Chapter 17
Seventeen
Emma faced the door, watching it close through the haze she couldn’t quite shake.
Her head ached, pain throbbing in her temples.
Shackles claimed her wrists, immobilizing her arms. Tension shot through her shoulders at the awkward position, every muscle screaming in agony. Behind her, she had support.
Warmth rolled off Daniel at the points where their skin met. His loud, even breath echoed in the shed. If she focused on the sound, she could inhale and exhale almost normally, preventing a crushing attack. Sorrow mixed with the physical aches. “Daniel, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I shouldn’t have let you out of my sight.”
“And then what?” A chortle slipped out. “How could you have prevented this? She’s got back up. This whole time, she’s been trying to take us out. And we hiked right into her trap. Willingly.”
“No, I don’t think that’s quite it,” he murmured.
What did the specifics matter? They’d reach the same end no matter the details. “I need to tell you that I was wrong. I was hurt and grieving, and I decided I had to leave everything and everyone behind. And that included you. Is there a world where we had a fair chance?”
“And if there was? What would we do?” he asked.
She smiled in spite of herself and their circumstances. He made her feel lighter and eased her burdens even in the worst of times. “Do you know that I’ve never gone to the drive-in theater?”
“The one down the highway? Seriously?” he asked, incredulous.
“Seriously. My parents were convinced it was only a place for teens to get into trouble.”
He chuckled. The low rumble reverberated through him to her, like a transfer of energy. “Well, I suppose there is some of that. But it caters to all ages. A lot of families.”
“I would love to go to there on a date. I’d pack a picnic for dinner. Cold fried chicken. Coleslaw. Biscuits.”
“Yum. Now I’m hungry as well as sore,” he said. “And I’m holding you to it.”
She wanted him to more than anything. Once again, he calmed her with distraction. Physical pain couldn’t be ignored for long. The room spun. Talking about food teased her stomach with the idea of tossing up everything inside right now.
She had nothing to hide anymore. She was hurt and full of regrets. “I’m sorry I never gave us a chance when I could. Now we have nothing but goodbye.”
“I understood. You were in pain.”
She still was.
“I won’t accept a farewell in these circumstances. We’ll escape. Have faith,” he whispered.
She breathed in through her nose, a loud, shaky inhalation. “How can we get out of here?” Her question came out breathy and desperate. “Margaux drugged me with the water. My head is spinning. I can barely sit upright without nausea hitting me in the stomach.”
“Margaux and Chad are not a happy couple. And they are definitely not on the same page. When they come back, just follow my lead, okay?”
She nodded.
“Okay?” he prodded.
“Yes. Sorry. Forgot you can’t see me.”
“It’s okay. I feel like I can. I know your expressions by heart. I didn’t forget a single grimace or grin.”
She sighed. “I really want us to get a chance.”
“We will.”
Her throat tightened, emotion bubbling up. She pushed it down. “Margaux seems scared of Chad, too. Maybe that can help us.” She hated even making the suggestion. Fighting to stay alive by employing terror warred with Emma’s sense of right and wrong.
The door opened, slamming against the wall.
Margaux, her husband, and the third man entered. The distance between husband and wife was marked.
“Margaux, let’s work this out,” Emma said slowly, employing her professional skills. She wasn’t following Daniel’s instructions. But she had a gut feeling about what she had to do.
Between the bindings and her headache, however, she struggled to remain grounded in reality.
The whole situation was almost too surreal for her brain to process and accept.
She wanted to detach like she had in the difficult days after losing Liz.
But she couldn’t. She had to stay. “You are hurting. You are a victim, too.”
Chad scoffed. “Yeah right. She’s a victim? How do you figure?”
“She was a child,” Emma said.
“She was a spoiled brat,” Chad countered. “As soon as she is unsupervised and left to her own devices, she is unleashed. Right, darling? Isn’t that what you told me? It’s not your fault. It’s out of your control. Always shifting the blame.”
“Liz was a tragedy,” Margaux said, putting more distance between herself and her husband. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t plan it. I went to scare her and get her to back down. Sure, I started to tighten the scarf around her neck, but she broke away, and I just pushed.”
Garrote. No wonder Margaux had known the word. She’d probably spent decades obsessing about her failed act of killing. Straining to recall the police report, Emma couldn’t recall any suspicion about strangulation.
“Owen wouldn’t let it go,” Margaux said. “He never accepted what happened was an accident. It was. I didn’t go with a pre-meditated plan. But I did try to comfort him. He pushed me away. Good riddance.”
Obsession drove her. She might not have intended to kill Liz, but Margaux had in the heat of the moment.
Emma struggled to make sense of the truth.
If Margaux accepted responsibility and truly sought forgiveness, He’d find a way.
As long as she pushed Him out of her life, however, she trapped herself in an expanding web of sins.
“Is that why you came back? To talk to Owen?” Daniel asked.
“He wouldn’t stop bugging me to visit,” Margaux said. “But I couldn’t. I wasn’t allowed.”
“And for good reason,” Chad interjected. “Look what happened when you did? You’ve created a huge mess. Your family’s money and standing can only do so much. Like trap me into a sham society marriage.”
“I did this for us,” Margaux shouted, her face red with rage and her neck muscles popping. “I had to make sure no one would ever know.”
Emma breathed in deep through her nose, expanding her lungs and willing herself to calm down. From first-hand experience, she knew to keep her emotions at bay while dealing with someone else’s. “What’s in the time capsule? What were you worried about?”
“Pictures,” Margaux said. “Disposable cameras. Developed photos. Preserved negatives. Anything might have been picked up. Jennifer and Christine were always snapping photos or stealing cameras to take those primitive selfies we all loved back then.”
“What did they capture?” Daniel asked.
Emma was glad to have his support. She stretched her pinky finger to rub against his hand.
“I couldn’t be sure if they’d caught me out of the bunk that night.
I’d worn the scarf a couple of times. It was a polka dot silk square that I tied in my hair.
Or maybe they had a picture of me arguing with Owen.
” Margaux threw back her head and cackled.
“Can you believe I had a crush on that loser?” She shuddered.
“I was so blinded by Liz. I wanted everything she had, including her stray. Then, after it happened, I went home and reinvented myself. Here I am. On top of the world.”
“Darling,” Chad drawled. “All you did was slip away undetected. You got lucky once. Now you’ve come back to wreak havoc and need my help cleaning up. But I have it all worked out now. I’ll take care of it.”
“Does that include her?” Daniel asked. “Margaux is the one you ultimately need to silence. She keeps complicating your life. You could make everything a lot simpler if you had the courage to do what you know you need to.”
Emma shuddered. She knew Daniel’s words were meant to play the spouses against each other, but the cool finality chilled her to the core.
“Enough,” Margaux shouted, raising a gun and spinning wildly.
Emma shut her eyes tight, blocking the twirling assassin from view. And prayed.
Daniel rolled them sideways. He kicked out, connecting with Margaux’s wrist.
“OUCH.” She cradled her wrist as the gun clattered to the ground. “That really hurt.”
Her indignant tone set his teeth on edge. Her pain was superior to what she had inflicted on others? His wrists burned like he’d plunged them into a fire from the movement against the tight bindings. He was lucky his rash action hadn’t caused the weapon to fire. Instinct spurred him to action.
“A gun? Are you kidding?” Chad screeched. “Do you even know the mess that will leave? We’ll be caught before we board the plane home. DNA everywhere.”
Philip bent and retrieved the weapon, sheathing it in the holster on his belt.
“How did you get away with it the first time?” Chad asked.
“Because it was an accident. Spur of the moment.” Margaux waved her arms and paced. “A rainy night. Most of the evidence washed away.”
“We’ll need fire to erase evidence this time.” Chad stroked his chin.
Philip neared and righted Daniel and Emma, meeting Daniel’s gaze.
He couldn’t puzzle out the look the bodyguard shot him. Would Philip help them? Why? To avoid an accessory to murder charge? Daniel prayed Agent Reynolds had made contact with Jennifer and Christine and the deputies. Please let someone be on the way.
“I followed her. It was raining. She told me to go. She called me…” Margaux sniffed.
“Maggot. Just like all those other girls. We’d been friends for years.
I thought it was genuine. I thought she cared about me.
But she threw it all away. She revealed the truth.
She wasn’t any better than the mean girls. ”
“What happened? Did you pull her down the hill? Twist her neck? Choke her? What did you do?” Chad asked.
Daniel didn’t know why the husband cared for details about something that didn’t impact him and happened so long ago. Unless he was wired. Perhaps he would he turn on his wife. Maybe Daniel wouldn’t be burned alive. He gulped.