“Yup. Huge lesbian, turns out,” JJ said with a little awkward chuckle. She rubbed the back of her neck.
“Huh,” Emma managed. Maybe she should have been more surprised, but it wasn’t like she’d known anything about her sister’s life to contradict it. Whatever image Dad projected outside the house, Emma had known he was a raging bigot when it came to his family. Juliette had always been so perfect, so eager to please. JJ, with her tattoos and wild hair, was a stranger. But maybe this helped explain how she’d gotten from one to the other.
JJ sat in the chair beside the bed. “She didn’t want me to come down here. She thought it would just cause more trouble.”
“Smart lady,” Emma said, and JJ grunted agreement. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”
“I can’t leave you here on your own,” JJ said.
“Since when?” Emma asked.
JJ looked away. “Is there anyone I can call? Someone to take care of you?”
Nathan, she thought. She remembered when she’d been in the accident last year. A drunk kid in a borrowed pickup slamming into her in an intersection. Her head clipping the window, glass raining around her, a world suddenly defined by pain. She’d been on the phone with Nathan when it happened, and she could hear him shouting her name. He had gotten there while they were loading her into the ambulance, and followed behind. He’d never left her side. Concussion, broken pelvis. It had taken her several months to recover. She’d had to lean on him for help the whole time.
It had been draining, but he hadn’t complained.
But Nathan was gone. She needed to call his parents, she realized. They were in Virginia. Retired, Mom on disability. He was their only child, and she was going to have to tell them he was dead.
Her husband was dead and she didn’t have time for grief, because she was going to be a suspect. Maybe the suspect. She couldn’t be lost in sorrow, but she would have to perform it, because thinking clearly was both essential and would be seen as a sign of guilt.
Innocent until proven guilty was for judges and juries. Right now she was dealing with reality, and she didn’t have the luxury of sitting around hoping the truth prevailed. She needed to protect herself.
“I need to call my lawyer,” she said.
“Uncle Chris?” JJ asked, voice dripping with distaste that Emma didn’t understand. “Hadley’s best buddy? That lawyer?”
“What are you talking about?” Emma asked, giving her a bewildered look. “They were friends in high school, so everything he did for me doesn’t matter?”
“It’s nothing,” JJ said, shaking her head.
Emma sighed, leaning her head back against the pillow. “That woman. I can’t remember what she looked like.” She was a witness. She might have seen Emma coming out of the house, which could at least confirm her story for the police. She’d tried to remember details, but they just weren’t there. Brown hair. Teal shirt. A dog barking. And nothing. “Everything’s hazy. Or just missing.”
“It’s not unusual. Extreme emotional distress can cause blackouts,” JJ said. “And you’re already pretty physically trashed.”
“Like amnesia?” Emma asked skeptically.
JJ shook her head. “Not amnesia. That would be when you lose a memory. When you black out, you’re not forming memories in the first place. There’s nothing to get back, because it was never there.”
“Then I won’t ever remember.”
“Maybe some of it. But if it’s not there, trying won’t do anything.”
Emma considered her. “It sounds like you have experience.”
“Remember that thing about doing stupid amounts of drugs?” JJ asked. She sat on the bed across from Emma, raking her hair back from her face.
“Oxy. Benzos, maybe,” Logan had said.
“What do you remember about that night?” Emma asked softly. “We never talked about it.”
JJ looked at her steadily, but there was the flicker in her eye, the fear. “I remember plenty. I remember you telling us what to do. How to lie.”
“You were at the Saracen house with Logan Ellis,” Emma said. “But you took off. Where did you go?”
“We’re not doing this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t feel like being interrogated by my sister,” JJ said.
“I’ve learned more about you from ten minutes talking to Logan than I ever did living with you,” Emma said, a little sadly.
“Logan doesn’t know anything about me,” JJ shot back.
“But he was with you that night. He said he never saw you after the Saracen house, but he was lying, I could tell,” Emma said. It wasn’t a question. She wasn’t sure if she wanted an answer. “You know, I could never figure out if you turned your back on me because you thought I did it, or because you had.”
JJ sucked in a breath, her eyelids flaring briefly before her face settled back into a calm expression.
“You’re the one who said you wanted to kill them. You’re the one who fought with them constantly,” JJ said.
“You had a whole secret life.”
“And I never got caught, did I? Things were working, and I knew all I had to do was wait,” JJ said.
“Unless they found out,” Emma pointed out. “What happened to the clothes you were wearing?”
“You’re the one that hid them,” JJ said.
“Those weren’t yours,” Emma said. “You were wearing someone else’s clothes.”
“If you’re going to accuse me of something—”
“Why did you tell Vic you needed to find out what I knew?” Emma asked sharply.
JJ shoved to her feet.
“What were you doing at the house this morning?” Emma pressed, and JJ blanched.
“—going in there, so if you’ll excuse me,” came a voice from the hall.
Emma pushed herself up, brow furrowing. JJ’s head twisted around toward the noise as Gabriel pushed his way into the room. A nurse appeared behind him, not at all happy.
“Sir, I told you, you cannot come in here.”
“It’s okay,” Emma said, puzzled. “He’s a friend.” The nurse looked between them. Sighed. Walked away.
“I heard what happened. Are you okay?” Gabriel asked.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Emma said.
“I was worried about you. I’ve been thinking ever since you came over. Thinking about how I fucked up, not talking to you, blaming you for what happened. I was on my way to talk to you and I saw all the cops and one of them told me you were here,” Gabriel said.
Her heart thumped in her chest. Gabriel was here. All these years later and she still felt safe when he was around, even if it had never been true. “I’m fine. Just dehydration, mostly. They’re about to discharge me.”
“Where will you go?” Gabriel asked. She hadn’t thought about that yet.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Then I’ll take you to the house,” Gabriel said.
JJ snorted. “Yeah, that’ll look great. Going straight from your husband’s murder scene to your boyfriend’s house.”
“He’s not—”
“I know,” JJ said sharply. “But that’s what it’s going to look like. Come on, Emma. You’re the smart one. Be smart.”
Emma’s jaw clenched so tightly her back teeth hurt. Like she was going to take advice from JJ right now? “Just get me out of here, will you?” she said to Gabriel pleadingly. He nodded.
“Fine,” JJ said. “Just—don’t say anything. To anyone.”
“I never did,” Emma said quietly.
JJ hesitated a moment, and then strode out the door.
31
EMMA
Now
Lorelei said nothing when Emma appeared on her doorstep, only held the door open and gave Gabriel a look that could have been a whole conversation. Emma could only guess that Lorelei wasn’t thrilled to have her here, to have Gabriel involved in her drama, but she’d made up the guest room already, and while Emma sat in the back garden, the wind catching at her hair, she brought out a cup of coffee.
Emma sat with her hands wrapped around the mug, staring at the tumble of green and bright flowers.