Page 86 of Before This Ends (Before)

“Emma?”

“Yeah?” I smile.

“Do you miss your mom and dad?”

Oh shit.

My smile falls away and my nose starts to sting.

“Every day,” I whisper, afraid if I speak any louder, she’ll hear the tears I’m fighting.

“I miss my mom too.”

“Do you want to call her?” She talked to her earlier, but it was only for a few minutes, because Hazel was working on something.

“She’s probably busy.”

“Maybe, but I bet she’d be happy to talk to you for even a few minutes. Go get your iPad, then come back.” I pause the show, and she gets off the bed, runs to get her iPad from the kitchen, and brings it back with her. When she’s settled against me like she was before, she clicks on her FaceTime icon and presses her mom’s name.

“Hey, honey,” Hazel answers with a smile that falters when she sees me. My stomach bottoms out, but I ignore it. I don’t know how I would feel if I were in her shoes, and I’m not going to fault her for being in her feelings.

“Emma said I should call you.”

“She’s missing you,” I tell her softly, and Hazel rubs her lips together before moving her gaze back to Winter.

“I miss you too,” she says quietly—in an attempt to control her own emotions, I’m sure. She clears her throat. “What are you doing?”

“Just lying in bed. We’re going to watch a show.”

“Which one?”

“Troll Hunters.”

“You’ll have to tell me what happens in the episode, so when I see you and we watch it, I’m not lost.”

“Okay,” she agrees, sounding sleepy. “Love you, Mom.”

“I love you too. Call me tomorrow when you get home from school.”

“I will,” Winter says, and Hazel’s eyes move to me.

“Thank you, Emma.” Her voice is sincere.

“Any time,” I say quietly, before the screen goes black.

“Do you feel better?” I ask Winter, and she nods. “Good.” I kiss the top of her head, then snuggle down in the bed with her and press Play on the show.

I wake when Miles is lifting Winter’s tiny sleeping body away from mine, then, half asleep, I watch him kiss her cheek before he carries her out of the room. When he comes back, I feel his body curl around mine, his lips at the back of my head, and I swear I hear him whisper something that sounds a lot like “I love you” just before I slip back into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER31

miles

Opening the door to the auditorium where Anna and Grace spent long hours as part of the theater department, I look to the stage and watch a young girl wearing leggings and a baggie sweater sing at the top of her lungs. Her voice fit for a theater in Times Square, the other people on stage dance around her and sing to certain parts of the song.

Quietly, Martinez and I make our way down the red carpeted stairs toward the front of the auditorium and a few of the people practicing on stage falter in their steps when they recognize us. A woman with long silver hair and red framed glasses sitting in the front row looks back over her shoulder to see what has caught the kids’ attention and when she spots us, she gets up from her seat placing a clipboard down on the chair she just vacated.

Over the last few days Martinez and I have met with all of the girls’ professors and not one of them had anything significant to tell us about them. Really, they could hardly remember having any one-on-one contact with the girls at all. The only thing they could tell us is that they were both getting good grades, neither of them ever missed a class and they both always turned in their homework on time. So, our hope is that our meeting today with Mrs. Ashley Mayer, the girl’s theater professor, will give us a little more insight since the two of them spent the bulk of their time in this building with her.

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