I still haven’t had an answer, so instead of asking Stefan again, I turn to Em. “Who’s the other body?”
Her mouth twists and a tremor runs through her body.
“Hey,” I say, pulling her harder against me. I want to tuck her away like she’s a baby Joey, keeping her safe from everything this horrible day offers. Instead, I pester her. “Do you know? Is there a reason nobody’s telling me?”
“It’s Mum.”
For a horrible moment I think she means my mother. Mymother. My chest seizes with such a sharp pain that I must be having a heart attack. This is how it happens. This is how I go.
But my mother is sitting outside in a car, waiting to be a getaway driver.
“We need to—” Stefan breaks off, running a hand through his hair, staring in bewilderment around him. The fear grows worse.
This is bad. He’s meant to be a rock. To see him shaken is distressing.
“Your mum?” I ask Em, keeping my voice as soft as I can. “What was she…?”
I trail off as she shakes her head, saying she doesn’t know.
In my mind, I play back my visit to Em’s house. The strange man who offered to take her gift. The mother who flipped out when I asked her about Em’s main social account.
The images that must have been shot inside this house. If I turn my head to the right, I can see the painting that hung in the background of one photo.
Cheryl was annoyed at me, but grudgingly let me write a note to leave for her daughter. Just annoyed. Then I showed her the images, and she freaked out entirely, forcibly evicting me from the house.
Somehow, those few innocuous images told her something about her daughter that I’d missed. The same something I dragged out of Em over several days, extracting the rotten memories like excising a festering tumour.
Had Cheryl seen that and come straight here, sensing what was wrong? Putting together all the pieces Em had desperately tried to hide from everyone?
A pang hits my torso, just another discomfort on top of the shitload already there. A pang of guilt.
“You need to go,” I tell her, shifting around to snag my phone. “I’ll see if—”
“You both need to go,” Stefan says. His composure is returning as he stands, staring at the scene in front of him. “I can spin this but not if you two are hanging around like a couple of loose ends that a cop would love to tug on.”
“Can I-I…?” Em trails off and I guess what it is she wants to ask.
I clasp her right hand between both of mine. “Wouldn’t you rather remember your mother as she was?”
“Alive?”
“You’ve already seen her,” Stefan says, and I wonder when that happened and why anyone allowed such a thing.
“Not properly. I couldn’t really…”
“I’ll look.” I kiss her hand and release it reluctantly, not least of all because it was helping me stand. “Let me examine her and then later, if you ever want to know, I can tell you.”
“I don’t want you to have that stuck in your head. Not after Robbie.”
I shift my weight, blinking to rid my eye of its crimson shadow. “This won’t be like Robbie. I only met your mother once.” I nudge against her. “Please let me do this for you.”
Her eyes nervously dart to the door, blinking rapidly, then she gives one curt nod. “Okay.”
Stefan stands like an immovable screen as I drift to the room. I take as deep a breath as my injured chest will allow and turn the handle, moving inside in one swift motion.
I stare at the crumpled body, barely able to recognise Cheryl’s features given the blows that must have rained down upon her. My head throbs where it was hit with the statue, pulsating pain igniting in sympathy with the woman in front of me.
One eye stares sightlessly at me, the other at the far wall. A large chunk of her skull bends inwards in a way nature never intended. Flecks of bone and brain are dotted amongst the torrent of blood.
