Luis's heart seized and his face flushed with shame at this admission.
Ethan looked shocked for just a moment and then nodded slowly. "If you and Fancy didn't sleep together that night, I guess that's the only explanation." He paused, trying to wrap his head around the fact. "I'm sorry Luis. I—I don't know what to say."
Luis shrugged sadly. "There's nothing to say. It just is."
The head investigator cleared his throat. "I hate to make a bad situation worse, but we need you to tell us everything you remember."
Luis cleared his throat, dropped his eyes from the other occupants of the room and began. "I remember laying on the couch, and suddenly feeling flush and very warm. I thought maybe the thermostat was turned on high, so I stood up to go check and got so dizzy I had to sit back down. My mind felt fuzzy and I felt really uncoordinated. I just thought that I had had more wine than I thought, but I guess it was the drugs. I lay back down, and almost immediately fell asleep.
"I don't know how long it was, but at one point I was awakened—I don't know by what—and I saw whom I thought was Fancy leaning over me. I didn't see her clearly—my vision was still blurry and I was still a little dizzy, but I could've sworn it was Fancy."
Luis stopped and took a few deep breaths. How was he going to tell the rest of this story? Especially to a room in which Ethan was the only person he knew? And he was pretty sure that this was more than Ethan really wanted to know about his brother-in-law as well—lawyer or not.
"Luis?" The second investigator (a beautiful woman) brought his attention back to the task at hand. "You said you 'thought' it was Fancy?"
"Yeah. I thought it was Fancy. She—she climbed on the couch… and straddled her legs across me. When—when…I…touched her hands, they were rough, and I knew it wasn't Fancy. I woke up fully then and saw another woman's face. I tried to fight, but she had this syringe…and she stabbed the needle into my arm…and that's all I remember."
"Did you recognize the woman?" Ethan asked.
"She worked on the estate; she had served us pretty much all night…I think that Fancy called her…Mary Ann maybe? I don't really remember her name."
At that, the head investigator sat up straight and leaned across the table. "Could you identify her in a line up?"
Luis nodded. "Now that I remember, I could never forget her face."
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"Excuse me?" Ethan wasn't as shocked as annoyed at his wife's tone. Things had been so weird between them, he wasn't especially surprised that he had done something to make her mad. He just wasn't sure what it was yet.
"What? Are you trying to punish me for not letting you go to the appointment with me?"
Ethan sighed tolerantly. "What are you talking about? How exactly do you think I'm trying to punish you?"
Theresa scoffed. "Stop it Ethan. You know what I'm talking about. You didn't tell me about your meeting with Luis because you're mad at me for not letting you come see Eve with me."
That did shock Ethan, and his face showed it. "You actually think I would do that to you?"
Theresa was still so angry she didn't take time to think before she spoke. "What other reason could there be? I made you mad, so you decided to do something to get me back. That really is beneath you, Ethan!"
Ethan was angry now. "You're right. That is beneath me. So beneath me that it never crossed my mind."
Hearing her husband's words seemed to bring Theresa out of her own feelings. There were a few times in the time that she had known Ethan that she had seen him really angry, and this was turning out to be one of them.
"I didn't tell you because number one, the investigators called me here and asked that I meet with them right away, so I didn't even know I'd be meeting with Luis until the last minute. Number two, I figured you were busy and I didn't want to bother you right then. I didn't know what I was getting into anyway, so I thought I'd just fill you in on all the details when I got back."
Theresa had the good grace to look ashamed now. "I'm sorry. I didn't think."
"You never do anymore. Ever since your dad came back you've been walking around like you're the only one who's effected by it. Like your feelings are the only ones that matter."
"Ethan…"
"And I'm not going to pretend I don't notice how it's affecting us anymore." Ethan kept talking as if Theresa hadn't even spoken. He hadn't planned to say any of this, but it felt good to get it off his chest. "When you're ready to be reasonable, let me know." Ethan turned and walked toward his own office, but turned back at the last minute.
"Oh. By the way, we may have found a way to prove Luis is innocent."
His door closed behind him and Theresa stood in shock. Ethan had never spoken that harshly to her, even during the worst of fights. And he most certainly had never walked out on her. She had done that to him more than once or twice. Now she was finding that it didn't feel so good.
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"OK Luis. Take a look at these photos. Do you recognize anyone?"
Luis thought the investigation team was very on edge, and wondered what the deal was, but he looked at the photo lineup placed in front of him. "Yeah. That's her."
Both PI's exchanged a pointed look and Ethan immediately picked up on it.
"What? What's going on?"
"When we interviewed the staff, Mary Ann was the only one that wasn't available. We were told that she had been recently let go. It took a little doing, but we finally found out it was because she was leaking all the recent stories about the Cranes to the press."
Luis and Ethan looked at each other. "OK. So what else did you find?" Luis knew that that little tidbit of information would make even a mediocre PI take a deeper look at the woman.
"That Mary Ann has a penchant for making a little cash on the side in illegal activities."
Ethan cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "Oh really?"
"Yes. Before she came to work for the Cranes, she was a pharmacist in rural Maine. She was fired and lost her licensure when it came out that she was dealing pills to the nurses and whoever else would buy. Which is how she'd have access to the drugs that were put in Luis's wine."
Ethan was writing as fast as he could. "OK. Why? What is her motive?"
"We pulled her financials, and there was a very large payment made to her about a week before the night in question. She's obviously being or was paid off."
"Where did the money come from?" Luis wanted to know.
"An offshore account in the Caymans. It appears to be funded by Crane Industries." The head investigator waited to see if Ethan or Luis had questions.
"Would Julian really pay to have his own daughter raped to frame me?" Luis was confused.
Ethan shook his head. "That seems extreme. Even for Julian. But with getting caught for his part in framing Miguel, maybe he paid her and then sent her away in an effort to keep from getting caught." He turned back to the PI's. "Did you find anything else?"
"Nope. So far she seems to have just disappeared. We found her home here in Harmony and are waiting for a call from the landlord. But so far she hasn't used anything to help us track her activity or where she is."
"Find her…"
Luis shook off the memory, and headed for home. Ethan's voice had been serious, and he understood the full import of the order. A date for his trial would be set soon. If they couldn't find Mary Ann by then, who knew what might happen to him.