauma. Baby was well nourished and taken care of, no signs of neglect, nothing to indicate he was purposefully suffocated or given something that stopped his heart. It really looks like a terrible tragedy, and not one of their making. There are about 3,500 idiopathic SIDS deaths in the country every year. It seems Dashiell Montclair is a statistic.”

“That’s a shame.”

“It is. Very sad.”

“What else?”

“Multiple domestic calls. We’ve been out to the house four times in the past year. Mrs. Montclair declined to press charges, so there was nothing we could do.”

“He was abusing her?”

“That’s the odd thing. All four times, she swears she didn’t make the call. That yes, they were fighting, and yes, it was bad, but she hadn’t called the police.”

“Nine-one-one have the records?”

“The calls came from her cell phone.”

“Sounds like buyer’s regret to me. Pretty typical.”

“Yeah. There’s not a lot to go on here, that’s for sure. Clearly there were problems, clearly she’s bailed. The question is, did she leave of her own volition, or did he help her along?”

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