“I feel like I might already be there,” she said, shivering.
I pulled her closer with my free hand. “Sorry I’m so sweaty.”
“No, I don’t mind,” she said. “I need the body heat.”
“Emma ... how the fuck did this happen?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea. The last thing I remember is hearing another rumor about Beau cheating on me, and I think I snapped or something. I went into his home office and pried open all the locked desk drawers, trying to find proof so he couldn’t lie to me this time. Instead, I found a bunch of unpaid bills and a pile of late notices for our mortgage and cars. We have a joint checking account, but he paid for almost everything out of a separate one only he had access to. I was able to get into it from his computer, and ... well, it was overdrawn. I went back through the payment history as far as I could. We’d been living well outside our means for years.”
“How?” I asked. Between Beau’s inheritance and salary, they should have been rolling in dough.
“That’s what I wanted to know,” she said. “I waited for him to come home, then confronted him. The last memory I have is us fighting at the top of the stairs, and ... I think he pushed me down them.”
I tightened my hold on her, starting to shake again. This time with the violent urge to go murder her husband. “I’m so fucking sorry,” I said, the words feeling inadequate.
She sniffed, dropped her head to my shoulder, and started crying again, the sounds muffled as she tried to fight it. I eased my foot off the gas and wrapped both my arms around her because my long-ass legs meant I could steer with my knee at this speed. “I have you,” I told her. “It’s okay to let go.”
Her sides heaved as the floodgates opened, and huge, loud, heartbreaking sobs tore from her throat. I wished there was something I could do besides just sit there and hold her. Wished I could take her pain away or go back in time to prevent this from happening in the first place. What she’d been through, no one should have to experience. No wonder she didn’t trust anyone right now. No wonder she needed time to process.
I rubbed my hands over her back, making soothing noises, my eyes searching the grounds as I drove because her story had turned me paranoid, and I was worried Beau might suddenly show up to ... I don’t know? Check on the grave or something? Make sure his work was complete? Murderers were always doing shit like that in crime documentaries.
God help him if he did. Because I was mad enough to buryhimalive.
Chapter 3
Noah
Emma started to calm as we reached the garage. I drove right into the open bay and cut the engine. We sat there for another few minutes until her tears abated, and then I stood, holding her bridal-style, and headed toward my truck.
“I can probably walk,” she said.
“The fact that you’re not a hundred percent sure about that means you’re getting carried.”
I got her settled into the passenger seat and then headed over to my side to start the engine and crank the heat. Yes, we were in a bit of a warm spell, but it was still only fifty degrees, and Emma’s skin felt freezing. I’d rather continue sweating through my shirt than watch her shiver.
I threw the truck in reverse and called my dad as I started backing out.
“You headed over here for dinner?” he said by way of answering, his gravelly voice rough and familiar.
“No, Dad. Emma’s alive,” I told him.
The line went dead.
I called him back, yelling, “Don’t hang up!” when he answered, and this time, he listened while I got the whole story out.
“You’re not messing with me?” he said.
“He’s not,” Emma answered him in a quavering voice.
Dad swore. “I’ll walk over now. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
I thanked him and got off the line. My parents lived on the property, in a renovated caretaker’s cottage just beyond the back fence. They had their own little clearing out there, bordered by the forest, Mom having just enough space for a decent-size garden and her own little apiary. Nights like tonight, when I worked late, I usually stopped by for dinner before heading home because Mom insisted, doubting my ability to feed myself even though she’d done a damn fine job teaching me how to cook.
“I’m gonna take the back way to my place,” I warned Emma. “Just to be safe. If we pass anyone, duck down.”
“I will.”
Thibodeaux was a postage-stamp-size town. With a population of just under three thousand, everyone knew everyone here.Andeveryone’s business. My truck was an older-model Ford that Dad handed down to me when I got my license, and I’d been maintaining it ever since. It was lifted, painted a deep hunter green, and was loud because it was diesel. Meaning, people knew it was my truck, and because I hadn’t dated anyone since me and Maisie called it quits six months ago, all it would take to get the rumor mill started was someone seeing me drive past with a blond woman in the passenger seat.
