Emory eased into the armchair, mindful of the blood staining his hand and the glass shattered on the floor. Liam shuffled infrom the hall of photographs. He chomped on an apple and eyed the tissue hanging out of Emory’s nose.
“Where’ve you been?” Emory asked.
“Book club,” Liam said and smacked on another bite. “What happened to you, tough guy? Get into a bar fight or something?”
Before Emory could answer, Mirabelle hurried in with a bundle of ice wrapped in a dishtowel.
“Let’s hope she didn’t break it,” she said and thrust the towel into his face.
“Careful.” Emory took the pack and wriggled his nose to assess the damage. The bone didn’t crackle, and the pain was present but bearable.
Liam shook his head and laughed. “Ah, sweet Amelia. Happens to the best of us.”
“I doubt Francisca ever clocked you.”
“No, but we were married almost twenty years. I’m sure she wanted to.”
Mirabelle cut Liam a sidelong stare and might’ve laced into him about encouraging Emory’s “bad behavior,” as if it was his fault. She didn’t, but instead turned to Emory and pointed toward Amelia’s bedroom upstairs.
“You are losing control with her.”
“I’m losing patience, not control.”
“Look at you!” Mirabelle flung a hand at Emory holding the ice pack to his face. “This girl’s got you on your knees and twisted up in knots. You are coming undone.”
He had no recourse to deny it. The house kept secrets, but not that well. The others had heard the arguments and bore witness to Emory’s foul moods. But he had bodies buried in the walls too, the things he’d deny if they were ever exhumed.
He walked an ever-narrowing path between lust and loathing, and while he might not need Amelia, he wanted her; wanted her warmth and her smiles, her lips pressed to his, her body curled against him as they slept.
It wasn’t just about sex. He craved her affection. As the days wore on, his frustration deepened and not because she harboredsecrets, but because the harder he tried, the more the rift between them grew.
“Figure it out,” Mirabelle said and headed for bed.
After she left, Liam sunk into the sofa and set his apple aside.
“Miri’s right. Amelia’s gotten under your skin. You need to stay the course.”
“That’s not the issue. I’ve been banging my head against the wall for a week straight. I’m frustrated. I want movement, progress.I need intel to act, but I’m tired of waiting.”
The ice clacked as Emory pulled the towel from his face. He rubbed a splotch of blood staining the terrycloth.
“What if she’s telling me the truth? We don’t know what else was in that folder. It could’ve been filled with fluff. What if she doesn’t have what we need?”
Days ago, he’d briefly considered the possibility. Too blinded by anger, he’d dismissed it outright. The logic crystallized as Emory said it out loud. Amelia wasn’t a master of resiliency, nor had she brilliantly crafted a charade of innocence. She withheld because she had nothing to give.
“That was always a risk,” Liam said. “I thought she admitted she saw something, though.”
“She did, but what if she doesn’t understand what she saw or forgot?”
Liam snickered. “How could she forget?”
Until then, Emory hadn’t considered how trauma erased memories in nonsensical ways. He remembered only snippets of his mother before she died. Like a damaged picture book, grief tore out the pages at random and time ravaged the rest. Perhaps it was doing the same to Amelia.
“She’s been through a lot.”
“We’ve all been through a lot. She doesn’t need to understand what she saw. She needs to tell you, soyoucan understand.”
Emory shook his head. “I think we’re too far gone for that. Even if she remembers something, she sure as shit won’t tell me now.”
