Now
Lorelei Mahoney’s house was a petite three-bedroom, exquisitely maintained by her husband for decades before his death and by Gabriel since. Lorelei’s prize roses were still blooming out front as Emma pulled up, but there was something changed about the quality of the garden, and Emma knew immediately that it wasn’t Lorelei herself tending to the flowers.
The old woman sat on her porch, wearing thick glasses and shaking her head at her phone as she scrolled. She was a petite woman, with her grandson’s long face, her skin sun-weathered and creased with dozens of fine wrinkles.
Emma got out of the car, suddenly sixteen again. Then, coming to this place had been entering a sanctuary. She would open the door without knocking and make her way to the studio at the back of the house. Sometimes Lorelei would be there; sometimes Emma would work alone for hours before she was interrupted. The first time she’d met Gabriel had been one of those days, the whole of her focus absorbed by the canvas in front of her so that when Gabriel made a sound behind her, she had no idea how long he had been there.
“You’re good,” he’d said. That was all. Then he’d wandered off into the depths of the house. By the time Lorelei introduced them officially, Emma was already in love.
There’d been far less reason then for Lorelei to dislike her, of course. She looked up now, and her face pulled into a deep frown. Emma stuck her hands in her pockets as she made her way up the walk.
“Emma. I was wondering when I might be seeing you,” Lorelei said.
“Hello, Mrs. Mahoney,” Emma replied, formal, and Lorelei didn’t correct her. Emma stayed on the walk, not wanting to give the impression she felt entitled to intrude on Lorelei’s domain.
“Are you looking for Gabriel?” Lorelei asked.
“I am,” Emma said. Lorelei hmm-ed. Emma cleared her throat. “I know you’re not my biggest fan, after what happened.”
“You’re saying that like you want absolution,” Lorelei said. “You’re not going to get it from me. I’m not going to tell you you’re a horrible person, either, if that’s what you’re looking for. You share some blame for what happened, but hardly all of it.”
“I never intended anything to happen to Gabriel. I didn’t think—”
“That much was clear,” Lorelei said. She pursed her lips, then gestured over her shoulder. “He’s inside, if you want to talk to him.” Emma nodded gratefully and scaled the porch. Lorelei turned back to her phone.
Gabriel was in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher. He looked up when Emma entered, but he didn’t look surprised, exactly. More like resigned. “I told you I didn’t want to talk to you again,” he said.
“I know. I’m sorry,” Emma said. Seeing him was like a fist around her heart. She had missed him, even while she’d convinced herself she didn’t.
He shut the dishwasher and wiped his hands on a dish towel, leaning back against the counter. “What do you want?”
“I just have a couple of questions. Then I swear, I will leave you alone and never bother you again,” she said.
“All right.” He crossed his arms. “What do you want to know, Emma Palmer?”
“You used to go out to the Saracen house,” she said.
“Now and then. Not really my scene, though,” he said. “You said this was about Juliette.”
She nodded. “Did you ever see her there?” He hesitated. “It’s important,” she pressed.
“I didn’t know who she was at the time,” he said. “But yeah. I saw her there once or twice. I got the impression…” He trailed off. Rubbed a hand along his jaw. “I got the impression she and Logan Ellis were hooking up.”
“Hooking up?” Emma said, incredulous. It wasn’t a phrase she could imagine applying to her prim and proper sister. The Juliette who had been in her kitchen two days ago, maybe, but the one who practiced her concertos two hours a day and never missed a day of Sunday school?
She tried to picture Logan Ellis in her mind. He’d had the good fortune to take after his mother; he had always been good-looking, if a bit generic. He had long blond hair and eyes that looked both lazy and interested, and he always held himself in a relaxed way, disengaged and cooler for it. He’d been out of high school by the time Juliette started. Twenty-four, twenty-five the year of the murders.
“Do you and Logan still talk?” Emma asked.
He made a dryly amused sound. “No, Emma. After his father tried to have me arrested for double murder, a certain distance arose between us.” He shook his head. “We were never friends. He provided goods, I paid for them.”
Emma glanced back toward the front porch. Lorelei was visible through the window, the cloud of her gray hair lit by the midday sun. “Is your grandmother still…?”
He gave a sniff, shook his head. “Nah. The pain went away when she went into remission. We weaned her off. It was bullshit, though. One doctor decides she’s drug-seeking, dependent—of course she was fucking dependent, it was keeping her from being in constant pain. And then the only way to get her the medicine she needs is to pay off some lowlife like Logan.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You say that a lot,” he pointed out.
She lifted one shoulder in acknowledgment. “Is Logan still in town?”
“He’s bartending at Wilson’s.”
“That hole-in-the-wall on Tenth?” she asked. He nodded, and she grunted in dull surprise. “Can’t believe that place is still open.”
“It has its devotees,” Gabriel said. “Emma, why are you asking about this stuff now?”
“I’m just trying to put it all together.”
“Put what together, exactly?” Gabriel asked, brow furrowed.
“Juliette. I don’t know where she was that night, but she came back wearing someone else’s clothes, and there are other things.… It’s just, maybe if I can figure out what happened, I can clear my name,” Emma said, gesturing helplessly. “But I don’t know where to start. Apparently I didn’t even know my own sister.”
He stared at her. His thumb moved over his mouth slowly, and gradually she realized what that look meant. Her lips parted.
“Oh,” she said softly, reality rearranging itself around her. How had she not realized?
“Emma.”
“You thought I did it. All this time?” she asked, her voice strangely calm.
“You told me you wanted them dead,” he said hoarsely. “You left the house in the middle of the night.”
“So did you.”
“I went for a walk to clear my head. Where did you go?” he asked.
He’d known she’d left. He’d thought she did it. And yet he’d never said anything, she realized—not even when it could have thrown the suspicion off him and onto her.
“I thought you lied to protect yourself. But it was your sister?” Gabriel asked.
“Maybe,” Emma admitted reluctantly. “I don’t know. I just know it wasn’t me. And I never thought it was you.”
“Am I supposed to say thank you for that?” Gabriel asked.
“No. Of course not,” Emma replied.
He considered her. “Why now?” he asked. “After all this time, all these years. You never once said anything that might make people look at Juliette, even when everyone called you a murderer. So what’s changed?”
“I won’t let my child grow up thinking I killed my parents,” Emma said.
“You’re pregnant,” Gabriel said. He ran both hands over his lower face. “Emma. Listen to me. Sell the house. Go live somewhere else. Have your baby, live a happy life with your husband.”
“I’m done protecting my sister. I need to protect my family, and she made it clear years ago that doesn’t mean her.”
“Exactly. You need to protect your family,” Gabriel said. “Maybe Juliette had something to do with your parents’ death. Maybe she didn’t. Either way, do you really think that whoever killed two people in cold blood is going to want you digging up the past? It could be dangerous.”
“Why does it sound like you know something?” Emma asked. They’d never spoken after the murders; their lawyers wouldn’t allow it.
“I know that two people died, and that if you’d been in that house, you’d probably be dead, too,” Gabriel replied. “I know no one in this town lets go of a grudge.”
“Ellis told me just about the same thing,” Emma said musingly. “He thought that’s why you helped me kill my dad. Because he fired yours, and called him a thief.”
“I’ve barely got the energy for my own grudges. Besides, he probably did steal something.”
“I never actually heard that whole story,” Emma admitted. “Just the version my parents told.”
Gabriel looked lost in thought. “Kenneth was always spending more money than he had, and it wouldn’t be the dumbest thing he ever did for quick cash.”
“Your father wasn’t a thief,” Lorelei said. Emma turned; she hadn’t heard the older woman enter. Lorelei’s hair was white, puffed out like a cloud around her face, but she stood as straight as ever.
“Nana,” Gabriel said. He sounded tired. Lorelei ignored him, looking at Emma. Her hand gripped the back of a kitchen chair.
“Kenneth was always a bit up and down with life. Struggled with his drink. Gabriel’s mother, God rest her soul, had about enough of him before she even started showing, and I don’t blame her a bit for kicking him out. He’d get on the wagon and get a job for a while, and then he’d fall off the wagon and we wouldn’t see him for a few months—”
“Or a few years,” Gabriel added.
“But he’d been sober for almost a year.”
“Seven months,” Gabriel corrected.
“He found something off in the numbers. He thought it was a mistake, brought it to your father. The next day, Randolph accuses him of stealing and fires him.”
“Something off in the numbers? Like embezzling, or something?” Emma asked.
“No, it was something about the weights. The weights on the trucks. I don’t know the details,” Lorelei said, shaking her head.
“Did he ever report it?” Emma asked.
“He certainly did,” Lorelei said.
“After getting hammered. He burst into Ellis’s office still drunk,” Gabriel said. “It’s not exactly a surprise Ellis didn’t take him seriously.”
“He could have at least looked into it,” Lorelei huffed.
But, of course, he wouldn’t have. Randolph Palmer was a pillar of the community, after all.
“Where is he now? Kenneth, I mean?” Emma asked.
“Probably dead,” Gabriel said. “He took off not long after that. He did that a lot. This time he didn’t come back.”
“That’s not true. He came back,” Lorelei said.
Gabriel looked surprised. “What? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She put a hand on his arm. “He didn’t stay, honey. It was while I was in the hospital. By the time I got the chance to tell you—well, you had a lot going on, and I didn’t want to trouble you with it.”
“Right,” Gabriel said, carefully not looking in Emma’s direction. Because she was the reason for that. It was after Lorelei got out of the hospital that Gabriel had been arrested.
It all came back to her family. To her.
Whatever her father had been involved in, it had cost Kenneth his job. Had driven him away, and so cost Gabriel his father. She shouldn’t be here, dredging up the past.
“I should go,” Emma said. Part of her wished that one of them would say No, stay. She’d wanted so badly to belong here, once upon a time. But neither of them said anything, and she walked back to her car alone.