Now
A cop car pulled up to the gate. It wasn’t locked—they hadn’t bothered. Maybe she should have put on shoes and gone out to let him in, but she stayed on the porch and watched as Rick Hadley got out of the car, swung the gate open, got back in. He pulled up. No lights, no sirens, no hurry. He got out of the car again. To Emma’s surprise, the passenger-side door opened, and a second figure stepped out—still bald, his jaw gone jowly, his scalp flecked with liver spots. Chief Ellis.
Nathan stepped out on the porch next to Emma, dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, his hair rumpled.
“Emma. Mr. Gates,” Hadley said. “Heard you had some trouble.”
“Yeah. Someone tried to burn our house down,” Nathan said, in a so what are you going to do about it tone that made Emma wince.
“Doesn’t look like they did a good job of it,” Ellis said affably. Ellis had done his best to play good cop to Hadley’s bad cop, back in the day. Patting her shoulder, offering her sympathy and understanding. Like she didn’t know that Hadley worked for him, that he wouldn’t be in that room at all if Ellis didn’t want him to be. He looked to Nathan. “Craig Ellis. I’m the chief of police here in Arden Hills.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Nathan said. Some of the hard edge in his voice had dissolved.
“Why don’t you walk us through what happened, exactly,” Ellis said, reasonably enough, while Hadley stood with his hands on his hips, looking deeply unhappy to be here.
“We were upstairs in bed,” Nathan said. Her eyes flicked to him; for a moment she wondered just how much he’d tell Ellis, if the appearance of an authority figure would have him specifying what they’d been doing, for how long, and in what position. “We were, uh, talking. And we heard a thump downstairs.”
“A thump?” Ellis echoed.
Nathan nodded. “Then Emma smelled smoke. We got downstairs and the carpet was on fire. Luckily, Emma smothered it before it spread.”
“So how much damage are we talking about?” Ellis asked.
“Well. The rug’s a goner,” Emma said dryly. Nathan shot her an irritated look.
“And what makes you think the fire was intentional?” Ellis asked.
“Because it was a bag of flaming shit someone threw in the window,” Nathan half shouted, gesturing behind him. “Someone broke into our house and—”
“Broke in?” Ellis said, interrupting him.
“They didn’t break in. The window was open,” Emma said. She could feel Hadley’s eyes on her. She just wanted them gone.
“They were trespassing,” Nathan said stubbornly.
Ellis gave a slow, considering nod. “Okay. Well, it seems like there wasn’t too much damage done. You got cameras?” Emma shook her head. “Might look at getting some. We get called out here a lot. Kids.”
“Cameras. Okay,” Emma said. Just leave.
“They probably didn’t know anyone was even here,” Ellis said. “You’ve been gone a long time.”
She raised an eyebrow, tilting her head toward the car and the moving trailer, parked nearby. “If there hadn’t been anyone here, the house really could have burned down,” she pointed out.
“What if we were asleep?” Nathan asked earnestly. “I don’t even know if the smoke detectors work in this place. We could have been killed. I mean, someone tried to light my house on fire with my pregnant wife inside it.” Ellis’s eyes snapped to Emma.
“You’re pregnant?” Hadley said with a hint of a sneer. Her hand went to her stomach protectively.
“Well. Congratulations,” Ellis said, a peculiar tone in his voice. He looked intently at the two of them, like he was trying to work something out.
“So you can see why we’re so concerned,” Nathan said.
“Sure, I see,” Ellis said with a nod.
Hadley’s eyes hadn’t left Emma. “Of course, there’s not much to do,” he said dryly. “Sometimes people just get away with things.”
“You could do your job. Investigate,” Emma said.
“They are doing their job, Emma. They’re out here, right?” Nathan interjected, giving Ellis a look that said, you and I, we’re the reasonable ones here.
Emma snorted softly. “They just decide what they think happened and stick to it,” she said.
“We followed the evidence, Emma,” Ellis said. If she didn’t know better, she might think there was a note of apology in his voice.
She made a half-feral noise in the back of her throat. “You had us in those rooms for hours without a guardian or a lawyer—”
“Emma. Come on. This isn’t the time to bring that up, is it?” Nathan said, putting a hand on her arm. She jerked away. Ellis just raised an eyebrow.
“Your legal guardians were dead, Emma,” Hadley said, ignoring Nathan. “We were just trying to find out what you knew. Since the three of you were our only witnesses.”
She groped for words—for the thing to say to make him flinch. To make him feel even a fraction of what she felt. But she only stood frozen, glaring at him. “We don’t need your help. I want you to leave,” she said.
“All right, then,” Ellis said, holding up a placating hand. “You know, there’s a couple of kids who still hang out at the old Saracen house. I’ll have someone swing past, see about scaring some sense into them.” He gave a nod, like he’d made up his mind and they ought to thank him for it. “You give us a call if you have any more trouble. And look into those cameras.”
“We will,” Nathan promised. She could feel his irritation—not with them, with her. She was the one causing trouble, being rude. “Thank you for coming out.”
“It’s no problem,” Ellis said. He reached into his pocket and put one foot up on the bottom step of the porch, leaning out to hand Nathan his card. “You notice anything else, you go ahead and let me know.”
Ellis walked back toward the car, but Hadley lingered. His hand rested on his belt. He looked at Nathan consideringly. “She lied about where she was that night, you know. Don’t know if she bothered to tell you that.”
“What?” Nathan said, puzzled at first.
“Don’t—” Emma started, but what could she say?
“She was with Gabriel Mahoney. There were boot prints in the blood in the house. Men’s, size ten and a half. Same size as Mr. Mahoney. She’d been fighting with her parents about him that day, said she wanted to kill them. In case you think it was so wildly unreasonable to be asking her a few questions about what exactly happened.”
“Get out,” Emma said. Nathan didn’t say anything, just stared bug-eyed at Hadley. Hadley didn’t move.
“Rick,” Ellis called, a warning in his voice, and Hadley turned away at last.
Emma stayed perfectly still until the car had pulled through the gate. They left it yawning open behind him. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like it had ever done a thing to protect them.
“You lied about where you were?” Nathan said in the silence that remained.
She gave him a long, flat look, her mind empty. And she walked back inside the house.