There were two Emma Palmers much more famous than she was, one a D-list reality star turned influencer, and one the author of extremely popular and extremely explicit werewolf romances. It made it easier to skate under the radar. But the articles were there. Easy enough to find.
Sitting at the kitchen table, just out of sight from the patch of hallway where her mother had bled out from a hole in her heart, she read them.
She had been braced for what she might read, but it still hit her like a physical blow, seeing the words in print. Shot to death in their house—daughters sleeping only yards away—no suspects at this time—second daughter’s relationship with an unidentified man—rumors of occult activity among youth …
The last was tucked in with almost a note of embarrassment.
Randolph and Irene Palmer were home at their house in Arden Hills when an unknown intruder entered the house. The intruder appears to have entered Mr. Palmer’s study. He was shot in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Mrs. Palmer’s body was found in the hallway, as if she had come toward the sound. She was shot in the chest at extremely close range. Blood was tracked between the bodies, leaving boot prints identified as a men’s size 10.5 Dr. Martens boot. The tracks exited from the back door of the house.
The gun was never recovered.
Emma took in a shaky breath. They’d been dead when she got there. Had been dead for a while, judging by the consistency of the blood. She’d panicked, looking for her sisters, convinced she would find their bodies next. And when she saw the blood on Daphne’s nightshirt, she’d thought for a moment her fear had manifested.
“No one can know,” Daphne had said.
She’d hushed her sister. Told her to stop talking. She was afraid that she knew what had happened—exactly what had happened. But that was before Juliette came stumbling into the house, wearing someone else’s clothes, her hair wet. And long before she learned that the gun hadn’t been one of Dad’s. Those had all been matched to their registration, confirming that they were all in the gun case where they belonged, securely locked away. He had always been meticulous about that. He kept the keys on him, wouldn’t let any of them touch the guns unless he was there. Not even their mother was allowed to lay a finger on them.
It had struck her as absurd, back then. He’d been so damn proud of those guns. Twenty-three of them. She’d counted once. Twenty-three guns and he’d never had the chance to even pick one up to defend himself.
She wondered where they were now. Not that she wanted them around. She knew how to shoot—you couldn’t have Randolph Palmer for a father and not be intimately familiar with how to handle a gun—but she’d never enjoyed it the way Juliette had. Though even with shooting there was a delicacy to the way Juliette operated—the careful way she picked out her target, plucked out a shot. No wasted movement or bravado, an almost ladylike lethality. Daphne didn’t seem to enjoy the exercise, but she was competent—lining things up, tucking her tongue at the corner of her mouth, and squeezing off a shot without flinching.
She navigated back to the article. The boot prints. Gabriel wore size 10.5 shoes. But the article said they weren’t just any shoes—Doc Martens. Did Gabriel own a pair of Docs? She tried to remember, but all she could picture him in were sneakers. Not that she’d known him that well. She’d met him only a few months before her parents died.
It had felt like a lifetime. The moment they met, there had been a connection between them that she couldn’t explain. Like he understood her, in a way no one else did. Sometimes she thought he must be humoring her, pretending to care about what she had to say, but if that was the case, he never slipped up. He took her seriously. He liked her.
For Emma at sixteen, that had been a miracle. She would have done anything for Gabriel. She would never have hurt him. Not intentionally. By the time she realized the position she’d put him in, it was too late. She couldn’t admit her lie. Not without looking guilty.
Or revealing the truth.
She chewed her lip. Part of her wanted to close the article, pretend that she’d never read it, and go back to living as if only the present mattered. But it was too late for that. She needed to know—know more, at least, than she did now.
She grabbed her phone from the counter where it had been charging and sent a quick text to Christopher Best.
Are you free to talk? I have some questions about back then.
She assumed she didn’t have to tell him what she meant.
The sound of car tires on the gravel outside drew her attention. She closed her laptop quickly, not quite sure why she had the instinct to hide what she was looking at from her husband.
A moment later the doorbell rang. Frowning, Emma made her way to the door, wondering if Nathan had forgotten his keys—but when she opened it, she found a stranger standing on the front steps. The woman had masses of dark, wavy hair that fell to her shoulders and tattoos of flowered vines wrapping up her arms, a snake twining among them on the left. She wore a loose, sleeveless black top with gaping armholes that showed off the turquoise bra underneath and a glimpse of pale ribs decorated with more inked-on flowers.
“Hey, Emma,” the woman said. Her voice was low and rough and entirely wrong, but suddenly the half-familiar features clicked into place.
“Juliette?” Emma asked, gaping at her older sister. “What are you doing here?”
Juliette raked her thick hair back from her face. It flopped forward again as soon as she released it. Her gaze was wary and almost arrogant. “Can I come in?”
“It’s your house, too,” Emma said flatly. She turned and walked back inside. There was a moment of silence, and then Juliette followed her, shoes squeaking on the hardwood. Their mother would have killed them for wearing shoes in the house, but Emma didn’t say anything as Juliette followed her back down the hall and through the great room, pausing momentarily to look at the piano before traipsing back into the kitchen.
“Coffee?” Emma asked.
“Sure,” Juliette said, hands in her back pockets.
Emma waved at the coffeepot. “Help yourself.”
Juliette’s mouth pursed, but she walked past Emma, getting a dust-rimed mug down from the cupboard where they’d always been. She poured herself the dregs of the morning coffee.
Juliette held the mug in both hands without drinking. Emma stood across the table from her, arms crossed. “So,” Juliette said. She raised an eyebrow. “This is awkward.”
“Really?” Emma said, scoffing. “It’s been a decade and a half, and you haven’t spoken a single word to me. Yeah, that’s awkward.”
“Do you want me to say I’m sorry?” Juliette asked, eyebrow still cocked.
Emma choked on a laugh. “Which sorry would that be, exactly? ‘Sorry I haven’t called you anytime in the last fourteen years, nothing personal’? ‘Sorry I never said a word to help when you were the top suspect in our parents’ murders’? ‘Sorry I left you in foster care, skipped your wedding, never so much as wrote you a birthday card’?”
Juliette had the decency to look away. “I was just a kid.”
“So was I. So was Daphne. We needed you,” Emma said, her voice raw. Pain she’d thought she’d left behind her long ago raked nails down her spine.
“I know. But I was a complete mess,” Juliette said. “I wouldn’t have been any good to you. I couldn’t look after myself, much less you.”
“That didn’t mean you had to disappear,” Emma said.
“Jesus, Emma. What was I supposed to do? Mom and Dad were dead, and you—” Juliette faltered.
Emma’s lip curled. “And I what?”
“You told us what to do. We hid things. We lied,” Juliette said in a whisper, as if there were anyone alive in this house to hear. “Then Gabriel Mahoney gets arrested and everyone’s saying you two killed them. What the fuck was I supposed to think?”
“I don’t know. What was I supposed to think when you came in the door wearing someone else’s clothes, when you were supposed to be asleep in bed?” Emma shot back. “I never told anyone. I didn’t say a goddamn word, but you were happy to sell me out.”