I’m fine, she tried to say, but no sound came out. Her vision was bright with spots. She bent forward, covering her face with her hands. Then there was a new voice speaking to her, and when she opened her eyes it was not a cop but an EMT crouching in front of her and telling her very kindly that they were taking her to the hospital, which seemed all of a sudden like a very good idea.
A couple of hours later, she’d gotten treatment for shock, dehydration, and mild malnutrition. She lay in a hospital bed in the ER, listening to a child crying two rooms down. Her hand hurt faintly where the IV went in.
JJ was outside on the phone. Emma could just hear the conversation filtering through the door. “I know. But I need to be here. I need to find out what she knows. I have to—Vic, I’m being careful. I promise. Okay. I love you.”
She stepped back inside, hanging up the phone. There were dark circles under her eyes, lines at the corners of her mouth where she’d been frowning.
“Boyfriend?” Emma asked.
“Girlfriend. Fiancée, actually,” JJ said.
Emma’s brow furrowed. “You’re gay?”
“Yup. Huge lesbian, turns out,” JJ said with a little awkward chuckle. She rubbed the back of her neck.
“Huh,” Emma managed. Maybe she should have been more surprised, but it wasn’t like she’d known anything about her sister’s life to contradict it. Whatever image Dad projected outside the house, Emma had known he was a raging bigot when it came to his family. Juliette had always been so perfect, so eager to please. JJ, with her tattoos and wild hair, was a stranger. But maybe this helped explain how she’d gotten from one to the other.
JJ sat in the chair beside the bed. “She didn’t want me to come down here. She thought it would just cause more trouble.”
“Smart lady,” Emma said, and JJ grunted agreement. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”
“I can’t leave you here on your own,” JJ said.
“Since when?” Emma asked.
JJ looked away. “Is there anyone I can call? Someone to take care of you?”
Nathan, she thought. She remembered when she’d been in the accident last year. A drunk kid in a borrowed pickup slamming into her in an intersection. Her head clipping the window, glass raining around her, a world suddenly defined by pain. She’d been on the phone with Nathan when it happened, and she could hear him shouting her name. He had gotten there while they were loading her into the ambulance, and followed behind. He’d never left her side. Concussion, broken pelvis. It had taken her several months to recover. She’d had to lean on him for help the whole time.
It had been draining, but he hadn’t complained.
But Nathan was gone. She needed to call his parents, she realized. They were in Virginia. Retired, Mom on disability. He was their only child, and she was going to have to tell them he was dead.
Her husband was dead and she didn’t have time for grief, because she was going to be a suspect. Maybe the suspect. She couldn’t be lost in sorrow, but she would have to perform it, because thinking clearly was both essential and would be seen as a sign of guilt.
Innocent until proven guilty was for judges and juries. Right now she was dealing with reality, and she didn’t have the luxury of sitting around hoping the truth prevailed. She needed to protect herself.
“I need to call my lawyer,” she said.
“Uncle Chris?” JJ asked, voice dripping with distaste that Emma didn’t understand. “Hadley’s best buddy? That lawyer?”
“What are you talking about?” Emma asked, giving her a bewildered look. “They were friends in high school, so everything he did for me doesn’t matter?”
“It’s nothing,” JJ said, shaking her head.
Emma sighed, leaning her head back against the pillow. “That woman. I can’t remember what she looked like.” She was a witness. She might have seen Emma coming out of the house, which could at least confirm her story for the police. She’d tried to remember details, but they just weren’t there. Brown hair. Teal shirt. A dog barking. And nothing. “Everything’s hazy. Or just missing.”
“It’s not unusual. Extreme emotional distress can cause blackouts,” JJ said. “And you’re already pretty physically trashed.”
“Like amnesia?” Emma asked skeptically.
JJ shook her head. “Not amnesia. That would be when you lose a memory. When you black out, you’re not forming memories in the first place. There’s nothing to get back, because it was never there.”