She didn’t answer as he walked past her and up the stairs.
Just some stupid kids. Stupid kids who knew who she was and knew she was back, because why else would they have come? The house had been broken into before. It wasn’t safe.
It was never safe.
She let out a choked scream and slammed the side of her fist against the wall, hard enough to send pain shooting up the bones of her arm. Nathan’s footsteps paused in the hall upstairs. Then resumed.
Emma went out to the porch to wait, as she had when she was sixteen years old, for the police to arrive.
11
EMMA
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.”