Carlotta, who was still motherfuckering loudly about the unfairness of a world where a murderer could become a millionaire, was correct. Milton Devonshire the elder had passed.
“Wow, he lived to be ninety-eight,” Emily read from her screen. She hadn’t realized he was that old.
“What do they feed these bastards that they live so goddamn long?” Cara fumed. “And, Jesus, that meant he was in his late sixties when he’d knocked up whichever trophy wife it was who birthed that motherfucking angel of death who killed your mother!”
Milton Devonshire Juniorwasresponsible for years and years andyearsof pain and anguish. Pain and anguishandsearing rage that was still ongoing for Carlotta. Therapy—massive amounts—paid for in part by a long forgotten insurance policy her mother had bought years ago withuncharacteristic forethought and insight, had helped Emily bring balance to her own trauma-ridden life.
But it was hard, with Carlotta letting loose her molten-hot rage, not to slide back into a similar injustice-fueled anger that had been Emily’s constant companion as a teenager growing up without her beloved mom.
“Whoa,” Mick said and Em looked up to see that he was standing directly behind her, looking over her shoulder at the obituary headline on her computer screen, announcing the old man’s death.
He knew—generally—about her mother’s murder, and even that, just thinking the wordmurder, unleashed the soundtrack of Carlotta’s voice in her head.Murder, murder, it reallywasa murder, despite the bullshit manslaughter charges. Some seventeen year old rich entitled asshole got drunk and took a shitload of drugs before stealing his rich entitled asshole of a father’s expensive car and going for a joyride.Joyride! Jesus!
Even after years of working hard on forgiving—herself for not somehow dying too when she got the word that her mom was dead, and the entire world for being so harsh and cruel—and after years of steadfastly, painstakingly moving forward, Emily had to agree with Carlotta about that, at least.
Joyridewas a stupid,stupidword for the high-speed, asinine, reckless drive that had ended with a body count.
Her beloved mother had been training for a half-marathon in the early hours of the morning, and Milt Devonshire Junior slammed into her and then just drove away, leaving her to die on the side of the road.
She would’ve lived if he’d stayed and called for help.
Might’ve lived,Emily’s many therapists had often gently corrected her, and yeah, there was no way of knowing for sure, but Carlotta was insistent—she would’ve lived. She stillbelieved that in her bones, and for a long, long time, Emily had, too.
It was hard escaping Carlotta’s rage and grief since she’d helped raise Emily, who was only twelve at the time of the tragedy. What had once been a happy if noisy home with Mom and Carlotta and Grampa turned into a nest of anger and pain. Although Grampa had done his best, working to get them both the mental health support they’d needed—and even proper meds for Carlotta, which helped, along with the gentle balm of time.
But Grampa had been gone for two years now.
Mick touched Emily’s shoulder, still standing behind her, reading from her screen. “You okay?” he asked.
She was quite confident she’d never mentioned the Devonshires by name, but shehadtold Mick that her mother had been killed by the son of a famous television producer. And even though Carlotta’s rage was now coming through the speaker on her phone in a jumbled word salad still dominated by variations onmotherfucker, Emily could tell from the concern in his eyes that he knew exactly to whom this obit belonged.
Yes, she was about to tell him, she was okay. Except she choked on the words.
And instead, she burst into tears.
Mick quickly took charge. “Carlotta, Emily will have to call you back.” He ended the call and crouched down beside her, encircling her with the warmth of his arms. “I’m so sorry, Em,” he murmured into her hair. “This must bringeverything back. I’m so,sosorry...”
She clung to him, grateful for his nonjudgmental acceptance of her oh-so-very uncharacteristic outburst. She never cried like this. She just didn’t. Not anymore. “God, I thought I was over this,” she sobbed into his shoulder.
His voice was quiet. Gentle. “I don’t think this kind of thing is something that anyone ever gets over. Not completely. It’s okay. Just... how can... Is there anything I can do to help you?”
Emily shook her head. “I want to disappear for... like a month,” she admitted. “Just walk away from whatever circus this is going to turn into. And it will. I know it will. Oh, God, I hope I’m wrong...”
Back when her mother had died and throughout the awful spectacle of Milt Devonshire Junior’s arrest and the hearing in which the teen had pleaded guilty, the tabloid media had hounded both Carlotta and Emily’s grandfather. The tabloid ghouls also reappeared a few years later when Junior’s prison sentence had run its too-short course. That had been brutal, even though Carlotta and Grampa had done their best to keep the press far away from Emily.
They’d done their job well. Not one of the many sensational “news” articles included her name—just that the dead woman had had a young daughter, adding to the clickbait value of the tragedy. It had helped that Emily used her father’s last name, while Carlotta, her mom, and her grandfather had all been Santanas. The closest anyone had come to her was a reporter from the National Voice, who’d misnamed her Elizabeth Santana. They got the E right, but that was it, since they also reported that she was only ten years old when her mother was killed.
“Okay.” Emily could feel Mick’s voice rumbling in his chest as he continued to hold her close, there on his knees beside her. “All right. We could do that. We could disappear. Just get on a plane to... I don’t know. How’s Paris sound?”
Her surprise made her laugh even though she was still crying, but as she pulled back to look at him, she realized, “You’re serious.”
He nodded, his brown eyes somber behind his glasses. “Very. You don’t want to be here. Let’s do it. Let’s leave.”
“I don’t have a passport.”
He winced. “You need to get one. Especially now.”
“Yeah, I know.”
