Chapter 16
Sixteen
Emma had a weird taste in her mouth, like she drank from the old water fountain in her elementary school, a slightly metallic tang. Blood? She swallowed, washing away the taste. Her tongue darted around, detecting no open wounds. Thank goodness.
She opened her eyes and pressed a hand to her throbbing temple, noting as she did two simultaneous things. She was indoors, and Margaux stood nearby.
“Margaux? Where are we? What happened?” Emma croaked. Her throat was raw and scratchy.
“What do you remember?” Margaux asked, her voice distant.
Emma rubbed her eyes. Her vision was a little hazy, matching the cloudiness in her head.
She scanned their surroundings, plywood floors and mismatched panel walls.
Foam insulation popped out of holes. A low ceiling hung overhead.
“Are we in the treehouse? How did we get here? Is Daniel getting help?”
Margaux frowned down at her.
Emma pushed herself up to sitting. She had watched Daniel walk away, shut her eyes to soak up the sunshine on her face, and that was all she could remember. Margaux must have helped her. How much time had passed? “Do you have any water?”
“Not here.”
Emma swallowed again, forcing her dry throat to open and close. She was thirsty. She longed to dive into the lake. She yearned for the cool temperature to soothe her head. This room was stuffy and hot. She wanted to get out of here. Why was she here at all?
“Where did you go? We were looking for you to tell you….” Emma shut her eyes, trying to bring back the memory.
Margaux had left. Daniel had discovered the time capsule. They had made it back to the shore where they had left the canoe. It was gone. Her limbs ached, and her bones collapsed.
“What happened? What do you remember?” Margaux’s insistent questions tripped an alarm in Emma’s mind.
But what was the warning? The urgency of the tone? Was that the key? “Why are you here? There isn’t a bathroom in this building.”
“Did you open the time capsule? Is that what you found?”
Emma shook her head, and the world spun, her stomach lurching.
Daniel dug up the time capsule, but they hadn’t looked inside.
They wanted to wait and look as a group.
Or at least that was Emma’s interpretation.
She hadn’t been in any rush to open what she suspected was a Pandora’s Box. “We didn’t look in the time capsule.”
“What do you remember?” Margaux shouted.
Emma darted her gaze to meet Margaux’s wild-eyed stare. Emma came to full awareness of her circumstances. Her arms were heavy, and she couldn’t feel her hands.
“Did you really block out everything about that night?”
“I can’t remember five minutes ago,” Emma murmured. “My head hurts. Everything is spinning, and I’m woozy.” Her head throbbed. The room was too warm. Her skin was on fire.
“Think hard,” Margaux prodded.
“Liz wanted to sneak out to practice the dance routine before the talent show,” Emma said.
Or so her sister had told Emma. When Emma had asked to go, too, she’d been told no.
It had been too quick. Liz recovered and said Emma needed to watch their girls.
It was a reasonable explanation. But after, Emma wondered if it had been about Owen.
She hadn’t wanted to prod her sister because then she’d have to lie to their parents.
“You didn’t go after her?”
“No, of course not. It was after lights out. I thought maybe she was seeing Owen. I didn’t ask her questions that I didn’t want answers to.” Emma hung her head, her chin dropping to her chest.
“Culpable deniability,” Liz had said and laughed. Throwing back her head, she chortled with her whole body.
“Or trust,” Emma countered, bristling at her sister’s nonchalance. “If you need me to know, you’ll tell me.”
Liz reached for her hand and squeezed. “Of course, but I don’t have to because you’ll always be there. Seeing, hearing, feeling. You know me better than I do. And vice versa. Can you really imagine being on your own? Would you actually want that?”
“I don’t want to lie for you.” Emma had bristled. She didn’t want to give up her sister for good. She only wanted a little time away during college. She was tired of the argument. “I’m guessing Owen will be tagging along.”
“I know someone who’d gladly follow you, if you gave him a chance,” Liz said, her voice sing song sweet.
“What are you doing?” Margaux shrieked, shaking Emma by the shoulders. “You can’t sleep yet.”
“Why?” Emma wasn’t sure what she was asking. She forced her chin up, meeting Margaux’s wild-eyed stare.
“Are you sure you didn’t follow your sister? Go back to that night. Replay it. What do you see?”
“I’m stuck. Can you help me?” Emma asked.
Margaux cackled, throwing back her head.
Emma wanted to hide from the menace, shrink and cower. But she had nowhere to go.
Margaux kneeled next to Emma, reaching for her hands. Click. Click.
Emma raised her shoulders but couldn’t move her arms. A heaviness settled over her.
Margaux stood and stepped away. “Why would I do that when I’m the one who dragged you here?”
The water bottle. Clarity slammed into Emma like she’d bellyflopped onto the surface of the lake, hitting the water like a slab of cement.
Margaux had drugged her. Emma circled her wrists, her fingers brushing against each other.
She was handcuffed. Her long-term memories remained out of reach, but the short term was readily accessible.
Jennifer and Christine had been picked off one by one.
“Oh, I can see the realization in your eyes. You are truly gorgeous. No wonder the sheriff loves you,” Margaux said.
“Why?”
“Memories are flawed. Fragile. Fickle,” Margaux said, flinging each f word off her tongue like a poisoned dart.
“I remember everything. Exactly as it happened. All the name calling. The way you and your sister pitied me. I was Liz’s pet.
Never her real friend. Look at me now. Reinvented and reigning supreme. ”
Unreliable. Margaux’s dramatics threatened Emma’s life.
She couldn’t change the past, and she had no time to mourn in the present.
But she could influence the future. She had to focus on the others.
She bounced her legs, willing whatever was in her system to evaporate in her bloodstream.
“Are Jennifer and Christine okay? Did you hurt them on purpose?”
“Minor things. They’ll recover. I shoved one into a hole and poisoned the other. Simple. I needed you alone, and your boy is always around.”
“Is he alive?”
“Maybe.” Margaux shrugged.
“Why did you come back?” Emma asked, hating the tremor in her voice. She needed strength, she clenched her fists until her fingernails bit in her palms.
“I was invited. Of course, Owen included that threatening note with my invitation.”
The one she claimed to have found in the bunk but was certain was for her. Owen had tried to get justice.
“As soon as I learned you’d be here,” Margaux continued, “I saw an opportunity to fix things, as it were. I won’t let ghosts from my past haunt my future.
With everyone who might have known the truth attending the reunion, which I learned thanks to a little social media sleuthing and Christine’s penchant for oversharing including about people not online like you, I couldn’t resist my opportunity.
I could come back and eliminate every obstacle. ”
“Why?” Emma asked. “Liz cared about you.”
“All those years ago, Owen and I could have been something. I figured if your sister was out of the way, I’d have a chance. When I saw a moment to make my move, I took it. I overheard her and Owen make plans. I followed and then I ended the competition. Isn’t that what all successful people do?”
Ice slithered down Emma’s spine at the cruel, callous words.
Liz was collateral damage. She’d had such a big heart.
She’d truly cared for everyone, and taking Margaux under her wing had spelled her doom.
Emma’s grief resurfaced, clogging her throat and filling her eyes with unshed tears.
Everything she’d blocked out returned in a moment.
The laughter, the smiles, the hopes, the dreams flooded Emma’s system. Her sister was stolen in her prime.
“Stop blubbering. You’ve done okay, and so have I.
Of course, I had to make my way without him.
How was I to know he’d mourn her for the rest of life, wasting away to nothing.
I reinvented myself for the better. Everything has been perfect.
Until I received my invitation and the note.
I had my suspicions that he intended to get justice for her. I couldn’t let him take me down.”
“But we were your friends,” Emma murmured, uncurling her fingers and her toes.
“Were you really?” Margaux tapped a finger to her chin.
Emma accepted the solution with a hollow sense of relief. Her sister had been the first victim of a tortured soul. Emma would grieve and move on from the pain, if she got out alive.
First, she had to stall. Margaux radiated with a nervous, eager energy. She might never stop talking, if Emma started the conversation. “You came here with a plan.”
“Getting here was the real battle. I’m monitored and observed.
I’m like Mr. Rochester’s first wife in Jane Eyre.
My husband would gladly lock me in a soundproof attic.
But he can’t,” Margaux sneered. “He needs me, my money, and my standing. He can’t hide me away.
I came to show him that I’m not a liability but an asset in my own right.
I cleaned up my mess, and now I’ll get a little more freedom. ”
Her words sounded shaky and hesitant. Could the murderer be at risk somehow? Emma struggled to sort through the facts. “You shot Owen.”
“Yes, I was a little sloppy at the start. I stole the gun from a member of my husband’s security detail and then drove all the way here.”
Premeditation. The word would chill Emma’s bones in normal circumstances. She wasn’t sure she could react anymore.