Now
JJ gave her a ride. Emma wasn’t fond of being carted around like an invalid, but she didn’t have time to go prize her car out of the jaws of the justice system. JJ shoved random detritus off the passenger seat with muttered apologies. Emma sat scrunched against the corner between the door and the seat back, trying to get her galloping heartbeat to slow.
“I would have told them, you know,” JJ said suddenly, startling Emma. “I wouldn’t have let you actually go to prison. I just wanted you to know that.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as Emma. It was true now, Emma thought—she believed her about that. But she thought it was more a wish about the past than a reality.
“I know,” Emma said. They fell silent again. JJ stopped at a red light. A woman walked in front of the car, two daughters in tow. One of them had a book open, and her mother put a hand on the back of her head to make sure she didn’t veer off into traffic. The other skipped by, turning her head to stare straight at Emma and JJ until she was forced to look forward again.
“Did you know that Daphne is tracking my phone?” Emma asked.
“Tracking your phone? You’re sure?” she asked.
“I take it that’s a no,” Emma said.
“Why would she be tracking you?” JJ asked. She slowed as she approached the bridge over the river. It was a two-lane bridge with a walking path on one side. Here, the river was deeper and faster than out behind the house, and the sound of it filled the car.
“To protect me, I guess,” Emma said wearily. Who knew why Daphne did the things she did?
The car bumped and jostled on the wooden planks. To either side of the water, the bank dropped down at a steep slope, and on the far side a couple of teenagers were picking their way down.
People used to jump off the bridge when they were kids, until a boy drowned the year Emma started high school. People said he was a daredevil, that he must have hit the water and gasped, or hit his head on a rock.
“Do you trust her?” Emma asked.
“Daphne? Why wouldn’t I?” JJ asked, startled.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I keep wondering—you don’t actually remember killing them. Right?” Emma asked.
“I don’t remember pulling the trigger. But Daphne saw me there. Mom was still alive. It couldn’t have been more than what, two minutes? So what’s the alternative? Someone kills them and runs out the door, and I don’t see them?”
“You don’t remember seeing Daphne, either,” Emma pointed out. “You don’t know where you got the gun. You don’t know how you ended up completely soaked.”
“I wanted them dead,” JJ said hoarsely.
“We all did,” Emma replied. She shook her head. “I don’t know. Something about it all doesn’t make sense.”
“Please, don’t,” JJ said. Emma cast her a curious look. “I’ve worked so hard to accept what I did, Emma. I can’t afford to wonder.”
Emma nodded, fell silent. She thought she understood what JJ meant. Yet it still bothered her. The gun, the gaps in JJ’s memory, the fact that Daphne hadn’t seen her shoot them.
What if they thought they’d been covering for one another, but it had been someone else all along?
Or maybe it was only a fantasy. Now that she had her sisters back with her, she wished she could wash the blood from under their fingernails, like she had so long ago. Brush their hair and tug their clothes into place and be blameless, be innocent. Go back to before she knew.
They didn’t speak again until they reached their destination.
Chris was working out of a borrowed office. He still had enough friends to call in a favor, and Emma and JJ walked to the back of Quincy Real Estate to find him ensconced in a small room decorated with photos of a blond woman flanked by two massive Great Danes. The nameplate on the desk read KATIE GREER.
“You don’t look much like a Katie,” Emma said as she entered, her voice too loud to her own ears. Chris looked up from his laptop. His expression was grim.
“Emma. Juliette,” he said, eyes tracking to JJ. “It would be best if you waited outside. Emma and I need to talk alone.”
“I’d like her here,” Emma said.
“I have to insist. This is a conversation that you want protected by privilege,” Chris said, and Emma wavered. She looked over at JJ.
“I’ll be right outside,” JJ said. Emma nodded, grateful, and JJ stepped into the hall, closing the door behind her.
“So what’s going on?” Emma asked.
“You should sit down,” Chris said.
“I’m fine standing,” Emma replied stiffly, both hands wrapped around her purse strap.
Chris adjusted his glasses, eyes on the tabletop. “Emma, I’m afraid you’re going to be arrested,” he said.
She’d expected it, and still she felt as if she’d been struck. Her balance faltered. She gripped the back of a chair for stability. She stepped around the side of the chair and sank into it. “Why? What—what do they have?”
“I don’t know the extent of the evidence they’ve collected,” Chris said. “I will, of course, find out as much as I can as quickly as I can so that we can resolve this, but I need you to stay calm. This isn’t the end of the world, and it isn’t a conviction. There’s still a long way to go, and while this isn’t going to be pleasant, you’re safe, you’re alive, and we’re going to get through this.”
“There must be something. Some reason they think…” Was it the affair? The emails to Addison?
“Emma. The forensics revealed that the gun that killed your husband was the same weapon used to kill your parents,” Chris said.
And so they thought that because Emma had killed her parents, she must have killed Nathan, too. The truth burned like a coal in her chest, but she stayed silent. It wouldn’t help, sacrificing JJ to save herself.
“Emma, remember, don’t panic. We have time, we have resources, and we have the truth on our side. None of them are a guarantee, but right now the important thing is to stay positive and stay calm,” Chris said. He’d given her that exact speech fourteen years ago, she reflected. Had it worked back then? Right now all she could feel was the terror coursing through her.
“Are they coming here?” she asked.
“No. I arranged to have you surrender voluntarily tomorrow morning,” Chris said. “You’re expected at six A.M.; I’ll collect you and drive you. Hopefully, we can get you in front of a judge and get bail set so you don’t have to spend the night in jail.”
“How the hell am I going to get the money for bail? Will they even let me out on bail at all?” Emma asked, words coming fast and frantic.
“I don’t want you to worry about that,” Chris said. “It’s my job to convince the judge, not yours. And don’t sweat the money. If the judge sets bail, I’ll make sure it gets paid.”
“That’s very generous,” Emma said, a bit stiffly. Chris gave her a curious look. She wetted her lips. “Why have you always been so helpful?”
Chris’s brow creased. “Emma, you know I’ve always been fond of your family. Of you. Do you have to ask, after all these years?”
“Yes. I do,” Emma said hoarsely. “You sent threatening letters to Kenneth Mahoney.”
He sat back in his chair. “Kenneth Mahoney? That was years ago.”
“Did you know what my father was doing?” Emma demanded. He was silent. She looked away, blinking sudden tears from her eyes. “You knew. And you didn’t say anything.”
“I knew that your father was up to something. Not when I wrote the letters to Kenneth Mahoney,” Chris said. “That was doing a favor for a friend who said that an angry employee was slandering him. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have agreed to do it. I didn’t know there was anything else going on until later.”
“There were robberies. A series of truck robberies, and someone died,” Emma said. She wasn’t sure she was making sense. She wasn’t sure anything would make sense ever again. “It was Dad. I don’t know if he was part of the actual thefts, but he moved the goods.”
“I remember those robberies,” Chris said. He sat back in his chair, rubbing his chin. “Ellis was part of the task force. There was speculation at the time that there might have been someone feeding the thieves information from the investigation.”
“Kenneth went to Ellis about it. Ellis blew him off.” Emma’s mind churned through the possibilities. If Ellis was the source, if Ellis was involved …
“No one took Kenneth seriously,” Chris said. “And I don’t see what any of this has to do with your husband’s death.”
“Kenneth Mahoney found out what they were doing, and then he disappeared. No one questioned it because it wasn’t the first time he’d taken off, but he always came back.”
“Okay,” Chris said slowly, his tone cautious.
Emma plowed on. “When my mom came to you, she said she had evidence on a flash drive, right? Well, I found it fourteen years ago—but I lost it. I think Nathan found it. I think that’s why he’s dead. He called Ellis that night. He told him he’d found something. What if Ellis was involved? What if—”
Chris held up a hand. “Emma. Slow down. You don’t have this flash drive now, do you?”
“No.”
“And the last time you saw it was fourteen years ago.”
She hesitated, then nodded stiffly. No need to bring Daphne into this—not yet. He folded his hands on the desk, looking down at them.
“This is all wild conjecture,” Chris said. “I can talk to Mehta, and I can look into things on my end. Maybe there’s something to all of this. But there is no benefit to rushing here. Nothing is going to happen in time to stop you from being arrested. Given that, it is far better to do things carefully and be sure of what we have.”
“You’re not the one who’s about to be arrested for her husband’s murder,” Emma snapped. She stood, pulse thudding in her temple and skin flushed. She started to leave.
“Tomorrow morning,” Chris said in a firm, warning tone.
“I’ll be waiting,” Emma pledged, venom in her voice.
“It’s going to be okay, Emma,” Chris said.
“You can’t promise that,” she told him, and left the room without saying goodbye. Outside, JJ sat in a chair in the hallway, chewing her thumbnail. She jerked as the door opened and surged to her feet, all pointless motion.
“What’s going on?” JJ asked. “What did he say?”
“Let’s get home,” Emma said wearily. “I’ll tell you on the way.”