She made a noise in the back of her throat. “I had such a crush on you.”
He laughed a little, softly, kindly. “I know.”
“It wasn’t exactly subtle. I hope it wasn’t too awkward,” she said.
“No. I mean, you were too young for me, obviously,” he said, and a half smile hooked the corner of his mouth. “But if you’d stuck around another few years? I don’t know. But I definitely never thought of you as a sister. I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch after, Emma. I’m sorry you were alone. But it wasn’t because no one cared about you.”
She’d wanted to hear those words for so long, but hearing them now, she struggled to feel anything at all.
A bird, small and brown, lit on the lawn in front of them, and both of them watched it, so they wouldn’t have to look at each other. Its head twitched, examining them with one eye and then the other. Apparently unimpressed, it flitted away again.
“I’m sorry. It’s a shitty time to be bringing this up,” Gabriel said. “I don’t mean anything by it. Your husband just died. I’m not trying to suggest anything, I’m just—”
“I know,” she said. “Please, God, don’t go away just because we liked each other over a decade ago. You’re the only friend I have out here. Or at all.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gabriel said.
She wiped tears from her eyes with her thumb. “We weren’t happy, you know. I don’t think we had been for a long time. I tried to stay the person he married, but she was always a lie. And I think he could tell.”
Gabriel didn’t respond; she supposed there wasn’t a way to respond to that.
“Gabriel, I need to ask you something,” she said. She sat forward, elbows braced on her knees. She didn’t know what to do with the weight of loss inside her. But she could get answers. She could do something. “Maybe it’s nothing—maybe it’s irrelevant. But your dad, when he got fired. Can you remember anything else about what he thought was going on there?”
“I wouldn’t put much stock in anything he said,” Gabriel replied. He put his hands in his pockets, squinting off into the distance. “Dad was a useless drunk before he got fired. He’d been through a half-dozen jobs in half as many years. He’d always claim he was getting his act together and then fall apart again. When your dad fired him, he kept insisting he hadn’t stolen anything. That your dad was the one stealing. Nana believed him.”
“You don’t?”
“Addicts have been known to lie,” Gabriel said. His weight shifted like he wanted to pace. “He was borderline functional before that. After, he went off the deep end. Kept saying he was going to find a way to make your dad pay for humiliating him, but the only people he ever made suffer were his family.”
“And you don’t have any idea where he is now,” Emma said.
He was silent a moment. “Emma, Nana says that he came back right before … right when your parents died. Then he took off for good.”
“What are you saying?” Emma asked.
He rubbed his shoulder with his opposite hand. “He was never violent. But I’d never seen him as angry as he was at your dad. What if…” He didn’t finish the thought.
“What if he killed them,” Emma said. The thought hadn’t crossed her mind, but she couldn’t deny it fit. A grudge. A disappearance. If Kenneth Mahoney had come to the house demanding some kind of justice, and things got out of hand … But her father had been shot in the back of the head. No demands. Just an ambush.
“It would explain why he never came back,” Gabriel said, and she made a noise of consideration, noncommittal.
Her phone was ringing in her bag, and she pulled it out to check the ID. Chris. “It’s my lawyer,” she said. “I have to—”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, bobbing his head. “I’ll be inside if you need anything.”
Gabriel ducked inside, and Emma caught the call right before it got kicked to voice mail.
“Chris,” she said.
“Emma. I’m in town,” Chris said. “Where are you?”
“Lorelei Mahoney’s place,” Emma said.
“You mean you’re with Gabriel,” Chris replied, and heaved a sigh. “I can be there in fifteen minutes. Try not to get into any more trouble before I get there, will you?”
“I’ll do my best,” Emma promised, but her voice sounded weak. “Chris, I’m really worried.” Tell me everything’s going to be okay, she thought.