"We need to confirm it," Ben said. “Before we talk to your brother, we need to ask Ethan if it was Rob."
"Yes." Kelly stood. The willow branches brushed her shoulders as she rose. "And if it is, I'm going to kick my brother's ass from here to New York City and back again. It would be just like him to talk to Lori and then not tell anyone after she died. He'd bury it. He'd convince himself it wasn't relevant. That it had nothing to do with what happened to her."
"He might have convinced himself he was protecting Ethan."
"He was protecting himself," Kelly muttered. "That's all Rob ever protects."
"Let's go find Ethan," he said.
They hurried back to the reception, but the back table was empty. Ethan's beer bottle sat where he'd left it, condensation running down the glass in thin lines, but the chair was pushed back at an angle.
Ben scanned the crowd, but Ethan was nowhere in sight.
"I don't see either of them," Ben said.
Kelly had been scanning in the opposite direction. She turned back to him, her face tight.
"Me neither. We’ll ask Lisa.”
Kelly’s mother and Lisa were standing together near the dessert table. Mrs. Bateman was holding a plate with a slice of wedding cake she hadn't touched, her lips pressed into the thin line that Ben had learned meant she was displeased about something. Rob's wife stood beside her, nodding along with thepatient attentiveness of a woman who had perfected the art of listening without hearing.
Kelly made straight for them. Ben followed half a step behind.
"Mom, have you seen Ethan Walters?" Kelly asked. No preamble. No warming up.
Her mother's expression shifted from general displeasure to specific displeasure. The thin line became thinner, a white ring around her mouth
"Yes, and he was very rude," Mrs. Bateman said, her voice carrying the clipped indignation of someone cataloging offenses for future reference. "He came up to us and said he needed to talk to Rob. He was very abrupt. I tried to chat with him about his campaign, but he completely ignored me. Just turned his back and walked away with Rob. I'll have to think twice about voting for him."
Ben's pulse picked up at the information. Ethan had come looking for Rob. Specifically. Urgently. Right after his conversation with Ben and Kelly under the oak tree.
Which meant Ethan had done the same math they had. He'd gone back to the reception, thought about what Kelly's questions implied, and reached the same conclusion. The unnamed advisor. Someone older. The person who had told him to abandon Lori and the baby.
Rob.
And Ethan had gone to confront him.
Ben glanced at Kelly. She was already looking at him. Her eyes were wide, and the color had drained from her face in a way that had nothing to do with the warm amber lighting. She'd reached the same place he had, maybe faster.
"Where did they go?" Ben asked. He kept his voice steady. Calm. The voice he'd used in boardrooms when deals were falling apart, and panic was not an option.
Mrs. Bateman looked at him with mild surprise, as if she hadn't expected the question to come from him. She opened her mouth to respond, but Rob's wife spoke first.
"Ethan said he needed to show Rob something in his car." She gestured toward the parking lot beyond the garden's edge. Her tone was casual. Unbothered. She had no reason to think anything was wrong. "They went that way. Maybe ten minutes ago?"
A lot could happen in ten minutes.
"Something in his car?” Kelly repeated.
"That's what he said." Lisa shrugged. "I thought it was odd, but you know Rob. He'll talk to anyone about anything."
The explanation made no sense. Nobody dragged someone away from a wedding reception to show them something in a car unless the something was important enough to override basic social convention. Or unless the real purpose of the trip had nothing to do with a car at all.
"Thank you," Ben said to Lisa.
“Where are you two going?”
Mrs. Bateman sounded absolutely vexed that they weren’t staying to chat, but they’d catch up with her later. He needed to make sure that whatever discussion Ethan and Rob had stayed friendly and civil.
