324 Nights. Not One Was Mine Chapter 07
The next morning, Lindsay was brought in for questioning.
She showed up in a loose maternity dress. Her belly had just started to round out. Her face was paper white.
The instant she saw me, she flinched back a step.
“Evelyn, let me explain—”
“Explain what?” I looked at her. “Explain how you played the devoted work friend to my face while sleeping with my husband behind my back? Or explain how you were going to walk into my house with his baby the second I was out of it?”
Her eyes went red.
She was the best at looking pitiful.
Before time rewound, she’d stood outside my funeral holding her baby, dabbing at her eyes, murmuring, “I never thought she was so fragile.”
As if my death had just been a personal failure of resilience.
Her voice trembled. “Ethan and I—we love each other. We never meant to hurt you. We just—”
She didn’t finish.
Nathan’s voice cut in from beside her, arctic.
“Enough.”
Lindsay went stiff and shut her mouth.
The investigation moved fast after that.
The hotel pulled the surveillance.
Three years’ worth of footage of Ethan and Lindsay entering and exiting Suite 1204 at the Ritz-Carlton. Parking records. Charge details. Text histories. Wire transfers. All of it lined up.
Worse for him, the department recovered a mass of deleted content from Ethan’s phone.
One voice memo was from him to Lindsay.
“You don’t have to worry. Once the baby’s born, it’ll be my firstborn. My mother’s been dying to throw Evelyn out anyway. This is the perfect chance to bury her for good.”
The text logs showed Margaret had printed those hotel records well in advance—waiting for the birthday dinner to detonate.
Chloe had been assigned to film. She’d planned to release the video of me on my knees, apologizing, to make sure I’d never show my face in our social circle again.
Once that evidence surfaced, there was no way back.
Ethan wasn’t personally subject to the UCMJ as a civilian, but as the man carrying on a long-term affair with the wife of an active-duty officer, Nathan’s side worked closely with the military investigators. They documented how the affair had impacted the household and duties of an active-duty major, and how Ethan had actively pursued the relationship. That paperwork would directly shape what happened to Lindsay’s status as a dependent.
Ethan himself was formally charged by the state with violating the Servicemembers’ Wartime Marriage Protection Act, fraud, conspiracy to defame, assault, and unlawful restraint, among other counts.
Lindsay was named as a co-conspirator and added to the investigation list.
Her PR firm invoked the morals clause in her contract that same day and placed her on indefinite suspension.
Margaret and Chloe—for coordinated harassment, public humiliation, assault, tearing at my clothing, and recording and threatening to disseminate intimate imagery without consent—were investigated on charges of assault, harassment, conspiracy, and invasion of privacy, and were staring down substantial civil damages on top of it.
When word got out, the Prescott family imploded.
The relatives were the first to flip.
The same people who’d stood there days earlier lecturing me about fidelity started calling and texting.
“Evelyn, Diane was completely misled that night.”
“Patricia was just anxious, she spoke too harshly, don’t take it to heart.”
“We’re family, honey—don’t take it this far—”
Looking at those messages, I only felt sick.
I had my lawyer send a single reply to all of them.
*All messages have been archived and forwarded to counsel. Any further contact will be handled through the appropriate legal channels.*
They all went quiet.
The neighborhood turned overnight.
Someone posted the video of the Prescott family being led out by police to the local Facebook group with the caption:
*Turns out the wife wasn’t the problem. Her husband and his family set the whole thing up.*
The neighbors who’d forwarded the earlier videos were frantically deleting and privately apologizing. The ones who’d stood in my doorway shouting for me to kneel now walked around me in the elevator with their heads down.
I didn’t forgive a single one.
Standing by wasn’t innocence, and joining in wasn’t accident.
Every one of them had been a hand on my back the day I fell off that balcony.
—