No One Can Know(33)

“Juliette, you could use another pass at the Brahms,” she says briskly.

Juliette stands, setting her diary beside her. She walks across the room, eyes on the floor, and takes her seat, forcing Emma to edge away.

Emma shakes her head. She turns away at last and walks swiftly out of the room, her vision blurring with tears as the pain overtakes the outrage.

Behind her, Juliette begins to play.





16

EMMA




Now



Nathan had gone out to the hardware store again. After the third visit they’d caved and opened a credit card there, since it was becoming clear they were going to need a lot more than a bit of paint remover and a mop. The stairs on the back of the house had rotted through. The screen door sagged. The paint was peeling, the toilets flushed at their own whim and not yours, and there was a proud dynasty of squirrels in the attic, their ancestors entombed in the insulation. Nathan had finally gotten the Wi-Fi going and was now spending hours on YouTube, doggedly determined not to pay anyone a cent for what “any real man could figure out on his own.”

Emma had just finished heaving up what little lunch she’d managed to get down and returned to spackling holes in the dining room. Her first batch had dried. She sanded them as smooth as she could, but there was still a slight bump where some vandal had put something through the wall. It wasn’t the only one. Here and there were patches where the texture of the wall changed or a slight dimple marked a patched hole. She set her fingers over one, then made a fist and pushed her knuckles against the spot. But her hands were smaller than her father’s had been.

Her phone rang. “Chris,” she said, answering it.

“Emma. Sorry I didn’t call earlier, things have been a bit hectic around here,” Chris said in his resonant baritone. In the background she could hear several small dogs barking.

“What’s going on over there?” Emma asked.

“I made the mistake of taking a little mutt in off the street. She gobbled down enough dinner to sate a pack of wolves and then gave birth on a five-thousand-dollar rug,” Chris said.

“That’s what you get for taking in strays,” Emma replied, laughing a little.

“At least you never whelped a litter in my living room,” Best said, with exaggerated gravitas. “You’re back at the house.”

Emma’s smile dropped. “Yes. Juliette was here, too, actually. She dropped by.”

“Ah,” Chris said. “That must have been difficult.”

“That’s one word for it.” Emma let out a breath, bracing a hand against her lower back. “I’m not sure why I even texted you, really. It’s just—being back here, and trying to explain things to Nathan, I’ve been wondering a lot about what happened. What really happened.”

“You never asked for answers about your parents’ deaths. I assumed there was a reason for that,” Chris said, voice free of judgment. For all that he’d done for her, she’d never told him the whole truth about that night. He had accepted that, and done his job.

“Chris, did my dad have enemies? I know he had affairs. Maybe there was an angry husband, or something,” she said, speaking too quickly.

“I promise you the police investigated those angles,” Chris said. “Emma. The investigation was never closed. Please don’t give the police or the DA a reason to start thinking about you again. You are safer forgotten.”

“It might be too late for that,” Emma said, thinking of Hadley’s hard stare. “Is there anything you can give me? A bad breakup, a business deal…”

Chris paused. The silence was a beat too long to mean nothing.

“Chris. What aren’t you telling me?” Emma said, pulse thrumming.

He sighed. “It’s probably not connected. I told the police all of it back then, and nothing came of it. But your mother approached me, a couple of months before her death. She told me that she had information about something illegal. She wanted to turn it over, but she was worried she might get in trouble as well. I got the impression it had something to do with your father, and so I told her I couldn’t be involved personally, but I gave her the contact information for someone else at my firm. She never contacted him.”

A memory shivered to the surface. Emma gripped the edge of the windowsill to steady herself. “Chris, did you write that number on a green Post-it note?”

“I have no idea. It was fourteen years ago, Emma.”

“But did she show you—was there a flash drive?” Emma asked.

“She didn’t show me anything. We just talked. Why? What flash drive is this?” Chris asked, concerned.

“It’s nothing,” Emma said. And it probably was nothing. A flash drive and a green Post-it note with a phone number scribbled on it, hidden away where no one would look for it. No one except a nosy teenager.

Something smacked hard against the back window. Emma startled, letting out a cut-off yell.

“Emma? What’s wrong?” Chris asked.

“I have to go,” Emma said. She hung up and dashed into the hall in time to see two figures sprinting into the woods behind the house, one of them giving a whoop. She caught an impression of a red shirt and a mop of blond hair.

She growled a curse under her breath and, before she thought better of it, shoved her feet into her shoes. She stalked out the back door, still in her pajama shorts and T-shirt, and ran across the back lawn toward the trees, her phone still in her hand.