“If she even knew it was in there.” He thumped the side of his thumb idly against the table. “The threats against Addison James might not be connected.”
“Maybe none of it is,” Emma said. “Did you ever think of that? Maybe we’re just cursed. Maybe it’s all just random and none of it means anything at all.”
“Do you think you’re cursed, Emma? Because I don’t,” Hadley said. “I think that you’ve been dealt a shit hand in life, sure. But I think that’s someone’s fault. And I think you know who it is. Even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself.”
“You know what’s funny?” Emma asked. She tipped her chin up as she looked at him. “You aren’t really admitting that you were wrong, are you? You’re just saying your aim was a little off-center. You want one of my sisters because then you didn’t really get it wrong.”
“I just want the truth,” Hadley said.
“It wasn’t Juliette,” Emma said, and tried to believe it. Doubt made her voice shake.
“Nathan found something, and he was dead within hours,” Hadley said. “I saw the video footage. Juliette was there earlier that night. All three of you lied back then, Emma, but Juliette is the only other one in town.”
Emma froze for a moment, not answering, and by the time she collected herself it was too late—Hadley’s brow furrowed.
“Is Daphne in Arden Hills?” he asked.
“I haven’t spoken to Daphne in years,” Emma said, but the hitch in her voice betrayed her. She stood abruptly, startling the dog to its feet.
It had been a mistake coming here.
“I can help you, Emma,” Hadley said.
“That’s what you said back then, too,” Emma reminded him. She turned to go, feeling sick. Juliette had swooped in to help. Daphne had been at the house. Were they checking up on her?
Or were they watching her?
40
EMMA
Then
Emma sits on the bed in Gabriel’s room. Her bag is packed on the floor next to her, but she hasn’t touched it. Eventually, the front door opens; his footsteps approach down the hall, and he looks in on her.
“Emma,” he says.
“Don’t,” she says, stopping him, though she doesn’t know what he might have said. She doesn’t want to know.
He sits near her but not too near. He bows his head, and for a moment they sit like that, without saying anything, and Emma knows it’s because the moment they do, something will fracture. So she doesn’t ask where he went. He doesn’t ask where she has been. He lets out a long breath, as if he is in pain.
Then he straightens up. The light from the street catches his eyes, makes them gleam.
“You can’t stay here,” he says softly.
“I know.”
“If my grandmother were here, that would be different, but I can’t—”
“I know,” she says sharply, shutting him up. Because it can’t just be that she needed somewhere to go and he was there for her, a friend. It’s dangerous for both of them, her being here. People will talk. They already talk. If things get back to her parents, they’ll both suffer for it.
“Is there anywhere you could go?” he asks.
“I was going to leave,” she says.
“Leave?”
“I could take a bus somewhere.” Where, she doesn’t know.
“You’re not eighteen. You can’t just leave,” he says.
“I have money.”
“Do you have a way to rent an apartment? Get a job? Go to school? Do you know what happens to runaways?” he asks.
“I can figure it out,” she says, but she’s smart enough to know he’s right. She blinks away tears, furiously staring at the carpet.
“Hey,” he says. “You’ve got what, one year of high school left? Ten, eleven months. After that, you’re eighteen, you’ve got a diploma, things get easier.”
“They won’t let me go,” Emma says. “They’ll never let me go.”
“They can’t stop you,” Gabriel said. “Once you’re eighteen, the only control they have is what you decide to give them.”
“You don’t know my parents.”
“I’m more and more happy about that every day,” Gabriel says, and she laughs ruefully. He touches her, carefully—a hand on her shoulder, as innocent a touch as he can engineer. “You don’t have to do this alone. A few more months. You can make it.”