Except, she thought.
“Hello? Helloo-oo!” called a voice. Hadley froze. Emma straightened up, staring at the tree line as Daphne strode out, clad in a bright pink top and striped leggings and waving frantically. “Is everyone all right? I saw a car in the river and the police car and I heard voices and I thought, Oh my goodness, there is something going on here and I’d better check that they don’t need help!”
“Ma’am, please go back to your car,” Hadley said. He turned, letting the gun drop to his side.
Emma saw the moment he recognized Daphne. His eyes went wide. His arm tensed. And Emma launched herself forward. Two staggering steps and she threw her arms around him, bear-hugging his arm against his body, ignoring the flash of pain. Between his surprise and her momentum he lost his footing and the two of them crashed to the ground together.
JJ was there an instant later, wrapping both hands around the gun and stomping on his elbow. He yelled, lost his grip. JJ flung the gun toward the water. Hadley rolled on the ground, pinning Emma beneath him. His hand was on her throat. His weight bore down on her windpipe, his face contorted in rage.
Above him, Daphne appeared. In both hands she held a rock the size of a football. With a look of utmost calm and concentration, she brought it down on the back of his head. Once. Twice. Three times.
Hadley toppled to the ground. Emma writhed out from under him, clutching at her throat, breath coming in sobs. Then JJ was there, hands under her armpits, hauling her back from Hadley—but Hadley wasn’t moving.
Daphne dropped the rock. It landed with a thud next to her, one side slick with blood.
JJ sat with Emma, holding her semi-upright. She could feel the frantic beating of her sister’s heart.
“Is he dead?” Emma asked hoarsely. Daphne knelt beside Hadley.
“He’s breathing,” she said. “But he doesn’t look good. I hit him pretty hard.”
“How did you—？” Emma began.
Daphne bared her teeth in something resembling a smile. “I guess it’s a good thing I was tracking you. I saw your phone was in the river. Then I saw Hadley’s car and I was sure something was wrong.”
“Thank you for being so nosy, Daphne,” Emma said with feeling. She reached out. Daphne caught her hand, their fingers lacing, and their eyes locked. Daphne let out a shaky breath, and Emma felt a shiver go through her. Not so icy calm after all. In the distance, sirens wailed, growing closer.
They were going to have a lot of questions to answer.
“It was him,” JJ said. She sounded dazed. “I remember. I didn’t kill them. I found the gun on the ground. It wasn’t me. And he must have—when Nathan called Ellis, he must have told Hadley.”
“He killed Nathan to stop him from turning over the drive and the gun,” Daphne said. “He knew everyone would just assume it was Emma.”
“Right,” Emma said softly, not quite meeting her sisters’ eyes. Except.
Except that Hadley hadn’t had the drive.
Her sisters were perfectly silent and perfectly still. JJ with her arm around Emma, Daphne’s hand gripping hers.
They looked at one another, and the sirens grew closer. Daphne brought her other hand up, clasping Emma’s hand between both of hers. She leaned in close, pressed a kiss against Emma’s cheek, and whispered in her ear.
“No one can know.”
Emma said nothing.
Just as she always had.
52
EMMA
Now
Emma missed out on the most intense questioning, thanks to being once again in the hospital. She had a torn ligament in her shoulder and a racking cough from breathing in the water, which made the doctors worry about pneumonia, but she was alive and the baby’s heartbeat kept up its steady whooshing. She stayed overnight for monitoring just in case, aware that somewhere else in the building, Rick Hadley was clinging to life.
He did live. Or at least, he hadn’t died yet.
Rick Hadley’s house was searched. Hidden in his garage, they found a revolver with a white grip. Cleaned of prints, but its ballistics matching the weapon that killed Irene and Randolph Palmer. That killed Nathan Gates. And with the gun, a flash drive.
The flash drive was almost fifteen years old, but still functional. It contained records showing that Palmer Transportation had been falsifying its shipment records to hide extra loads—cargo that matched up with robberies in the area, around the same time. It also contained photos of two men forcing Kenneth Mahoney into a car. Driving him to the old quarry. You couldn’t see Hadley’s face in any of the photos; couldn’t even really tell it was him. But it was his car they were driving, his old blue Impala, and the photographer made sure to get a clear shot of the plates.