Chapter 45 After
After
The door downstairs slams. Emily’s gaze flicks toward it. “That will be Melinda, I imagine,” she says.
Neither of us moves. Melinda appears in the other room, looking harried.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone? I need to—-” She stops when she sees me.
Her braid has come loose, ragged strands of hair hanging around a face that is puffy from crying.
Her eyes drop to the diary, and breath hisses between her teeth.
Her hand darts into the large purse at her side, and before I have time to react, she draws a small silver pistol.
“What the fuck is she doing with that?” Melinda asks.
The gun points straight at me, but she’s staring at Emily, who makes no move to intervene.
“ ‘He’s got another one already,’ ” I quote, feeling sick. I try not to look at the gun. My mouth is dry, but my voice steady “She knew. The whole time, she knew exactly what he was doing. She knew about every one of those girls. Did you?”
Melinda blanches. The gun trembles in her hand.
Her finger isn’t on the trigger, at least, lying alongside it instead.
“It started after I moved out,” she says.
“Do you think we would have just left her there if we had any idea . . . ? If we knew what it was doing to her? What he’d turned her into? ”
“It might not have been him that did it,” Emily says mildly. “Some people are just born wrong.”
Melinda shakes her head sharply. “I don’t believe that.”
Emily shifts her attention to me with a hum. “It was homecoming,” she says.
I nod. It’s all in there. The sweater, and walking home through the woods.
He was supposed to have the place to himself.
He wasn’t as careful as he should have been, and so he didn’t notice Emily coming home.
Didn’t notice her following him out to the old bomb shelter in the woods.
But when she came down the steps, he saw.
He wrapped his arms around her that night, tight enough to bruise her ribs, and wept against her neck because of what he was going to have to do to keep his secret. But she soothed him. Whispered against his ear that she loved him. That she would keep the secret, too.
She convinced him. And she kept her promise. Day after day, year after year, she said nothing. She watched him go out to the woods. Even helped him with small things, sometimes. Burning clothes. Getting extra food and supplies.
He trusted her so much that when she asked to leave for college, he eventually said yes.
And she kept his secret even then, miles away from his influence.
She never told a soul.
“Meghan knew, didn’t she?” I ask.
Melinda looks at Emily sharply. Emily only inclines her head. “Yes,” she says.
Melinda lets out a soft moan. “Oh god,” she says. The gun dips. Still pointing in my direction, but with less intent. I eye the distance to the door. No way to get past Melinda cleanly. “What did you do?”
Emily doesn’t answer right away, but regards Melinda with a cautious expression. “What did Liam tell you?” Emily asks.
Melinda’s breath hitches. “He didn’t tell me anything. Liam’s dead,” she says. I suck in a startled breath.
“I see,” Emily says carefully.
“Can’t you show even a moment of compassion?” Melinda demands, expression contorted with grief and anger. I flinch as the gun jerks with the movement of her hand.
Emily’s lip peels back in almost a snarl. “What do you want from me, Melinda? You want me to weep and beat my chest over a man who hasn’t looked me in the eye once in the last ten years?”
“None of this was Liam’s fault,” Melinda says raggedly. “We did this to him.” She presses the back of her free hand against her lips, holding in a sob. “He seemed—-I thought he was okay. Everything was going to work out, I told him I had it under control . . .”
“When Liam called me, he was talking about Meghan,” I say carefully, tracking the path of the gun’s muzzle. “He felt guilty about something he’d found out after he went to you about her.”
“I swear to you, I didn’t hurt Meghan Vale.” Emily’s words are measured, her gaze intent.
“But you have killed someone before,” I say softly.
Emily stares at me. There’s something in her eyes, almost eager. “Yes. I killed someone,” she says. There is a bitter twist to her lips, almost a smile. “Do you know her name, Audrey? The girl I killed?”
I match her gaze and nod. “Emily Hill.”