Winston Hunt Opens the Door

Chapter 148: Winston Hunt Opens the Door Ethan's first words were not about the photograph. "My father got a burn-phone call from Martha last night," he said, and the Post article on Leah's screen became suddenly less important than the phone in her hand. "She asked about me, Hunt Capital's due diligence review, and whether I had any connection to a young woman causing trouble for the Thorne family." Leah turned away from Martha's staged smile. "What did he tell her?" "That he knew nothing." "Did she believe him?" "No. But she does not have proof yet." Ethan's voice carried the tight discipline he used when fear had to be converted into useful facts. "She is fishing around Hunt Capital, around my adoption, around anyone who might have touched the Voss file. If she finds the wrong edge, she will pull." Leah opened her notebook to a clean page. Martha probes Hunt. Protect photo search. Annex clock. "Then the photograph search cannot look like a search," she said. "It doesn't. My father's archive assistant is pulling old Hunt-Thorne charity event files for a donor retrospective. If there is a photograph of Catherine Voss with you, we should have it by tomorrow." "Sarah wants it before the weekend." "So do I." The answer came too quickly, and Leah heard the thing beneath it. Ethan had seen the Post image. He knew how a single frame could rearrange sympathy before evidence arrived. "What about the sealed annex?" she asked. He exhaled once. "Harder. Annex 2002-0847-A is sealed under Judge Fleischman's order and protected by the Identity Protection Act of 1998. Minors in high-risk custody cases. To unseal it, we need a judge's order or the former minor's consent. Since you are no longer a minor, consent gives us standing, but the petition still takes time." "How much time?" "Two weeks, maybe three, unless Flores can accelerate it through the criminal investigation." Two weeks was long enough for Martha to bury a witness, pressure Richard, flood the press, and turn Catherine into a footnote. Leah wrote the number anyway. "Pemberton is also stalling the archive request," Ethan said. "They asked for clarification on which documents Flores wants and how those documents relate to the alleged investigation." "Alleged," Leah repeated. "Their word." "If they delay past Friday, Flores uses it as obstruction." "Good." A brief silence. "How are you?" The question slid under her guard. Leah had answers for docket timing, witness risk, media strategy, and archive obstruction. She did not have an answer for herself. "Busy," she said. "That is not the same thing." Leah looked again at the Post photograph. Martha's hand, teenage Isabella's trained smile, a caption turning theft into family. "I'm angry at James Voss." Ethan did not interrupt. "I know he was murdered. I know he found something at Mount Sinai and tried to expose it. I know he had a newborn in the NICU and a wife who trusted him. But part of me is still angry he couldn't protect them. That he left me to Martha." "You are grieving him," Ethan said. "Anger is allowed." The gentleness made her close her eyes. "And you?" she asked before she could retreat. "Catherine's letter said the boy was with her that night. You were five. You were there, and everyone keeps talking about it like a missing document. How are you?" This time Ethan's silence lasted long enough for Leah to hear traffic under her window. "I asked my father again," he said. "He confirmed my adoption went through Pemberton & Croft in 2002. Court-ordered custody transfer. Sealed correspondence. He and my mother wanted a child so badly that they accepted an estate law firm doing family work and did not ask why." "Do you remember any of it?" "No. I have tried. Therapy, hypnosis, every specialist my parents could buy. There is only a blank space and what my body kept: nightmares, panic, the split between the self that feels and the self that analyzes." Leah remembered the man from L'Etoile who had watched every angle and offered nothing human unless it had been chosen in advance. She remembered the man who had opened Catherine Voss's letter and sounded five years old for one breath before putting himself back together. "Both selves are helping now," she said. "Because you make it possible," Ethan said. "The investigation gives them one purpose." The line changed after that. Not romantically, not cleanly, but something in it became less defensive. Two damaged histories, two stolen childhoods, one conspiracy finally forcing them to speak plainly. "Sarah has another idea," Ethan said. "Not just one counter-photograph. A timeline. You at different ages, with Catherine, with Richard, maybe one with Martha where the distance shows. Let the public see relationships instead of a single staged frame." "We need photographs for that." "My father may have the older ones. Megan may have the last two years." Leah looked toward the narrow hallway, where Megan's spare umbrella still leaned beside the door from a rainy shift months ago. Megan had photos Leah had never staged: birthdays, exhausted alley selfies, Coney Island wind, ordinary evidence that Leah Chen had been alive in ways Martha had never owned. "Megan doesn't know you're on my team," Leah said. "Then maybe today is the day she should." Leah almost argued. The old instinct rose fast: keep Megan outside the blast radius, keep partial truths in place, keep the friend who had saved her from knowing too much. But the Post had already put Isabella's face on the city. Journalists would start building a circle around her. Megan was in that circle whether Leah admitted it or not. "She knows I'm Isabella," Leah said. "She knows Thorne family involvement. She does not know about Catherine Marsh, cabinet four, or the extent of our alliance." "If reporters reach her first, she will have to answer from the dark." That decided it. After they ended the call, Leah opened a new message. Can you come over? There's something I need to tell you. Megan's reply came almost immediately. Coming over. 15 minutes. Leah set the phone down beside the Post article and the notes from Flores. Martha wanted one photograph to define her. Ethan wanted a timeline. Megan was about to walk through the door carrying the pieces of Leah's life that Martha had never posed, cropped, or captioned.