Chapter 2 - THREE YEARS STOLEN
Three years earlier, Ethan Cole had been twenty-eight years old, newly married, broke, tired, and happier than he realized.
He worked twelve-hour shifts at a warehouse outside Columbus.
Claire worked mornings at a dental office.
They rented a small apartment with crooked kitchen cabinets and a heater that sounded like somebody shaking nails in a coffee can.
They loved it.
Friday nights were frozen pizza.
Sunday mornings were coffee in bed.
They argued about laundry.
They dreamed about buying a little house.
Then one rainy night changed everything.
Ethan had just clocked out when his old friend Ray Damon called.
“Man, I need help.”
Ethan leaned against his truck.
“With what?”
“My car died near Fulton.”
“Call a tow truck.”
“I got no money.”
“You never got money.”
“That’s why I got friends.”
Ethan sighed.
“Send me your location.”
It was the kind of decision people made without thinking.
A small favor.
Twenty minutes out of the way.
Nothing.
Except Ray wasn’t alone when Ethan arrived.
Another man stood beside him.
Marcus Reed.
Ethan knew Marcus by reputation.
Drugs.
Gambling.
Bad debts.
The type of guy who could turn a quiet room dangerous just by walking into it.
Ethan lowered his window.
“Ray, get in.”
Marcus approached the truck.
“You Ethan?”
“Yeah.”
“He says you got money.”
Ethan looked at Ray.
“What is he talking about?”
Ray wouldn’t meet his eyes.
That was the first warning.
Ethan missed it.
The second warning came when Marcus opened Ethan’s passenger door.
“Get out of my truck.”
Marcus laughed.
“Relax.”
“I said get out.”
Then Marcus pulled a gun.
Everything after that happened fast.
Ray shouted.
Ethan grabbed Marcus’s wrist.
The gun fired.
Once.
Marcus stumbled backward.
Ray ran.
Ethan stood in the rain staring at blood spreading across Marcus’s shirt.
“Oh God.”
Marcus collapsed.
Ethan immediately called 911.
He stayed.
He tried to stop the bleeding.
He gave the police his weaponless hands without resistance.
He told them exactly what happened.
Then Ray disappeared.
Twenty-four hours later, he reappeared with a lawyer.
And a different story.
“Mr. Damon says you arranged to meet Marcus Reed over money,” Detective Harris told Ethan.
“That’s a lie.”
“He says you brought the gun.”
“Marcus had the gun!”
“He says you threatened Marcus earlier that week.”
“I barely knew him!”
The detective pushed a printed screenshot across the table.
A text message.
Ethan’s phone number.
Marcus’s number.
YOU BETTER HAVE MY MONEY OR WE’RE DONE TALKING.
Ethan stared at it.
“I never sent this.”
“Phone company says it came from your number.”
“My phone disappeared at work two weeks ago for almost an hour.”
Detective Harris leaned back.
“You expect me to believe somebody stole your phone, sent one threatening text, then quietly put it back?”
“Yes!”
“You got a better explanation?”
Ethan didn’t.
And that was the problem.
The prosecutor offered fifteen years if he pleaded guilty.
Life if he went to trial and lost.
Claire begged him to fight.
His public defender stared at the evidence and gave him a colder answer.
“Juries like simple stories, Ethan.”
“And?”
“The state has one.”
“What about the truth?”
The attorney looked exhausted.
“The truth still needs evidence.”
Ethan refused the plea.
At trial, Ray Damon took the stand.
He looked Ethan directly in the eyes.
Then he buried him.
“I saw Ethan shoot Marcus.”
Claire gasped.
Ethan stood.
“You lying son of a—”
The judge slammed the gavel.
The jury came back five hours later.
Guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
Twelve years.
Claire collapsed into her mother’s arms.
Ethan stood completely still as the deputies handcuffed him.
As they dragged him away, Ray watched from the back of the courtroom.
For half a second, their eyes met.
Ray smiled.
Three years later, Ethan still saw that smile in his nightmares.
But now, inside the warden’s office, one of the men in suits opened the brown envelope.
He pulled out a photograph.
Then he slid it across the table.
Ethan looked down.
His breath stopped.
It was Ray Damon.
May you like
Standing beside Marcus Reed.
Holding the gun.
