“They are doing their job, Emma. They’re out here, right?” Nathan interjected, giving Ellis a look that said, you and I, we’re the reasonable ones here.
Emma snorted softly. “They just decide what they think happened and stick to it,” she said.
“We followed the evidence, Emma,” Ellis said. If she didn’t know better, she might think there was a note of apology in his voice.
She made a half-feral noise in the back of her throat. “You had us in those rooms for hours without a guardian or a lawyer—”
“Emma. Come on. This isn’t the time to bring that up, is it?” Nathan said, putting a hand on her arm. She jerked away. Ellis just raised an eyebrow.
“Your legal guardians were dead, Emma,” Hadley said, ignoring Nathan. “We were just trying to find out what you knew. Since the three of you were our only witnesses.”
She groped for words—for the thing to say to make him flinch. To make him feel even a fraction of what she felt. But she only stood frozen, glaring at him. “We don’t need your help. I want you to leave,” she said.
“All right, then,” Ellis said, holding up a placating hand. “You know, there’s a couple of kids who still hang out at the old Saracen house. I’ll have someone swing past, see about scaring some sense into them.” He gave a nod, like he’d made up his mind and they ought to thank him for it. “You give us a call if you have any more trouble. And look into those cameras.”
“We will,” Nathan promised. She could feel his irritation—not with them, with her. She was the one causing trouble, being rude. “Thank you for coming out.”
“It’s no problem,” Ellis said. He reached into his pocket and put one foot up on the bottom step of the porch, leaning out to hand Nathan his card. “You notice anything else, you go ahead and let me know.”
Ellis walked back toward the car, but Hadley lingered. His hand rested on his belt. He looked at Nathan consideringly. “She lied about where she was that night, you know. Don’t know if she bothered to tell you that.”
“What?” Nathan said, puzzled at first.
“Don’t—” Emma started, but what could she say?
“She was with Gabriel Mahoney. There were boot prints in the blood in the house. Men’s, size ten and a half. Same size as Mr. Mahoney. She’d been fighting with her parents about him that day, said she wanted to kill them. In case you think it was so wildly unreasonable to be asking her a few questions about what exactly happened.”
“Get out,” Emma said. Nathan didn’t say anything, just stared bug-eyed at Hadley. Hadley didn’t move.
“Rick,” Ellis called, a warning in his voice, and Hadley turned away at last.
Emma stayed perfectly still until the car had pulled through the gate. They left it yawning open behind him. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like it had ever done a thing to protect them.
“You lied about where you were?” Nathan said in the silence that remained.
She gave him a long, flat look, her mind empty. And she walked back inside the house.
12
JULIETTE
Then
On a Saturday afternoon less than twelve hours before their parents will be shot to death twenty feet from where she sits, Juliette plays the piano.
The notes spill out, liquid and elegant. Juliette’s hands dance along the keys. Her eyes flick across the sheet music. She feels like she is racing along ahead of some great galloping beast, always one stumble from being trampled into the ground. She hears people talk about being lost in music. She is not lost in the music but she is lost to it. It is dragging her hands across the keys in that runaway sprint of sound that is always, always, on the precipice of utter disaster, until she crashes to the ending and lets the last note linger.
Perfect. Every note perfect. She would gasp for breath, except of course her breathing is as controlled as everything else, because her mother watches for that. She watches for everything.
Her mother beams at her, eyes dark and sharp as a hawk’s. “Wonderful,” she says. Her hands come together, almost as if she is about to clap, but they only stay that way, palms touching lightly.
Juliette smiles demurely. “I thought I was a bit rushed in the middle,” she says softly. She doesn’t think anything of the sort, but she must not appear boastful or overconfident.
“Yes, I think you’re right. Let’s start again from the…” Her mother trails off. Juliette looks over her shoulder, following her mother’s gaze to see Emma in the foyer, taking her shoes off. “Run through your scales for now,” her mother instructs and walks toward Emma.
Even walking through her own house she glides, every step choreographed. On days like this, when they aren’t expecting to see someone, she still puts on her full face of makeup.
Juliette’s maternal grandparents died when she was very young, but she visited them once. They had a nice house and a rowdy dog. The carpets needed vacuuming. They spoke loudly, and Grandpa swore at the TV when his football team was losing. They had this bizarre way of always touching each other—hands on shoulders, quick hugs, casually putting an arm around someone. The whole time her mother sat stiffly on the couch with a look of deep embarrassment on her face. Juliette didn’t understand then, but she thinks she does now—how her mother is so controlled because she is afraid that if she relaxes, she will slip up, and the friends she plays tennis with will somehow sense the electrician’s daughter under all that cashmere and silk.
Juliette’s hands move along the scales by rote. Her mother and Emma are speaking quietly; she can’t make out the words. Then Emma’s voice lifts—“You’re a complete fucking hypocrite!”—and footsteps stomp up the stairs.
“Emma Palmer, get back down here!” her mother shouts, but then she follows, her footsteps quieter but no less angry. A door slams. Juliette lets her fingers go still on the keys, frustration rising in her chest. Emma is always fighting with Mom. It would be one thing if she were the only one to bear the consequences, but it all comes crashing down on the rest of them—because if Emma isn’t perfect, Juliette had better be twice as perfect.
She hears the murmured tones of another voice down the hall. Her father, in his study. Who is he talking to?
She ought to keep playing, but her hands ache, and so does her head. She’s running on only a few hours of sleep. She knows she’s stretching herself too thin, but what choice does she have? At least with the end of school, she has a few weeks before she has to worry about keeping her grades up again. Soon enough, though, college will start. She’ll be commuting in—no way would Irene Palmer let her eldest daughter move away for college, out of reach. Which means nothing will change. She will be watched every moment.
She stands, stretching her fingers, shaking out her wrists. Dad is still talking. Curious, knowing she shouldn’t, she pads over toward the study door.
“That’s not what we agreed to. I can’t just leave this stuff sitting on my trucks. I’m taking a big risk here,” he says. A pause, as if the other person is talking. “Fine. One week. But it’s going to cost you.”
She hurries away before he hangs up. Her stomach feels pinched. She knows she’s heard something she shouldn’t have.
She starts the scales again. The study door opens. In his house slippers, her father walks down the hall without hurry. She forces her mind to remain fixed on the movements of her fingers. His hand falls to her shoulder.
“Beautiful,” he says. She doesn’t stop.