Carter had no useful information for them, aside from corroborating what Jeremy had said about what happened before he left and showing them that Ethan had not attempted to contact him. They thanked him for his cooperation and suggested that he not leave the state while Ethan was still missing.
Carter was upset before but now he was beside himself. If the cops were involved, then this was serious. Where could Ethan have gone and was he even okay?
Chloe decided the last place she wanted to check was their business. They had their offices and warehouses here in New York, though they also had production out in Ohio as well, but sometimes Ethan, on his off nights at the ER, would go in to work and sleep on the couch in there because he was already low on sleep. They found no sign of him there though.
Jeremy messaged them to tell them that he wasn’t at the ER either.
Ryder stopped Jeremy as they left the ER and gave a concerned look. “Ethan has always been the type who gets mad and then deals with it in some way, right?”
Jeremy nodded. “Yeah, he likes to make sure the people who he’s mad at are well aware of it. Of course, Ethan is mostly bark. Him smashing the picture is about as much as he would ever do, unless it was Jasper right after the attack or when my teammate broke my wrist, then Ethan was more than happy with some violence.”
“Mmhmm,” Ryder replied. “But who is he actually mad at?”
“Himself,” Jeremy said, and then thought about it. “And his dad. You’re right. Come on.”
The cops were speaking with Mrs. Morrow when Jeremy and Ryder showed up, and one of the cops came over to tell them that according to the Morrows, they hadn’t seen Ethan since the night of their dinner. Without a search warrant though, they couldn’t go into the house without permission, and they didn’t have cause for a search warrant. Mr. Morrow refused to give them entry to the house though, which made Jeremy suspicious.
“Keep them here,” Jeremy whispered to Ryder before he walked around the grounds of the estate until he could see the window to Ethan’s room when he lived there.
Jeremy looked around, seeing the cop didn’t follow him, and he started to climb up the tree that was right under Ethan’s old window. He grumbled about being too old for this type of thing as he made his way up. The lock on the window had been broken for a long time, and the Morrows had never done anything about it because Ethan had never told them. It was his way of making sure he could sneak back into the house in high school. Jeremy opened up the window and slipped inside.
The room was empty and Jeremy poked his head into the bathroom to find that empty as well. He stopped to look at the room, noticing that the pillow, comforter, and sheets had been stripped off of Ethan’s bed. That wasn’t normal. Whenever they were there, Ethan’s room was mostly untouched. Ines would clean the sheets and bedding every once in a while, especially if Ethan would be staying for a night or so here and there, but the bed was always made and the room left like Ethan had left it years ago.
Jeremy’s mind flickered back to high school, and when he would climb up here in high school when Ethan wasn’t answering the phone. Every time he got in a fight with his father, he would strip the bed down and retreat into the closet with a book and shut himself away. Peter and Abigail never really checked on him after fights, so it was a secluded little hideaway for him.
Jeremy strode across the room and pulled open the double doors of the closet. There was a little nest of pillows and blankets inside and he saw Ethan in the middle of it all, shivering and pale. His arm was wrapped up as best as Ethan probably could on his own but blood had soaked into the wrapping again.
Jeremy called Ryder first, letting him know that he was inside the Morrow residence and Ethan was there in a closet and needed medical attention immediately. Once he was off the phone, he went over to Ethan’s door to find it locked from the outside. It looked like Peter had changed the lock. Jeremy took photos of the door and then went back to take photos of Ethan in the nest, thinking of evidence as he did so before he sent off the photo of Ethan to their group chat, which he had added Ryder and Carter to.
“I’ll fucking kill them,” Chloe said in the group.
“Maybe don’t say that in text,” Ryder replied after he had told the cops to get an ambulance there now and demanded Peter let them in.
“Ethan? Ethan! Can you hear me? Hey, you need to wake up, buddy,” Jeremy said as he checked his pulse, which seemed high to even Jeremy with no medical knowledge. He felt feverish and sweaty, and Jeremy suddenly wished it wasn’t the doctor who was unconscious.
Two cops came into the room, much to Peter Morrow’s objections, but he couldn’t say much once they saw Ethan. He tried to claim that this was really just a family squabble, but Jeremy held up a hand to stop him.
“I would suggest you go back to your study and call your lawyer, Mr. Morrow, because at this point, saying any more in front of either the cops or someone from the DA’s office isn’t a smart idea,” Jeremy told him. “And I’m only saying that because I don’t really want to hear your excuses.”
“You broke into my home,” Peter exclaimed. “How is that legal? It doesn’t follow your legal protocols.”
“I will gladly pay my fine for that, but I didn’t break anything to enter, just used an already broken window lock that Ethan knew about,” Jeremy pointed out. “I’m also not acting as a lawyer, but as Ethan’s best friend and power of attorney. He needs medical care. Surely you know that?”
Peter was silent now. The reality was that so long as Jeremy wasn’t the lawyer here, he hadn’t technically done anything wrong. He had gone to where he best guessed his friend was, using a way an old resident of the home had told him about. Even if they could get him on breaking and entering, and they really couldn’t, the worst he would get was a slap on the wrist and a fine.
Carter, belatedly seeing that he had been added to a group chat and then seeing Jeremy’s photo, asked, “Where did you find him and is he okay?”
“The Morrow residence,” Chloe replied, having recognized the blankets. They were a deep blue color with gold embroidering that created what looked like chandeliers on the comforter. The white sheets had blue stitching around the sides of them and half the pillows matched the comforter while two of them had the same white with blue stitching.
“I’m no doctor, but he’s otherwise in shock, like full shock, or has a bad infection. I think he’s lost blood too. He’s not waking up,” Jeremy replied after about five minutes, after the cops checked on Ethan and assured Jeremy the ambulance was on their way.
“It’s best for all involved that I remain ignorant of where the Morrow residence is, but let me know where to meet y’all, please.” Carter responded.
“Mount Sinai,” Jeremy replied. “Ethan would kill us if we took him anywhere but his ‘home ER’ as he puts it.”
Chloe on the other hand just sent the address to the Morrow Residence, because by all means, there was no way Carter could make it there before she had murdered them. They got to the house around the time the ambulance got there, and Jeremy was telling the paramedics which hospital they needed to go to while they got him onto the gurney.