“Emery Lane! Gracious, child, come in out of the chill! Where on earth have you been?” Savvi caught hold of my arm as I waffled on the threshold, torn between entering and going back to yell and scream and rage at Brodie. I chose to enter, trailing after her obediently, the warm, yeasty smell of the kitchen enveloping me as I did.
“You must be making bread today,” I commented, sitting at the long, narrow kitchen table while Savvi bustled around, pouring a cup of coffee and grabbing my favorite cookies from the pantry. I ran my fingers along the worn patina of the wood. Growing up, I’d found myself eating in here with Savvi’s comfortable presence as companion more often than not.
“I have a brioche in the oven,” Savvi answered, sitting down beside me. “It should be ready soon. But we’ve been worried about you, sweet girl. Where did you disappear to?”
We’ve been worried about you.Maybe she had been worried about me, but I could almost guarantee that wasn’t what my parents were feeling. Savvi had always been too quick to give them credit, just to make me feel better, I thought. I smiled and covered her hand with my own.
“Don’t worry about me, Savvi. How’s Mother?”
“You haven’t been by to see her yet? Why, Emery Lane. For shame.”
“Visiting hours were nearly over by the time we got into town. And I wanted an update and to know what happened before I went over there.”Truth.
“Oh, well then. It was awful. She was in her office. A strange man broke in and attacked her.”
“Unprovoked?” I realized how that sounded as soon as the word left my lips and backtracked. “I mean…she didn’t know the man, or why he chose her?”
“Exactly. It’s had every woman in the county on edge, especially after that business last year with that awful serial killer.”
“Hmm.”
“This used to be such a safe place. I don’t know—”
“So, what did the man do to her?”
Her lower lip trembled. “When I heard the screams and ran in, he was…” I squeezed her hand. “He had his hand in her hair and was banging her head into the desk repeatedly.”
I inhaled sharply. “And when you turned the shotgun on him, he ran.” Savvi nodded. We fell silent, and in the resulting quiet I heard the distant sound of voices. “Is Paul home?” I’d need to go run interference if he was. He had likely passed Brodie in the hall and was wondering who the strange man in his home was.
“Why, yes. He just got back yesterday; I believe. Why don’t you go say hello? And then come back and chat with me a little longer. I’ll make you up some supper.”
“Thanks, Savvi.” Already standing, I drifted toward the door. The second speaker was definitely Brodie; I could tell by the familiar cadence of the language, indistinct though it was.
The sound of conversation drew me until I found myself standing outside Paul’s office door. It was closed, but had bounced back in the frame until a sliver of the room beyond was visible. Through the crack, I could see Paul sitting at his desk, his head bent over something in his hands. A phone.
As I watched, he pressed a button and suddenly I heard my own voice, shaky with tears but clear. “I’m going to haunt you, but I forgive you.” A curse muttered low, then the sound of gunfire.
Bile rose in my throat as the truth hit me with the impetus of a freight train, and fragments of an earlier conversation with Brodie in the car came to me with a new clarity. He’d received a text, glanced down and frowned, shaking his head a little before putting the phone away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing. King was just sending me the address of the client. He’s arranged a meet to collect the final installment. We’re going there and I’ll show him the video, get him on tape admitting his part. The feds will be there, in hiding, and once they receive an agreed-upon signal they’ll come out and arrest him. It should be pretty straightforward.”
“Okay…so why do I feel like there’s something you’re not saying?”
He looked at me sideways and reached for my hand. Placed a kiss in the center of my palm, an act that never failed to send rational thought skittering. “You trust me, right?”
“Of course.”
Mentally I smacked myself. How had I been so naïve? So trusting? I had made an assumption that the ‘client’ was the general and hadn’t asked directly, preferring to quietly bolster myself for the coming skirmish than talk about it.Mistake.But why hadn’t Brodie told me? He was apparently the prince of need-to-know when it came to keeping me informed.
I hadn’t suspected a thing when Brodie suggested stopping at my home overnight, although in retrospect maybe I should have. I wanted to see my mother and that was uppermost on my mind, not the possibility that Brodie might be lying to me.
The client—my murderer—wasn’t the general. It was my stepfather. Paul.
Spinning away, I leaned my back against the wall beside the door, pressing my palms flat and closing my eyes. I covered my mouth with both hands, forcing back the sob that rose in my throat. I was going to be sick. Paul and I had never especially liked one another, but the sense of violation was crippling. I had slept down the hall from a man who hated me enough to want me dead. He had chosen gifts for my birthday, judged my progress in school, shared a bed with my mother.
My mother.
