The Story Ends Without Me

I gave Claire every page because keeping one clean copy would have meant keeping a version of myself under control. That was the old trick, wasn't it? Learn where the weapons are, keep the sharp drawer locked, make certain people believe they need your silence. I wanted the opposite this time. I wanted every claim exposed and every missing piece visible. I wanted no one to think I edited the ending for my own protection.

The frightening part is that this may be the end of my business, not just Robert Hargrove’s. The licensing board can call it a review. A reviewer can call a pattern a practice. I can already imagine the clean vocabulary they will use: access, leverage, obstruction. They will make it sound orderly. They will not mention the people who paid me because the wreckage was ugly enough to push them back toward their spouses.

I keep wondering what Claire will leave in. The photographs. My notes. The moments when I was frightened and pretended not to be. There is probably no version of those pages that makes me look innocent, but innocence is not what I am defending. Accuracy is harder. Accuracy lets the rest of us decide what I did.

Someone at the storage unit asked about me again. A law firm, supposedly. I searched for the smallest sign of a trap in the manager’s face and found mostly embarrassment. That may be worse. If people are already circling, I would rather they came directly than let paperwork arrive in three respectable envelopes.